Motorola CLIQ Review – Android

by Lori Cunningham 

BestBuyMobile.com generously allowed me to borrow the new Motorola CLIQ phone to use during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) I attended in January.  The CLIQ is based on the 1.5 Android platform with a slick 3.1″ HGVA display.  It has a 5 mega pixel camera with 4x digital zoom. 

The Motorola CLIQ (available through T-Mobile) is the first device on the mobile phone market to launch with MOTOBLUR, a unique “life streaming” software Motorola created for the Android platform.  MOTOBLUR is pretty cool because after you input your e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. passwords into your online MOTOBLUR account, you start receiving messages from your various accounts right on the home screen of your phone.  You can also arrange to receive some of your favorite news sources on the home screen.  Walking around the trade show floor, I found this feature extremely helpful as I tweeted and texted with friends while we were trying to find each other during the CES show.  I also enjoyed the texting feature which shows your texts with each person as a chat stream so you can easily go to the beginning of the the text “chat” session to recount certain details.  These chat sessions stay with the phone number so you’ll have a collection of all texts you had with each person.   

Pictures

The CLIQ offers a 5 mega pixel camera and digital camcorder to help you capture those “got to have” moments when you don’t time to run and get your camera.  The camera picture quality is decent in good lighting.  There is no flash so the pictures you take at night are of poor quality.  One feature I liked was that with every picture you snap, your camera stores two pictures – a good quality one for printing and one small sized one for texting.   Below is a shot I took showing the quality of both sizes your camera provides: 

Google

Because the Motorola CLIQ is an Adroid phone and GPS enabled, it features Google Maps which helps locate where you are and where you are going.  There is no extra cost for GPS Navigation from T-Mobile.  If you need navigation directions, TeleNav is a program in the CLIQ which offers a 14 day trial.  The ongoing cost for TeleNav is $9.99/month through T-mobile.  Having the GPS and navigation on your phone is particularly great if you’re in another city or state and you’re trying to find your hotel, restaurant, or someone’s house.  It’s convenient — you already have your phone and you don’t need to cart around your portable GPS system too. 

Phone Locator

This is a great feature!  OK, how many of you are like me and have lost a couple of phones before – say at a restaurant?  the gym?  on vacation?  who knows where?  I was never able to recover mine and found that at least in one instance, someone was using my account to  make calls.  I called Disneyland to ask them how many phones are lost a day.  They said during the busiest times of year, they recover around 30-50 phones daily!  So, if you’ve lost your phone, you’re not alone!  If you lose your phone, just log into your account at www.motorola.com/mymotoblur and click the “Locate Device” button.  Your phone location will be shown in Google Maps.  Pretty cool, huh?  One big caveat though, Locate Device is accurate within 8,000 feet, so it’s not completely precise, but it will give you a general area where your phone is and likely trigger your mind where you left it (if no one stole it first). 

Here are my top pro’s and con’s for the Motorola CLIQ: 

 Pro’s 

• Google Maps are included
• Well-sized slide out keyboard
• Nice 3.1″ display with touch screen
• MOTOBLUR capability to see your Twitter, Facebook, and web e-mail combined on the home screen
• Story lining texting – texts to and from you appear in an easy to see stream so you can easily follow the conversation thread and who said what
• Web widgets available to customize your home screen such as weather, picture display, calendar, etc.
• Locate Device helps you find your phone if it’s missing
• Takes decent pictures

 Con’s: 

• The Android platform tends to run slow at times
• Most of my appointments on my Outlook calendar did not transfer over (a major problem for me)
• The touch screen didn’t always work well, sometimes I had to use a finger on the other hand to get the screen to respond
• The battery drains incredibly fast – due to the constant updating from Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc.  Motorola recommends you turn off Bluetooth, GPS, and WiFi when not in use to diminish rapid battery use.  Motorola released a software update to their software that promises to increase the battery life.  I installed the software and it helped the battery last almost through the day.  Previously, it barely made it halfway through the day.
• Pictures turn out poor in low lighting due to no flash

A Mom’s Perspective

I would rate the Motorola CLIQ a 8 out of 10 rating.  If you are a Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, or text messaging fanatic, this is a great phone to have to help you converge and keep track of messages coming from different sources.  The MOTOBLUR function is pretty impressive and extremely useful.  I hope to see MOTOBLUR on further Motorola phones.  The slide out keyboard is a good size and quite easy to type text messages on.  The major drawback is the CLIQ’s synchronization with Outlook – it did not show any of the 15+ appointments I needed to attend during CES.  I’ve been told that if I synchronize my Outlook data with Google online, all my appointments would show up.  However, I did not want to upload my private Outlook calendar data onto Google’s servers at this time. 

If you already own a Motorola CLIQ, please leave your comments about what you like or dislike about the phone.  Not a CLIQ user?  Tell us why you prefer your phone.  Well, gotta go, my phone’s ringing!