Motorola CLIQ: best Android phone ever

Physically, at 5.7 ounces, the CLIQ is surprisingly heavy, but it was hard to figure out why. You get Android's pop-up touch QWERTY as well as a three-line slide-out QWERTY keypad, which is easier to handle with easier-to-read keys than the keyboard on the first-ever Android phone, the HTC-made G1, but tougher to type on. The keys are packed tight and require a solid press to register. Along with a 5MP camera, there's a headphone jack, annoyingly missing from both the G1 and the MyTouch 3G. The rear has a sure-grip texturized rubber surface.

To minimize the number of hard buttons on the front panel and thereby create more room for the touchscreen, Motorola has removed the physical Send and End keys and moved them to the touchscreen, along with a Contacts touch key. To make the screen more readable and to save power, the display has an ambient light sensor to automatically adjust brightness. The battery savings goes to talk time — CLIQ is rated to get an impressive 7.5 hours

Even if CLIQ's physical amenities were awful, its exploitation and expansion of Android alone make it the new Android standard, setting a new paradigm for organizing the ever-increasing number of a cellphone's non-verbal communications. The philosophy behind the CLIQ and Motorola's MOTOBLUR Android-plus interface is that there's no reason to keep track of multiple social networking, messaging and e-mail accounts. When you initially set-up the CLIQ, it prompts you for all your e-mail and social-network information. It aggregates all the data from all these sources — all contacts with phone numbers, e-mail addresses, etc. (but maintains the original data within their individual applications) to create on big, super-meta file. For instance, you can choose one picture of yourself from all your accounts to be your caller ID photo to others...continued..