The Motorola Atrix 4G and Motorola XOOM tablet might be taking center stage, but you shouldn’t forget about the Motorola CLIQ 2 either.

As you may have heard, this is the official follow-up to the original CLIQ and it’ll be heading in the same magenta-hued direction of T-Mobile on January 19th. I went hands-on with the device and it’s pretty much what you would expect with a 3.7-inch display, Android 2.2 Froyo, and the MOTOBLUR custom UI.

No, it’s not the slimmest phone in the world, but I really thought they took an interesting approach with the slide-out keyboard. It’s almost in a honeycomb-like layout (though, since it’s not a tablet, it’s not running on Android Honeycomb), with soft bouncy keys. Each key is slightly domed, giving you a better feel for where you are. It was remarkably comfortable to use, but I almost wish the keys had a little more “clack” to them. That’s just a personal preference.

The hardware doesn’t feel particularly high-end, but you have to realize that the CLIQ 2 is supposed to be more of a mid-tier device. It has good weight and responsive touch controls, but I still think I’d opt for the T-Mobile G2 (Desire Z) if I was going for Android on T-Mo. Or, you know, just go 4G.

The post Gettin’ up close with Motorola’s CLIQ 2 at CES appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Not wanting to be over shadowed by the news that Motorola CLIQ will be running Android 2.1 next month, HTC has announced that their Hero phone will also be getting the Android OS.  And although there were previous rumors that the HTC Hero will be getting Android 2.1 it was always just speculation.

Now with the official announcement that ‘Android 2.1 will be coming to HTC Hero in mid-March’, we will expect some sort of showing at next weeks Mobile World Congress 2010.

Additional features that will be included with this update, such as Friend Stream, which helps you monitor your Facebook & Twitter accounts, the same Sense UI and improved Microsoft Exchange support.  An update for the phone itself is that there is said to be a slightly quicker Qualcomm MSM 7227 600MHz processor in the new HTC Hero that will make video capture and graphics perform faster.

The post HTC Legend spotted; Hero 2.1 update next month appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Plenty of release dates have been leaked on T-Mobile USA about new products that are set to be released over the next few months of 2010.   The release that is expected on March 10th is the Motorola Cliq XT, which previous reports have referred to as the Zeppelin.  This model will be an affordable 1.5 Android OS based smartphone featuring MotoBlur’s suite of social networking software.  The touchscreen has a 3.2-inch HVGA (320×240 pixels).

The following week, on the 17th, they are set to bring us the Nokia Nuron.  According to rumors the Nuron will be a Symbian S60 5th Edition version of the Nokia 5230.  Nuron users will get access to Nokia’s Ovi suite of online services, Nokia’s standard suite of productivity applications and its focus will be entertainment.  As with the Motorola Cliq XT the Nuron will also be a tablet style, with a 3.2-inch, 640×360 pixel touchscreen and slide-out keyboard.

Then finally on the 24th we get our hands on the much anticipated HTC HD2 Windows Mobile Entertainment Device.  According to the document; all the info that we already know about T-Mobiles HTC HD2 are true. There is a 1GHz processor, a 16 GB microSD memory card, a 4.3” WVGA display with multi-touch support, a 5MPx camera and will be running Windows Mobile 6.5.

All three support the T-Mobile 3G mobile broadband network, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi (the Nuron doesn’t have Wi-Fi).  Unfortunately no pricetag’s were mentioned for any of the devices.

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