Motorola Devours seven minutes of your life with a phone demo (video)

We're only a few breathless days away from the Devour hitting some retail locations ahead of nationwide US availability in March, so what better way to fill that gap than with an official teaser video? Moto's Rick Osterloh is our tour guide in a seven minute hands-on demo of the device, which takes us through the major attractions on offer. He firstly calls out the Qualcomm CPU inside and points to the phone's responsiveness, which is (quite naturally) followed by a couple of instances of perceptible lag between his input and the phone's reaction. All the same, it does look like a sprightly little machine, and the inclusion of Blur, Google Maps Navigation with turn-by-turn voice instructions, and Moto Phone Portal makes for a compelling software package. Head past the break to see them in action and to catch another eyeful of the hardware as well.

[Thanks, Zach A.]

[lav1daloca Posted Feb 21st 2010 10:46AM]

i actually really like the design of this phone. i'm not sure about android 1.6 and blur but i'm sure you can get a custom ROM out there. the keyboard looks really useful. it looks like the new Nokia N98 pics i've seen recently thats coming out Q3 10, but the N98 will come with Sym3, amoled, 720p, front cam, 12MP cam, xenon flash AND infrared night vision LED!!!

beat that!

[PavelAK Posted Feb 21st 2010 11:04AM]

Agreed with most of these comments:
-Screen
-1.6
-Bezel

also adding that they keyboard that doesn't look quite comfortable/usable and will just take up space.

[DanishDevil Posted Feb 21st 2010 11:23AM]

Not that it has anything to do with the phone, but anybody else notice that the dude's MacBook Pro is missing it's F key?

[Kiron Posted Feb 21st 2010 11:31AM]

I've had a Cliq since early December and I must say I love MotoBlur. I only really use facebook, and sometimes myspace and its soo nice to be able to comment on and update status right from my home screen. I don't know why soo many people detest it. Especially since you can delete the motoblur widgets you don't like and with the two extra homescreens over stock Android you can move the widgets to those screens. Only problem is 1.5 Android, I want google navigation!

[Mike Vick Posted Feb 21st 2010 1:33PM]

These companies really need to stop integrating all this social networking b.s! Is there a way to remove it or can't it be made as an app to download to be like this motoblur thing? The silver colour is a turn off, it should have been made as a sleek black or a combination of the two. Good phone ruined by motorblur and the stupid flimsy looking case. If only it were black or available on at&t :(

[anderlan Posted Feb 21st 2010 1:33PM]

It looks like the PC link "app" is just a link to an http server on the device. I cannot overstate how surprising and righteously RIGHTEOUS this approach is, not having to install any crap on your PC, building on universally implemented open standards.

[Mr Magoo Posted Feb 21st 2010 3:28PM]

@anderlan Yup you are spot, it's all done in the phone, nothing needed in the PC but a browser, smart :)

[c w j Posted Feb 21st 2010 1:51PM]

"one dot six"?

[kenny goo Posted Feb 21st 2010 2:07PM]

It's not that I find the phone ugly per se, it's that the bezel is fucking huge and the screen is so damn small. Hell, the phone as a whole is a lot bigger then it needs to be. Doesn't anybody want portability anymore?

Moving onto the workings of the actual phone, it seems pretty responsive, but the fact that's running Android 1.6 is a major disappointment. I'm not asking to be on par with the Nexus One and give me 2.1, just give me what the Droid launched back in November with 2.0. As for Moto Blur, I can't stand it. I'd flash the ROM the second I got the damn thing.

Overall a pretty disappointing handset in my opinion. They had a chance to make a low end version of the Droid with some Sidekick inspiration, instead they give you the aborted fetus of a Sidekick and a KIRF Android slider.

[purpletang Posted Feb 21st 2010 6:43PM]

Im sure many have repeated this, yet funny to see "Motorola" promoting another phone all while during the video, you would think the dork in the video would consider a more professional backdrop, and not with the use of 2, yes 2 Macbooks in full view.

I will stick with my Jailbroken iPhone, with ATT, and simply laugh at how every manufacture tries sooo hard to say there phone does this, can do that, yadda yadda......Motorola, stick to your walkie-talkies!!! Great child toys :-)

[abowlby Posted Feb 21st 2010 9:08PM]

Nein, nein, nein, nein, nein!

Why? Why...hasn't anyone just smashed a phone out of the park yet? A lot of them are solid, but...really? I started out 5 years ago, give or take, with a Curve...I was a Pimp amongst barflies. So, techno-logically kept rolling, and I tweaked my phone with mods, updates, apps, system changes etc. and waited. The iPhone. Now, I am a fan of phones not brands, so I peep'd this thing and thought...yeah, nice. But at this time, I felt the BB was a better choice for ME. So, I rolled with it. Then the iPhone improved a lot of 'ish that made one think, "WhyTF can't I send a picture message?" However at the time when I climbed fully back into the loop was when a BB touch screen entered the scene. I had to have it. I had grown tired of hearing about and was underwhelmed by the iPhone and it's totalitarianism. I made the comparison to myself of the Nintendo 64 (iPhone) and the OG PSX (BB). The N64 was known for these cartoony graphics and pointless games like everything other than Mario, Turok and Ocarina of Time. When and what you loved about it was awesome, the rest of it felt redundant, childish and cartoony. Like a lightsaber app that I, as someone who saw Star Wars as the retelling of every religious story combined, said...really? Are you f***ing kidding me, too. So thinking I was sticking with PSX and Metal Gear badassity, I got the *thunder rumbles* Storm...*toilet flushes*...yikes. Don't get me wrong, this phone gets scored unfairly, due to the fact there is no going back even though the 5.0 os is tolerable, but I had to tweak the HELL out of the piece just to make it run properly. I had to due to RIM what HTC did to WinMo 6.5 on the HD2...speaking of which...WTF HTC? Oh, the Supersonic you say? Nice...but according to the buisness trend, HTC will opt to remove browser capabilities or the screen or encase the device in razor blades just to make sure the phone any one of us phoneatics could instruct them to design (we would all agree closer than you think...believe me) and they have the knowledge and techKNOWledgy to design never sees the light of day...

...anyway, I'm getting a new device, I've thought of...Droid, Eris (if new OS), HD2, Nexus One, iPhone...Supersonic (I doubt this sooo much) or "2TC & AS." Which is "two tin cans and a string."

Oh and the Devour...eat my ass $150. The Droid is $100 at Best Buy.

[Thor e Posted Feb 22nd 2010 1:40AM]

@abowlby
Seriously. I had the iPhone 3GS and all it did was inspire hatred and frustration and an understanding of the evil that is Apple. My girlfriend has an android phone and it's quite decent with the sense UI and is ok for usability, very respectable. But NOTHING has yet to make me feel as good using a phone as WebOS. Once you become a user, You're spoiled and it becomes hard to imagine using anything else. It's the slickest, most intuitive and beautiful Smart phone OS out there. The Palm pre Plus' on Verizon are supposed to be awesome and the app catalog is coming along very well. I have the original Palm Pre and it's a tank and everything just WORKS. Give it some serious consideration.

[fatmon701 Posted Feb 22nd 2010 1:12AM]

I really dont know why people are hating on this phone, it looks perfectly fine, the processor is roughly the same speed as the droid, and even though it is running 1.6 it will be updated soon after release (probably some time in Q2 when they are planning to update the cliq). It would make sense for them to release a motoblur phone as soon as they can, but keep 1.6 because they have it functioning for that version of android, and once they are able to properly updated it to 2.1 they will.

[Thor e Posted Feb 22nd 2010 1:43AM]

This looks like a decent little phone. nice size factor as in good and compact. Android is nice too. no mention of the camera power?

I am still a bit skeptical of Motorola and their build quality still. I have too many friends complaining about their old Motorola phones. They have my attention however but I'm waiting to see how build quality is.

[kest009 Posted Feb 22nd 2010 2:14PM]

are those a couple nexus one boxes in the background at 6:22 in the video?

[SherwinJTB Posted Apr 6th 2010 9:37AM]

Those gadgets look expensive. I hope people know what they're getting themselves into. A 7 minute demo can make me look away, but still interested.