Motorola already said that its new CLIQ XT Android phone would be available sometime this month when it let us get our hands on the phone last week, but it unfortunately didn’t get very specific about an actual date or a price. If this seemingly authentic slide obtained by TmoToday is any indication, however, it looks like the Blur-skinned handset will hit retail on March 17th (tomorrow), and run $99 on a two-year contract (or $199 for a year). That places it right in line with the current pricing of the original CLIQ, which would seem to be prime for a price drop if it’s sticking around.
We know you’ve barely recovered from our Devour review, but Moto just threw another Blur-ified phone in our laps this afternoon – the CLIQ XT. We’ve been playing around with the Android 1.5-based, Flash Lite-supported, multitouch-capable handset for the last couple of hours — but before we grace you with our first impressions, just a fair warning: we don’t yet know the price of the new T-Mobile Android handset, though Motorola did promise us that it will hit shelves this month. With that said, hit the break for a quick rundown of our early thoughts.
Want to know how to sell Motorola’s CLIQ XT for T-Mobile in 60 seconds? Look no further than this pamphlet that’s circulating now that the carrier is (well, probably is) just days away from release, where we learn all about its 3.1-inch display, touch controls, Flash Lite support (avert your eyes, CLIQ users), and pinch-and-zoom browser navigation, all paired up with a 5 megapixel camera and that love-it-or-hate-it Blur skin atop Android 1.5. Between that little pitch and the gallery down below, we figure it’ll take you about 60 seconds to finish flipping through the whole mess — so are you sold, or what?
Alright, we know there’s a big old watermark covering it up, but the HD2′s price when it makes its eagerly awaited US debut on T-Mobile has been identified as being $199 after rebate, presumably as part of a two-year commitment with the carrier. As usual with such screen grabs, we can’t be 100 percent sure, but that number seems to be in the right ballpark, and is joined by a $129 price for Motorola’s Cliq XT and a $69 sticker for Nokia’s Nuron handset. All three are expected to arrive at some point this month, though we urge caution with the HD2 — it’s still only a Windows Mobile 6.5 device, in spite of Microsoft’s equivocations about Windows Phone 7, and should be obtained solely on the basis of what you know. That is to say, you’d better really love HTC’s Sense UI and that 4.3-inch screen, because you’ll be buying into an OS with a very short remaining shelf life, no prospects of future app development, and no guarantees about upgrades.
Looks like the Motorola CLIQ XT / Quench is getting closer to its US debut — here it is all dressed up in T-Mobile branding. We’ve already done a full video hands-on with this bad boy, so we’ll just point you to that for the full rundown, and to the read link for a few more pics.
We had a quick tour today of Motorola’s new Quench — or CLIQ XT as it’ll be called on T-Mobile USA when it launches next month — and for an eighth outing in the Android world, it’s pretty slick. Sure it lacks keyboard, but the touchscreen is pretty responsive and now includes Swype input on the virtual keyboard — and we’ve found with a bit of practice and patience, Swype can be really fast. The soft touch plastic rear of the set can be removed to slip on over covers and shows off the 5 megapixel camera with auto focus and dual LED flash. Follow on for a quick video tour of the Blur-powered beast and some pics.
Motorola has just announced its eighth Android phone at MWC, dubbed the CLIQ XT or Quench outside the US (and previously known as the Zeppelin). Highlights include a 3.1-inch touchscreen with a mysterious “high-resolution” (last time we heard, it was 480 x 320), “pinch and zoom” touch capabilities, 5 megapixel camera (with autofocus and LED flash), a navigation touchpad and a dual-mic noise cancellation system. The rest of the features are pretty bog-standard: stereo Bluetooth, AGPS, FM radio, Motoblur and Adobe Flash Lite. Unlike the CLIQ there’s no physical keyboard here, but if that’s how you roll then look out for T-Mobile USA’s launch and pricing for this phone next month. The rest of us shall quench our thirst with something else for the time being.
The ironclad legitimacy of this slide can’t be confirmed, but considering what we know and what we’ve heard about T-Mobile USA’s plans for the next few months, we can totally buy what we’re seeing here. The PowerPoint masterpiece — which showed up on a PPCGeeks forum thread recently — has the midrange Android-powered Motorola Zeppelin as the “CLIQ XT” with a target launch of March 10, giving customers already flush with choices yet another way to get their Google on. Next, the Nokia “Nuron” (which looks an awful lot like a 5230 to us) is being billed as a “low-cost touchscreen” with 3G and Ovi Store access for a March 17 date with destiny, and finally, the mighty HD2 — which we already know is coming to T-Mobile — is said to be ready come March 24. Now, don’t get us wrong, the HD2 is a helluva phone — but if Windows Mobile 7 is really unveiled in a few days at MWC like everyone expects, that’s going to make the launch of a high-end 6.5 device just a little anticlimactic.
