By 
A bunch of sites are starting to post their Motorola CLIQ reviews and we wanted to share the general consensus with you folks. We would share our own complete review but – (frownie face) – we haven’t gotten anything yet. So in lieu of our own extremely awesome review on the web, here is what everyone else is saying:
“I’ve had a few days to play with the CLIQ and came away refreshed and hopeful. This phone is better than the G1 on all fronts but there is still a ways to go for it to beat out some of HTC’s upcoming Android offerings. Motorola didn’t hit it out of the ballpark on this one, but they’re still in the game.”
“With its excellent design, user interface improvements, and admirable feature set, the Motorola Cliq gives a big boost to the Android operating system. We had some performance quibbles with the device, and the MotoBlur interface can be a bit much, but the phone has a lot to like.”
“In the meantime, would we recommend the CLIQ? Against a G1, yes, if for no other reason than the fact that you’re getting more internal memory and a more robust, modern, un-weird hardware design. In the bigger picture, though, we’d keep our wallets in our pockets for the time being — the CLIQ looks and feels like a testbed, not quite ready for primetime but a genuinely heartening sign that Moto’s still got a pulse.”
When I first tested the HTC Hero for Sprint, I thought that I would have to leave T-Mobile just to own it. The Motorola CLIQ has stopped me dead in my tracks, and happily so. It’s a great device with some unique features in a hardware design that is very functional, even if it lacks a bit of flair. In the end, the strong social networking and messaging features make the CLIQ an absolute winner, and one that will likely earn a permanent position in my own pocket. I give it a “Highly Recommended” rating.
Phandroid.com compiles all the top reviews for each Android Phone in our Android Phone Guide. Just navigate to the phone of your choice and select the “reviews” tab. If you find more reviews from highly credible sources that you think we should add, feel free to contact us.
While it looks like a decent phone, I personally am not too into the Blur UI. I am connected socially, but not on the depth that Blur takes it to. I’d rather have Sense UI.
I think I’ll be waiting out a little while longer to decide between sticking with T-mobile, (if they come out with something stronger before holidays) Or going to Sprint for HTC Hero and beautiful Sense UI. I played with it in the sprint store and almost bought it on the spot. Patience, patience!
CLIQ is the next device for all sidekick users.
It’s a social phone, not meant for business folks and serious professionals. Also the slow 528MHz chip will be a problem down the road very soon.
i probably would have considered getting this phone if only it had a bigger screen, 3.1 inches is way too small
After a lifetime of using WM phones (going back to the original XDA, which I still own along with an XDAII, XDAIIi, XDA Executive, XDA Mini S, XDA Orbit, XDA Graphite, XDA Argon, HTC P3300, iPAQ (whose model number escapes me and I can’t be bothered fetching it out of the drawer)), upgrading from my Touch Diamond to Android on the Dext I feel like a hillbilly stumbling out of the Stables to discover the motor car has been invented!
Why does WM not clear the email notification envelope when you’ve read the email with Outlook is the perfect example of the crappiness of WM…
The Cliq/Dext is perfectly suitable for “business folks and serious professionals” – speaking from personal experience here, because I am a middle-aged one of the above;)
I’ve got my social happenings widget shuffled off onto another screen, RSS feeds on another screen, and exchange refresh of 15 minutes is just enough. Remote wipe rocks and having my Google apps personal domain mail/calendar/contacts is just awesomeness.
The Dext is beautifully built.
I also still have my Motorola A1000 touchscreen phone, and people – the Dext is progress ;)
I tested the DEXT in the Orange last weekend. It’s pretty nice and is a good concept. I’m definitely considering it…
I wish more people would release android phones with keyboards…
I like the look of the DEXT but I like the look of the Droid/Tao/Sholes more.
[RANT]
I’m getting sick of peeps whining about blur and its social networking, HELLO they are just widgets, you can trash them and you will see no ill effects, its not a sidekick replacement(imop the sk is a toy).
Like all android phones they are what you make them, if you want a business centric phone you can, if you want to notify all your buddies everytime you fart and know the status of your friend gastro-intestinal(sp?) tract you can.
The cliq is a perfect replacement for a g1, it has better build quality, better cam, more ram/rom, it is snappy as all hell(cm’s 4.5.2 is damn near as quick as my cliq now) Once the thing gets rooted and I have full conrtol over my device it will be even more amazing, android is a work in progress pre 2.0 isn’t really ready for the masses, its really for us fone geeks, not your Auntie Matilda
Its a whole new world for mobile handsets, much like a pc you buy a new computer and it runs windows/mac/*nix just like your old one did, it could be a brave new world.
Using the same PC analogy would you buy a dell if they had the admin password and wouldn’t give it to you?
All I can figure they are worried about tethering and dorks sending in bricks for warrenty replacement.
[/RANT]
I have been using a Motorola Cliq for about two months. My last phone was a Blackberry Curve. Overall the Cliq is a solid phone from a hardware perspective, although the left-handed pointer is rather odd given the majority of the population is right handed. Unless you are ambidextrous or left handed, the pointer will be unusable.
From the software perspective, the Android operating system is horrible and barely usable. While it is cool to surf the Internet because of the larger screen, the phone is barely usable as a phone. On incoming calls, pushing the big green “answer” button typically does nothing. Most of the time my incoming calls end up in voicemail while I repeated push, tap, hit, or beat on the answer button to no avail. Then I have to call the person who called me, which increases my minute usage. Android also has an odd habit of pocket dialing people in my contacts list, particularly those on speed dial, even while the screen is locked, further increasing my minute usage and resulting in odd call back from friends and business associates.
The Android marketplace is as well designed as Blackberry’s which means it stinks. Applications are not properly tested or vetted (like Apple does for the iPhone) so there is a huge quantity of junk and non-working applications many of which crash the phone. Some applications, particularly Twidroid, seem to updated daily causing constant downloading and reinstallation over and over again.
If I had to do it over again, I would have upgraded to a newer Blackberry. If Apple would sell the iPhone for other providers other than AT&T which has the worst coverage in the Phoenix metro area, I would look at an iPhone. If you have an iPod Touch as I do, the primitive touch screen interface of Android takes a lot of getting used to.
Battery life is horrible! Plan on buying and keeping 1 or 2 spare charged batteries because the Cliq turns into a brick around late morning unless its continuously charged.
And don’t think plugging this puppy into a USB port or the wall for a quick 20-minute refresh will do anything. Plan on 6 hours to recharge. You will have to charge nightly and several times during the day. In comparison, my Blackberry only needed to be charged every 4 days with the same amount of usage.
Google should stick to search engines and browsers because they don’t know the first thing about making a usable phone operating system. I can’t wait until T-Mobile will allow me to upgrade again and I chuck this beast in the trash can!
I was in a T-Mobile store this weekend looking a the Cliq (I have a V3 which is nearly prehistoric in comparison and an unlocked V3xx on T-Mobile which is very functional but quaint compared to the new Androids, Blackberries, and iPhones.) After I and another customer were working side-by-side with the Cliq for awhile we both found the phone amazing, but soon were commenting to each other that we found it “not quite right”, “jerky”, “preoccupied”, “clunky”, “unfinished”, “doesn’t get it”, “doesn’t seem to understand what we’re trying to do”, “doesn’t flow with us”, “is it working right?”. After about ten minutes we agreed the phone was an amazing and useful piece of technology but at a human level modestly irritating. It was feature laden, but didn’t quite zig and zag with us as we interacted with it. We weren’t using the phone as much as we were working it. iPhones by comparison are extremely good at user interactivity and have a spectacular interface what is nearly effortless to use and connect to. Most Motorola phones I’ve encountered (including both of mine) are of the same personality. Excellent hardware, but the functional analysts behind the phone’s software don’t quite seem to know how to work with a user.