The Motorola CLIQ is hailed as Motorola (NYSE: MOT)’s first stab at reclaiming some of their lost mobile phone market share, and it just might be able to live up to expectations. Motorola and T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) announced the CLIQ a little over a month ago, showing off the Android phone’s innovative MOTOBLUR interface and its ability to magically update its homescreen widgets with information from your social networks and news feeds. Today, T-Mobile has gone all official with the Motorola CLIQ in the US. No more pre-order, folks – the CLIQ is live!
T-Mobile’s CLIQ has the distinction of being Motorola’s first comeback handset as well as the company’s first Android phone to hit market. The CLIQ is decidedly more curvy than its evil brother, the Motorola DROID, but it packs a cutesy-punch. The CLIQ sports a 3.1-inch capacitive touchscreen, 5-megapixel camera, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, GPS, WiFi, 3G data, 3.5mm headphone jack and microSD card slot. But, the CLIQ’s highlight feature is its MOTOBLUR UI. Motorola created its custom MOTOBLUR Android UI to work with special MOTOBLUR servers to constantly monitor your social networks and news feeds. When something new happens or someone posts an interesting (sometimes not so interesting) tidbit to their profile, MOTOBLUR pushes that information to one of your homescreen widgets. Social butterflies, take note, MOTOBLUR will help you stay connected!
And, to help celebrate the Motorola CLIQ’s launch, Motorola and T-Mobile have announced a contest for college students. The college to sign-up the most Facebook fans to T-Mobile’s fan page will win a free campus concert by Weezer, and up to $25,000 for their school. Even better, you don’t even have to buy a CLIQ to enter the contest! Find out more here.
Fans of Motorola’s curvy Android phone can walk into any T-Mobile USA retail store or go online to nab their very own Motorola CLIQ for $199.99 with new 2-year contract and mail-in rebate. The CLIQ comes in your choice of White or Titanium color schemes.
Some snooping around Motorola (NYSE: MOT)’s internal product page for the recently-unveiled droid has revealed hints of a tablet version (alongside the vanilla UMTS model) coming to T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) as the Sholes. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen some name-shuffling with the droid, and considering Verizon (NYSE: VZ) has an iron grip on the “droid Does” campaign, it makes sense T-Mobile would want to stay differentiated (or Moto might just be sticking with the original codename). Besides that, we don’t know if or for how long VZ has exclusivity of this hot handset and its apparently upcoming tablet brother, but based on earlier rumours, we could be seeing the tablet as early as Q1 2010, and the regular Sholes before the new year.
When considering your next smartphone acquisition, it sometimes makes sense to take into account the “total cost of ownership” (TCO) associated with your hardware. One phone may cost less at the checkout counter, but may end up costing you more through monthly rate plans and data services. The difference can sometimes add up to a decent chunk of change over the course of a couple years. What about Motorola Droid from Verizon Wireless, and how does it measure up against the iPhone 3GS? According to the cost comparison gurus at BillShrink.com, Verizon (NYSE: VZ)’s Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Droid costs about the same as the iPhone 3GS.
As you can see in BillShrink.com’s handy-dandy comparison chart, the Droid goes round-for-round with the iPhone 3GS. Both phones boast almost identical feature sets (although iPhone multi-tasking is sadly missing), identical pricing structures and average rate plan costs. Taking all that into account, both the iPhone 3GS and Motorola Droid will end up costing the average customer $2,830 over the course of a 24-month contract.
It’s clear that Motorola has the Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) iPhone 3GS squarely in its sights. The Droid isn’t just going up against the iPhone 3GS with high-end features, it’s taking the fight to the TCO battlefield. The Droid has higher-end hardware (better display and camera), but the iPhone 3GS has the iPhone AppStore. Which will you choose?
Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Droid fever has hit the team at IntoMobile, and our readers, ridiculously hard. We’re all enamored with the Motorola Droid for different reasons; some like the new Navigation application, some like the fact that it is running a more mature looking Android 2.0, the hard core among us know that it is the first ARM Cortex A8 powered Android device, but whatever reason you have for liking the Droid, we can all admit that it’s the first time in a long time anyone has actually paid attention to Motorola.
Late last night Will discovered that the name of the GSM Motorola Droid is “Milestone”. A bit too long, a bit too much ego, but it suits the device just right. I first spotted Milestone last Wednesday in Vietnam, and another video has hit the net this morning, courtesy of @eldarmurtazin from Mobile-Review, showing the Milestone one more time:
The Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Droid is all the rage right now. It’s chock full of Android 2.0 goodies like Google Maps Navigation and enough smartphone hardware to satisfy even the hardest core of mobile enthusiasts – all wrapped in a slim, yet masculine, package. But, Motorola is going to have to look beyond Verizon (NYSE: VZ)’s CDMA network to go truly global. In fact, Motorola’s already got O2 (NYSE: TEF) Germany in its sights. Yup, O2 will soon launch the GSM version of the Motorola Droid/Sholes as the Motorola MILESTONE.
O2 lists the price [PDF link] of the MILESTONE at €404.20 ($595), but that number should get a nice little price-chop after some carrier subsidies. The O2 website shows the Motorola MILESTONE looking every bit the GSM Droid we expected it to be, which is a good sign that German’s won’t have to wait too long before picking up their MILESTONE.
We’ve already seen the GSM Droid pass through the FCC and pop up in Vietnam, so it’s not surprising to see it going official in Europe. The only question is, when will Motorola release a US-spec GSM Droid?
Yep the hype machine is in full swing with Droid – everyone is talking about it, and I’d bet an increasing number of people are wanting it!
Well Moto have pinged me an email to say that Developers should be excited by Droid too, and Moto are there to help them – they are suggesting in fact to get your App ready for Droid! How? Well, hit up the link below and start your eyeballs off with a page of specs…
Motorola (NYSE: MOT) surprise Q3 profit report isn’t alone today. Samsung has reported a profitable Q3 2009, with the electronics giant’s mobile phone division shipping 60.2 million mobile phones in the latest quarter, a 16% increase from the same period last year. That’s a new record for Samsung. And, thanks to higher demand for touchscreen handsets, Samsung reported a Q3 profit of $875 billion, a 23% year-on-year improvement.
Samsung claims 20.8% of the global mobile phone market, following only behind Finnish handset giant Nokia (NYSE: NOK). Those kinds of global sales figures haven’t been seen outside of Nokia since Motorola went to town with their RAZR in 2006. The push towards touchscreen handsets has clearly been working to Samsung’s advantage.
Samsung is also looking forward to a stronger Q4 fueled by consumers shopping for holiday gifts and emerging markets ready to adopt mobile technology. Still, competition from low- to mid-rand handsets from other manufacturers might be an issue for Samsung.
The Motorola Droid is as hot as it gets in the smartphone space right now. It’s the first Android phone for Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless and it’s the first (that we’ve played with) to sport the newly announced Android 2.0 OS. It’s not just the slim-and-trim Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Droid’s impressive 3.7-inch touchscreen, 5-megapixel camera with dual-LED flash and slide-out QWERTY keyboard that make it a force to be reckoned with – the Android 2.0 OS blesses the Droid with integrated turn-by-turn GPS navigation with voice guidance and street view through the new Google Maps Navigation application.
Unfortunately, the closest you’ll be able to get to a Motorola Droid at this point is Best Buy’s pre-order. Us? Well, we’ve had the pleasure of playing with the Droid for a few days now. The Droid’s massive display is as good as it gets. The vanilla Android UI responds without any lag. Despite the huge display and full keyboard, the Droid is as comfortable in the hand and pocket as the similarly-sized iPhone 3G/3GS. And, with a respectable 5-megapixel camera and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Maps Navigation adding icing to an already impressive handset, we have to say the Droid is living up to the hype.
So, how does it fare as a competitor to the HTC Hero and a possible candidate to unseat the iPhone as the de facto leader in the smartphone space? Check out our unboxing/hands-on video to see for yourself!
Here’s a quick rundown of the Motorola Droid’s spec sheet:
3.7-inch capacitive touchscreen at WVGA (854 x 480) resolution
Full HTML5 browser that supports Flash and will be upgradeable to Flash 10 once it becomes available
5 megapixel camera with dual LED flash; video capture at 720 x 480 resultion, 24 frames per second
File this under “rumors” but it seems Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless will be opening its stores at 6AM sharp on November 6th. According to always highly informed Boy Genius, the idea is to better serve customers looking for some DROID love. At the same time, this is obviously a PR stunt, which will certainly get some media attention (check us out).
And as you know, it’s not just the Moto Droid that will start selling on November 6th – it’s also the all-touchscreen HTC Droid Eris that also gets its power from the Android platform. Those of you who hate waiting in the queue, don’t forget you can pre-order the Droid from BestBuy.
Motorola beat analyst expectations with their third quarter financial results today. Overall sales for the quarter reached $5.5 billion, translating to $616 million in positive cash flow and$0.01 per share. Their mobile devices division specifically shipped 13.6 million units (4.7% market share, down from 25.4 million last year), and reduced operating loss to $183 million, versus a loss of $840 million in Q3 ‘08. Motorola (NYSE: MOT)’s first quarter this year cast quite a shadow on their 2009, but between these relatively bright results, the burgeoning cliq and the promising droid devices, Q4 is looking pretty good. Here are some quick analyst reactions to the report:
“In the third quarter the upside is primarily driven by their enterprise business and continued cost rationalization in the mobile devices business.” – Matthew Thornton, Avian Securities
“They have been very effective in cost cutting and the Droid really is the best device Motorola has come up with since 2005.” – Tero Kuittinen, MKM Partners LP
“Motorola will get a waiver from investors as long as it shows directional improvements in its financial model.” – Mark Sue, RBC Capital
For more financial news and keeping an eye on wireless stock, take a gander at our Finance section.
Motorola (
Motorola beat analyst expectations with their third quarter financial results today. Overall sales for the quarter reached $5.5 billion, translating to $616 million in positive cash flow and$0.01 per share. Their mobile devices division specifically shipped 13.6 million units (4.7% market share, down from 25.4 million last year), and reduced operating loss to $183 million, versus a loss of $840 million in Q3 ‘08. Motorola (
