Appnoodle

Motorola officially revealed their first Android powered phone recently, known as the Cliq in the States and Dext in the UK.

You could argue that as more and more Android phones are released each one becomes less significant. True enough, but there are a couple of things about the Cliq which make it particularly worthy of note.

First, there’s that actual, real, live, proper keyboard which, for those of us who care about such things, is a big deal. It’s the first Android phone since the original G1 to come so-equipped and let’s face it, the G1 looked dated when it was released, nevermind now. The Dext on the other hand looks good. +1 Motorola.

Keyboard ahoy!

Then there’s Motoblur, Motorola’s Android customisation/layer/whatever which was announced at the same time as the phone (but which will be available on future handsets too). Not the best name, maybe, but an interesting concept.

The idea behind Motoblur is to bring together live updates from all those disparate social networks that many of us belong to and seemlessly push them to the handset without having to log-in separately to each one. It actually looks really neat and its inclusion is the reason behind the ‘First phone with social skills’ strapline. Check out the videos here to get an idea of how it works. And there’s a live demo by Conor of Orange UK below.

Motorola Cliq (Dext) with Motoblur

Oh yeah, the other thing which catches the eye is the phone backup feature that’s part of the whole Motoblur deal. This service means that should you lose your phone you can retrieve all your contacts, preferences, etc, etc and apply them to your next phone. This will be great for those people that lose their phones most weeks – you know who you are.

It’s going to be fascinating to see how this phone fares in the market and whether it expands Android’s reach among the non-techy types.

Available on Orange in the UK from early October for free on certain tariffs.