By You don’t exactly have to hold on to your high-end hats, but maybe you should be blown away by Motorola’s pre-CTIA announcement of 7 Android Phones and 3 Blue Tooth Accessories. You won’t be blown away because these are all spec smashing phones that YOU would want, but they’re phones that teenagers, women, and first time smartphone users will want… and these are the new adopters of Android that will take the tech to new limits.
Just around the corner from Moscone Center in San Francisco, Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha stepped on stage to announce 7 Android Phones:
Motorola Bravo: called “small but mighty” yet has a 3.7-inch WVGA touch screen, 3MP camera, 3.5mm headset jack, Android 2.1, and will be available on AT&T later this year.
Motorola Citrus: Android 2.1, 3-inch QVGA screen, 3MP camera, 3.5mm headset jack, compact form, and headed to Verizon Wireless later this year.
Motorola Droid Pro: This will please the eager BlackBerry-to-Android converts as the Droid Pro features a vertical QWERTY keyboard, World Roaming Capabilities, 3.1-inch screen, increased security measures as well as advanced E-Mail and Calendar options running atop Android 2.1. Available on Verizon Wireless later this year.
Motorola Defy: Dubbed as the Life Proof device, it can sustain water, drops, roughness, tumbles and other turbulence. This device is headed to T-Mobile later this year and could get a LOT of attention. People are used to having dumb phones they can use and abuse a bit but that doesn’t tend to be the case with smartphones. This will greatly appeal to the simple cell phone user who wants a smart and compact upgrade, but doesn’t want to worry about babysitting their phone.
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Motorola Flipout: Sure to please the teens, the Motorola Flipout has a roundabout swerving QWERTY mechanism that gives it an original flavor. As does it’s rear batter cover which comes with 2 interchangeable colors and more available for purchase. The raised keys feel great and the Flipout also has Android 2.1, 2.8-inch display, 3.5mm headset jack, FM radio, 3MP camera and more. Available on Verizon Wireless later this year.
Motorola Flipside: your typical side slider with CLIQ-like keyboard buttons, Android 2.1, 3.1-inch screen, 3MP camera, 3.5mm headset jack, FM Radio and more. It won’t blow you away, but it’ll get the job done… and at an affordable price. Available on AT&T later this year.
Motorola Spice: time to heat up to the Latin America loveliness of the Spice which runs Android 2.1 on a 3-inch QVGA screen, has a 3MP camera, 3.5mm headset jack, and is a simple and compact Android powerhouse.
Three of these were announced today, some have already been announced and rumored, but what we’re really looking at here is Motorola segmenting their audience and going after the meaty parts of potential Android adopters where they can move the most volume.
While YOU might not like it, this is a fantastic strategy and one I believe will pay off for Motorola and Android as a whole. The more the merrier! I’ll be following up with an editorial on this later.
Stay tuned for hands on videos with the different devices! Oh, and let us know what you think about the devices below – both in terms of your own liking and the strategy in general. Remember… YOU aren’t ALWAYS the target consumer.
PS: for those curious, the three bluetooth accessories were the Motorola Command One, Motorola Finiti and Motorola Roadster, geared at loud area use, all-around use, and in-vehicle use respectively. More on them later.
So much crap in so many different packages. Android 2.1 on new phones? What a joke.
I predict this strategy will continue to work as well as it did on CLIQ/Backflip/Devour. Motorola should stop wasting their time on a million different form factors, and start focusing on delivering killer devices globally, with support to match.
All that is crap except droid pro. motoblur needs to die.
Glad Sprint don’t have to deal with ugly moto phones.
That’s a nice selection of phones! There’s one for almost everybody.
these might be cool for android rookies if they didnt have blur. whats wrong with stock andrdoid anyway? i think 2.2 stock android is very visually appealing
The Defy looks amazing except… NO FRONT FACING CAM! arrg.
Why does Motorola hate them? I don’t get it. I guess I’m still waiting for something on T-mobile that is awesome and has all the features I want before ridding of my G1.
Haven’t seen anything from Motorola to prove that they can put out decent products. My wife had the Razor way back when with Verizon. They sucked then and continue to suck!
Not to trying to rain on anyone’s parade, but I take issue with the notion that women are only interested in cheap smartphones. Do men tend to be more interested in cutting-edge hardware? Most probably. However, that isn’t always the case. The only person I’ve seen at my school with an HTC Evo happens to be a woman. Let’s not fall into the trap of defining certain things as “women’s things” based merely on what the stereotypes would suggest. :)
@ tekkitan – I highly recommend the Vibrant to any T-Mo user, and here’s why:
1-Cyanogenmod is coming. Vibrant will be supported, and 2.2 goodness will come to it VERY SOON.
2-They have created a pretty easy way to get the FFC onboasrd, and it looks factory. Once Cyan is onboard, I’ll be going through the motions, which will probably take less than an hour, and have a very low risk factor.
3-SUPER FAST already, even on simple 2.1. Why? HUMMINGBIRD! 1 Ghz with a GPU that’s better than the iPhone 4!
4-Lots of storage. Can you say 16GB on board? Need I go on?
5-Beautiful display. I’ve seen the Retina Display in action. Compared to the Vibrant, when running video and games, Vibrant all the way. The Super Amoled is so much better, it overcomes the pixel count. Granted, Web viewing was a little sharper with Retina, but was truly barely noticable unless I got 6 inches from the display.
6-Video Out. Pick your poison: RCA or HDMI. It can do both.
7-Swype. It overcomes the lack of a keyboard.
8-Size. 4″ screen in the thinnest smartphone body out there. That’s two sizes I can appreciate.
9-Price. Buy One, Get One!
10-Camera Quality. Gorgeous photos that beat my Point and Shoot, and a Camcorder that does Hi-Def (And does it well!) EVERYONE I show the camera to comes away VERY impressed.
The only down side is the lack of a flash, but even that hasn’t hurt me yet.
Hope this helped!
Let me just say this, Motoblur needs to die, I agree.
I bought the Droid X and the HTC Aria the I bought for my son is awesome, but the Droid X UI sucks, is not even fun to play with. Enough said.
Can we please just make Motoblur go away?
Droid Pro, siiiiiick! Perfection, form factor is spot on, exactly the right screen to kyb ratio. Looks like it’s getting 2.2 and a scaled down version of blur according to press release and it’s coming out in a few weeks. 320 x 480 screen res like iphone 3g, this is it! Saweet, I only had to wait 2 years for this!
@U Know: I have a Droid and it’s the best phone I’ve ever used. It holds it’s own against newer Androids and I still undoubtedly prefer it to the iPhone. While most of this is due to Android, the phone is still fantastic and is well above decent.
I’m surprised so many people dislike motorola. I very much enjoy their style of devices (especially compared to HTC), albeit their software is garbage – but that’s what rooting/custom roms/theming is for.
The Droid X, my first and current Android device is beautiful. I love the hard edges and the rubberized metal compared to the plastic rounded devices most companies throw out. Of course, I do agree that they should focus on maybe 3 phones tops, the qwerty slider (Droid 2/Pro), the multimedia powerhouse (Droid X), and a tablet (4th would be a lower end device, but honestly, meh).
What is the comment about women and teenagers wanting simpler phones? I really hate hearing that kind of nonsense from a website I read on a daily basis. I have a Samsung Fascinate and my daughter has a HTC Incredible.
Which phones provide voice recognition to text (allowing voice input to create text messages; no keyboard usage required)?
Ummm…I thought that MotoFlipout is for AT&T…not Verizon. TYPO!!!! Get them right people.
Would it have been too much to ask for a simple one-line teaser about the Stingray tablet? Seriously.
They just announced yesterday three new phones in Brazil: Milestone 2, Defy and Spice
The problem is: they will not upgrade the old ones… maybe they couldn’t realize yet but the impact for this decision was too strong.
Nobody (except some new customers) will buy new phones until they upgrade the old ones.
I really loved Defy but I honestly would like to enjoy a bit more my Quench (Cliq XT)….
@Kevin: Thanks. I have looked at the Vibrant and I am not sure I like it. Most of all I don’t like the style of it. For some reason they decided to make the design so much different between the carriers that I like the style of the AT&T Captivate way more than the rest. I know looks aren’t everything, but if I’m going to drop hundreds on a new phone (since I am in-eligible for an upgrade yet) I want it to look like something that appeals to me.
I also understand they wanted them to look different so people could differentiate the phones between the carriers. I guess I am just trying to say I don’t like how the Vibrant looks :)
I think this strategy very clearly shows Motorola IS primarily focusing on their top of the line devices, the DX and the D2.
These are all going to be there for people that find those 2 form factors lacking something important. The droid pro was the most obvious, and all these other ones will suit people that really care about the style of the device rather than its maximum capabilities.
Hopefully they don’t make half of these devices bogged down piece of junk. That would be a real shame as I hate to imagine a 14 year old with one of these just wishing it was worth using.
Way to go motorola. I don’t see these being smash hit phones (droid pro will be really appealing to a lot of people though) but they will get android OS in more hands. Google must be pleased.
I take exception to the notion that women are attracted only to cheap or low end Android devices and smartphones in general. I’ve always been an early adopter of technology, and pretty much none of these devices are interesting to me. I went from the Droid to the Droid X, which I am currently using and love. I also think it’s completely ridiculous to release new phones with outdated software. It’s the equivalent of selling a new PC today that is running Windows XP. If Froyo doesn’t work well with Motoblur, then guess what? It’s time to ditch Motoblur.
To end on a positive spin, I’m at least glad to see such an extensive selection of phones (sub-par as they are) being released. At the very least, they will expand Android’s market presence and keep it in the forefront of consumers’ minds when they are shopping for new phones.
i thought the flipout is going to AT&T and not Verizon
I’m surprised the devices are coming with Android 2.1.
No Android 2.2… What about LTE, Android2.2, World Edition, Full Querty, 8 MP camera, 720 video?
Yawn…
I feel like the Droid pro is what the Nexus One Pro was supposed to be. They did say they were aiming towards business users with a hardware keyboard. Really disappointing the Nexus line wasn’t continued :(
Christy, three new qwerty android phones and none of them have the decent, well established, familiar-to-you-from-your-desktop layout, instead replaced with the crappy cheap square grid layout.
I think I’ll buy an iPhone with a bluetooth keyboard attachment.
Not impressed with Droid Pro cuz as of right now with mostly all Droid phones already having froyo and this is coming with 2.1 also by checking of the specs I’m assuming this won’t get Gingerbread by the time that comes out cuz of it not meating the minimum requirement of 3.7 inch screen.
What about the dual core tegra 2 phone we were supposed to see out before the holiholidays?
@Dave – yeah, first thing I said to myself was…later this year with 2.1?
Motorola don’t give a damn bout AT&T keep getting all the shitty Android crap from Moto which is I’m glad now to be a proud owner of the X10 even though the X10 don’t have 2.1 or 2.2 yet. But anyway I’m happy I have a 1GHZ Processor not a cheap hardware.
You felt the need to mention women as people who want the crappier phones? Really? Come on. The women I know – including me, thanks – have a higher-end phone tech level, on balance. The men I know either have the most top-end thing they can find (2-3 people)… or can’t be bothered to go past their free clamshell or Tracphone (everyone else). All of the women my age at LEAST have a featurephone. At LEAST. Even my mom has a Pantech slider messaging phone vs. my dad’s free clamshell.
“…teenagers, women, and first time smartphone users…”
How enlightened of you to conflate half the world’s adult population with materialistic children and the technologically uninitiated.
Bad form, Rob. If you’re not a sexist, you could have fooled me.
What is motorola up to? The put “ninjablur” on droid phones, but everything else gets regular motoblur? And also, if they can’t seem to keep their current crop of motoblur phones updated past 1.6 how do they expect to keep up with bugs and updates of half a dozen new phones.
I doubt they will support most of these phones out the door.
LOL @ Sprint getting nothing.
Well I wont say this is all TRASH or JUNK but it’s definently aimed at the mid-rangers and not the super-phoners. These all but maybe two of these phones should cost $0 – $99 on and $279 – $349 off.
Anyway I’m with Kevin about the Vibrant. Bangin phone.
Let me guess, 7 versions of crappy Moto products? Motorola needs to step up their game, putting products out that look like this will bankrupt them by next year. I’m holding out for the Droid King Kong, anyone else holding out for the next variation of the Droid? HTC FTW!
i really hope sprint gets one of these phones. there is nothing wrong with the EVO or the EPIC, i’d just like to see some more variety.
While I think it’s great that Motorola is making Android more accessible, I have to agree with some other commenters that it’s not cool to say women want lower end phones. When you say “You won’t be blown away because these are all spec smashing phones that YOU would want, but they’re phones that teenagers, women, and first time smartphone users will want…” you’re saying that 1.) Women don’t want high end phones, and 2.) that I’m not a woman. Both of these are totally NOT true.
Was looking foward to the droid pro, but not anymore… I have always hated the vertical qwerty keyboards and would much rather stick with my original droid until someone else makes an international android phone for verizon
Motorola sucks! Once you get one of their phones with 2.1 you will never get froyo!
Motorola has proven that they don’t
Support their phones!
I don’t get it. The Flipout has been on sale in Italy for like a month. I can go buy one right now if I so choose. Weird.
Anyway, Motorola remain consistent with the way they have always been, just falling shy of being impressive.
@ Pete
Don’t worry Pete..Sprint will come out with
More phones..the evo is simply the best
There is and they don’t need to fill their stores with shitty phones that look like they came out of cereal boxes! Sprint is going to
Stock mostly great phones!
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It’s a shame that these phone will be released with Android 2.1 when Gingerbread is right around the corner. I love Android, but I hate custom UI’s – I am a very frustrated Cliq user and cant wait for my contract to end in a couple of months. I refuse to buy ANY Android phone in the future (regardless of manufacturer) unless it runs vanilla Android. I really hope Google will somehow put an end to custom UIs while still upholding open-source spirit. Motorola can keep these phones “with Motoblur” for unsuspecting, casual users.
Really? I thought Motorola said that they were planning to stop making phones with motoblur. It is by far the worst custom android UI on the market. The Droid pro is cool because it adds more variety and can get your everyday business man on the Android train. Motorola should make more phones with vanilla android like the original Droid, which in my opinion is the best phone Motorola has ever made because 1, Its a great phone with vanilla android 2.2, and 2, it practically introduced Android to the world.
There’s nothing wrong with teens and the ‘technologically uninitiated,’ either. Many of them are smarter than the authors of most of these posts.
So… teenagers and women aren’t into technology and wouldn’t know a high-end phone if it bit them on the ass? In what universe are generalizations like that okay?! I happen to be a woman who not only reads Phandroid on a daily basis, but also recently got hired as a sales associate having NO sales experience, just plenty of product knowledge. In other words, I know shit about shit and my being a woman has nothing to do with it. Similarly, a teenager can be tech savvy and it is not despite their age. Age and sex have no place in this discussion. Can we all just be smartphone lovers?
@Ray McBain:
I read about a new voice to text app that will work on all phones running 2.2 or newer. What is different about this one is that you can activate it without touching the phone AT ALL and can even be initiated when the phone is ‘dark’:
AdelaVoice’s free Android app, called StartTalking, is voice-controlled and allows users to text while driving without using their hands.
@Ray McBain:
I read about a new voice to text app that will work on all phones running 2.2 or newer. What is different about this one is that you can activate it without touching the phone AT ALL and can even be initiated when the phone is ‘dark’:
AdelaVoice’s free Android app, called StartTalking, is voice-controlled and allows users to text while driving without using their hands.
@Ray McBain
There’s a voice to text app that will allow you to use it without touching the phone AT ALL and can be used with the phone being in ‘dark’ mode:
“AdelaVoice’s free Android app, called StartTalking, is voice-controlled and allows users to text while driving without using their hands.”
Sigh, no Tegra2 android killer phone yet.
Decided to skip the desire HD (& WP7) for the Christmas dual core Motorola device that keeps being promised.
@ Maggie, Ballistic Misanthrope, & Angela
I doubt very much that Rob came up with the terms. I’d be very surprised if the phones aren’t being MARKETED towards these groups. Just like Twilight was marketed towards teenage girls and Pro Wrestling is marketed towards teenage boys. Doesn’t mean that other groups won’t like them, but they are reaching for a specific DEMOGRAPHIC.
And I can absolutely guarantee that any device, when being created, has a focus group and a projected demographic. Any company that doesn’t do those two things is bound for disaster.
So, Rob, how much will you give me for coming to your rescue? I’ll take the Glacier when it’s out…. ;-)
There’s nothing wrong with reaching for a specific demographic, Kevin, but that’s not how the article was worded. What Rob should have said is that Motorola is marketing these phones towards women and teens. What he did say came across like, “These are phones that women and teens will like, but you won’t because YOU are tech savvy and you’re not a woman.” See the difference?
Seven new phones same shit company.
My hope for Motorola – let’s hope with SO many phones, people won’t get confused. “A confused mind always says no.” When I walked into my Verizon store, I knew I wanted their Droid X – if I had to deal with 5 – 10 others, it would have been alphabet soup and I probably would still be using my Windows OS phone.
motorola is starting to make to many phones they should of sticked with d1 and waited longer not right away a niot so cool d2
There’s always all this fuss over all these different Android phones. I have to say I agree with some of the comments on here, mostly that there is too much time money and effort being wasted on terrible phones. my opinion all of these extra phones are completely unnecessary, and there is still 1 phone that stands on top of the rest. the droid incredible still obviously the best smartphone on the market. every other phone that comes out seems like they’re trying too hard to outdo what incredible has done. The droid x and HTC evo are just too big and bulky to be a cell phone, and the droid and droid 2 are just hanging on to the klunky and obsolete physical keyboard. The incredible provides all the power and visual experience that any of these other phones do (which are the only phones that are even comparable to the dinc), falling short in I believe only not having hdmi out or a kickstand…cause you’ll use those often enough to justify the over sized phone you carry. The dinc fits in the palm of your hand like a glove, can watch live tv in very good qualify over the web, can play playstation among other awesome games. I think the dinc is really everything you could ever want in a handheld computing device and continued attempts to top it will be futile…and waste millions of dollars…
just got my third Motorola Bravo in the mail today thank god they have a one year warranty, only phone ive used with android and to bad i didnt spend the money on an iphone, these things are crap.