Follow-up: Motorola Cliq
Motorola Cliq
When Motorola announced the Cliq smartphone in September, I was pretty intrigued.
I wrote a column about how I thought the Cliq’s interface could represent “the next stage in the evolution of the smart-phone.” I think now that I might have overstated the case.
The Cliq was the first Motorola phone to run Google’s Android operating system. What I found interesting about it was that Motorola had built a custom interface on top of Android that it calls Motoblur.The home screen on most smartphones is derived from the PC world: you see either a kind of desktop with a collection of widgets and program icons, or something akin to an application folder that gives you a list of programs.
Motoblur is something different. Essentially the home screen on the Cliq is a collection of “live” widgets that tap into users’ social networks and messaging programs. One widget window shows you posts made by your contacts to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Another shows you the latest messages received in your universal in-box, including e-mail not only from your work, but also sent via the social networks. A third window allows you to post status updates to the various social networks without having to call up a Web brower or a separate program.
And Motoblur extends this social networking connection deep into the device. The Cliq’s address book synchronizes and combines data both from Microsoft Exchange servers and from your various social networks and gives you tabs to see the latest status updates from your contacts. Meanwhile, from the phone’s photo gallery, you can upload pictures directly to sites such as Picasa and Photobucket.
All of these are great ideas. And I think Motoblur still has a lot of potential. But the Cliq is not going to be the phone that will realize it.
The Cliq's slide-out keyboard
The main problem with the Cliq — at least in my testing — was that it was slow. There was a noticeable lag in switching between programs and accessing information on the social networks.
But that’s not the only problem. The Cliq comes with Android 1.5, on older iteration of the operating system. The latest version of Android, 2.1, has a number of improvements over 1.5, including a free turn-by-turn navigation program and the ability to backup applications and settings online. It’s unclear if or when T-Mobile, the only U.S. carrier that is selling the Cliq, will provide an updated version of Android to Cliq users.
And that points to another issue. The Cliq is only available on T-Mobile, which is one of the least popular carriers in the U.S. T-Mobile’s 3G high-speed network — which is needed for allowing Motoblur to tap into all the Web-based social networking data — is among the spottiest of the major carriers.
Then there’s the Cliq’s physical design. Some people like phones with physical keypads. I don’t. I actually find that I can type faster on a virtual one — and I don’t have to worry about rotating the device to slide out the keyboard.
But that’s a personal preference. The keypad on the Cliq is actually a decent one, as these things go, with rounded keys that are easy to distinguish from one another.
Regardless, having a physical keypad makes the phone much bulkier than it would otherwise be. That’s definitely true of the Cliq, which is about 35 percent thicker than the Nexus One, the svelte new Android device that Google is selling directly to consumers. But the Cliq isn’t just thicker, it just feels blocky in the hand.
Meanwhile, its screen is noticeably smaller than that of the iPhone, much less those of Motorola’s Droid or the Nexus One. That’s too bad, because the Motoblur widget windows would be much easier to read and interact with if they had more screen space with which to work.
Overall, I’d rate the Cliq around a 6 on a 10-point scale. Motoblur is a neat idea, but the Cliq itself could stand some work.
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They already mention the update for all android devices including the cliq, they don’t want to give a date but its coming
Nonsense. The Cliq compares favorably with other android or win mobile pda phones as far as speed and performance. I have had Sprint for 2 years and Verizon for many years before that. Tmobile has by far the best customer service and rate plans. As far as service both phone and internet tmobile wins hands down. I have had no dropped calls and nearly constant 3g service with tmobile. Sprint has horrible service half the time the phone won’t even ring. Verizon is much better than sprint but still you get dropped calls and they way over charge you constantly mess up bills. Verizon supports destroying net nutrality and sprint funnels big donatations to Republicons.
Tmobile doesn’t just have phony recordings claiming to put the customer first like verizon but it actually works hard to please the customer with constant efforts to improve the network and not rip the customer off.
Verizon is far better than sprint in all regards but has a long way to go to come up to tmobiles level. I am a tech, I can pay anything and pick any service and I choose tmobile over the rest.
Reading this article from my Motorola Cliq right now. I love this phone and can’t wait for the update to Android 2.1 which will make it complete for me.
I’ve found T Mobile to not only have the best prices, but also a solid voice and data service. Sprint service is horrible, we all know about AT&T data, and Verizon is actually comparable to TMobile but way more expensive. Now, the Motoblur interface is cool but it crashes a lot. Motorola said they would update the device to Android 2.1 soon. The physical keyboard is great, so much easier than the virtual keyboard on Android OS! The only thing this phone needs is that Android update and an stability patch for Motoblur.
Hmmm not a good review. The cliq is getting both an update to android 2.1 and an update from moto. Its way faster than the mytouch 3g, which I’m coming from. Of course the phone is bulkier than the nexus one…any phone with a physical keyboard will be. The screen is smaller than iphone, but that’s not terribly painful to use. Good camera etc. Its not in the same class as the nexus one. So that comparison is moot. Motoblur is okay. I feel so-so about it. It makes the contacts a bit frustrating to manage, since u can’t turn off your social networks from showing up in the contacts list. T-mobile has super fast 3g since they upgraded their towers, and their service is much cheaper than other carriers. Its not a perfect phone, but its far better than a lot of the other devices out there.
I have had an iphone, a mytouch 3g and currently have the cliq. I personally would say that the cliq is the best of the three overall. I love this thing and the upcoming 2.1 update is just the icing on the cake. Tmobile without doubt has the best rate plans and damn good data. The nexus one is sweet looking to be sure, but who can really afford to pay $530.00 if they are already on a rateplan?