First image of the Motorola Motus leaks out

Taylor Wimberly — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:12:32 +0000

Someone just hit up our tip line and sent us the first picture of the Motorola Motus. The phone is basically the CLIQ v2 (almost identical specs), but it features a reverse flip keyboard. Yup, there is a keyboard on the back of the phone (when it is closed). When the keyboard is flipped open, it sits below the screen just as a normal slider would. The Motus is rumored to support AT&T and T-Mobile 3G bands so it could show up on either carrier (or both). We have also been told the device is based off Android 1.5 and will launch in Q1 2010.

Update: CellPassion is reporting Motorola has registered the trademark “Backflip” which could end up being the official name of this phone.

Update 2: Another tipster just sent in the full Motus specs.

What do you guys think?

The Motus features a reverse flip keyboard.

Motorola Motus could feature an interesting gimmick

Taylor Wimberly — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:10:49 +0000

Remember that leaked Motorola roadmap we showed you a couple weeks ago? It got me thinking and I have a little story to tell you. Hopefully this will make sense, but I have been known to ramble.

Dialaphone obtained this leaked roadmap.

It was one of the first times we spotted the Motorola Motus, but little was known about the phone at the time. We have a lot of friends at Moto so I have been trying to pry some details out of them. From what I had been hearing, the phone sounded like a Cliq clone (same guts) but it was headed for Verizon. Motorola said during their last earnings call that Verizon would have a Motoblur device in 2010, so I began to assume that Motus might be the first.

I was not really that excited about the prospect of another Cliq-like phone, until we heard of a brand new feature: “reverse flip keyboard“.

What the heck is a reverse flip keyboard? A quick Google search revealed the following video.

After watching the clip, I was still a little confused. What would you do with a touchpad on the back of a mobile phone keyboard?

I looked up the origin of the word Motus and found it was latin for gesture. This reminded me that Google recently added gesture controls to Android 1.6.

Few devs have yet to impletment gesture controls.

This is pure speculation, but it appears the next version of Motoblur (based on Android 2.0) will center around gesture controls. Motorola hinted at this during the last earnings call, but it was kind of vague. Moto CEO Sanjay Jha said, “Motoblur’s robust functionality will be updated periodically and over time will be enhanced to solve other consumer problems.”

If Motorola decides to focus on gesture controls, a touchpad would be a nice addition to highlight this feature. I’m not sure why you need a touchpad when you have a 3.1 inch touchscreen, but it would certainly be a unique feature I have never seen on a phone before.

The Motorola Motus could certainly be one weird device.

Update: Mr. Anonymous has left a comment describing how this device works.

You usually hold the device like any candybar factor form device but behind your hand instead of having the back of the device you have the keyboard sitting there with the camera on the side of it (It has to be there since THAT is the back of the device). You can flip the keyboard so that it ends up under the screen which would then be in landscape (end up like the G1 or any other “slider” keyboard devices).

Android and Me » reverse flip keyboard

First image of the Motorola Motus leaks out

Motorola Motus could feature an interesting gimmick