Motorola CLIQ 2 Review

Introduction:

Not too long ago, Android smartphones were a rare breed as the open platform attempted to gain traction with the aid of hardware manufacturers. Crazy to believe, but Motorola's endeavor with Android come to fruition back in the fall of 2009 as the Motorola CLIQ kicked off things sporting a new customized experience that greatly focused on social networking. Granted that the CLIQ wasn't necessarily its flagship Android device, it was still nonetheless a successful handset for the company – thus warranting an eventual successor. Such was seen with the advent of the Motorola CLIQ XT, which actually came in a clean candybar form, instead of the side-sliding one of the original CLIQ. And now, continuing with the landscape sliding keyboard form factor, a more direct successor in the Motorola CLIQ 2 has arrived, boasting some updated hardware that should hopefully come off as a respectable mid-range offering on T-Mobile's lineup.

The package contains:

Design:

Steering itself away from its predecessor, we're pleased to find that the Motorola CLIQ 2 boasts a remarkable upgrade in construction over the toy-ish plasticy CLIQ. Its chrome bezel accents very well with its gunmetal colored soft touch back cover as it exudes a higher premium feel which is supplemented further with its solid construction. However, we find it relatively similar in size and it tends to feel rather bulky (0.57” thick) – especially when there's a fair amount of weight (6.17 oz) with it. No, it might not have that killer industrial design of Motorola's DROID smartphones, but the CLIQ 2 offers a tasteful one that's fitting for its placement.



You can compare the Motorola CLIQ 2 with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

Happily, your eyes will be more than content at viewing its spacious 3.7” capacitive display since it utilizes a high-resolution of 480 x 854 pixels – which is exactly the same that you find with the DROID 2. Naturally, the increase in both screen size and resolution is a welcoming addition for this successor since it offers some sharp visuals and details. Furthermore, its color production is on the neutral side, but we find its overall luminance to be lacking, which becomes extremely noticeable when viewing it in direct sunlight. Even though we didn't have issues viewing it head-on, tilting it slightly off center causes it to look washed out. Finally, we're satisfied with the responsive nature of the touchscreen as it registered every touch accurately.


Employing the usual set of capacitive buttons beneath its display, we found ourselves accidentally pressing them since they're placed close to the bottom edge of the handset – which becomes more of an issue when handling the phone in landscape.

The Motorola CLIQ 2 packs on customary items like a 3.5mm headset jack and microUSB port with an LED notifier, but we find the inclusion of a vibrate switch on the right edge of the phone to come in handy. Although we're content with the distinguishable feel of the 2-level shutter key, we're not too thrilled with the weak response offered by the Motorola CLIQ 2's thin volume rocker and dedicated power button.


Thankfully, we're pleased with the natural and responsive feel of the handset's mechanism in exposing its landscape style physical keyboard. Once it snaps into position, we're greeted to a 4-row keyboard that has a distinguishable honeycomb layout – which is to say different from everything out there. Buttons are placed next to one another, but with its pronounced plastic feel, our fingers are more than receptive of their location. Now even though buttons felt stiff to the touch initially, after using it for a solid day, its response better adjusted to our taste. And although we're happy to find a 4-way directional pad on it, we feel that it leaves out too much empty space on the left and right sides.


On the rear, we find its 5-megapixel auto-focus camera with flash and two notches towards the bottom for its speakerphone grill. It doesn't take much force to yank off the rear cover, but once it's off, we're presented access to its 1,420 mAh batter, SIM card slot, and microSD card slot.

Interface:

Easily topping its predecessor in the processing department with its 1GHz CPU, 512MB RAM, and 1024MB ROM, it may look great on paper due to its increased capacity, but it doesn't particularly translate to a rapid performance that one would think. In fact, you can tell that it's being tested when there is a clear delay in responsiveness when navigating its homescreen – which is more evident with live wallpapers active. For the most part though, it gets by without being too sluggish in accomplishing a variety of tasks, like opening an app or kinetic scrolling through a list, but doesn't offer the instant response experienced with some other high-end handsets like the Samsung Vibrant.


Naturally, we're thrilled to find the Motorola CLIQ 2 running Android 2.2 Froyo out of the box, but its customized Android experience with the latest version of MOTOBLUR is an acquired taste. Visually, we adore how Motorola's specific widgets will automatically adjust when you re-size them, but its overall presentation is rather boxy and cartoonish. Again, not everyone will like its layout, but the underlying functionality is all there with its myriad of useful widgets that reduces the amount of time launching dedicated applications. Moreover, its profile selection enables you to set up and switch between three pre-defined homescreen layouts.


Whether you launch its “Social Networking” app or use the “Happening” widget on the homescreen, it aggregates content from your accounts – which range from Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Last.fm, and even LinkedIn. In addition, you can instantly post a message to all your accounts simultaneously rather that running separate applications. However, it lacks the ability to upload photos to your accounts – meaning, you'll need to do it from within the Gallery app.



Organizer & Messaging:

Almost every aspect of the device is integrated with the social networking, which is a nice thing for some people, but even more when you can quickly view recent posts from within the Contacts app. All of the common pieces of information can be viewed with each person in your address book, such as phone numbers and email addresses, but swiping to the right will quickly allow you to see all of those recent status messages from their respective social networking accounts. And since the device is tied closely with Gmail, all of your contacts are synced over-the-air so you can sleep easy knowing your information will be saved – even in the event of an unfortunate accident.



As with all other Android 2.2 Froyo smartphones out there, the Motorola CLIQ 2 offers all of the PIM functionality you'd expect – such as syncing multiple calendars, a calculator, alarm, and an app that manages your SIM card. Furthermore, apps like “News and Weather” will provide you the most up-to-date weekly weather forecast, current temperature, and categorized news posts.



With its larger display over its predecessor, the messaging experience via its touch options are marginally better; despite feeling somewhat cramped with its portrait keyboards. As much as we love the Swype keyboard, it's a little bit slower in keeping up with our movements. When using the multi-touch keyboard, we prefer using the landscape one since it offers a little bit more room for our fingers. Nonetheless, the best messaging experience can be found with its physical keyboard.



Email setup is a painless process when it generally will automatically set up generic clients with your email address and password. But for some of those obscure ones, it'll require additional items like server addresses and ports to completely set up. For any casual Android users out there, the Gmail app provides that near perfect translated desktop experience which packs on most of the common features you'd expect – like having threaded emails and the ability to favorite specific ones.

Outside of the traditional Google Talk app found with the device, the CLIQ 2 comes loaded with an “IM” app that quickly offers you the convenience of using common instant messaging clients like AIM, MySpaceIM, Windows Live Messenger, and Yahoo. It's definitely a nice thing as opposed to downloading separate clients from the Android Market.



In addition to the usual Google loaded applications preloaded with the handset, we find some useful ones that enable you to share content to other devices – such as DLNA, Media Share, and Motorola Phone Portal. There are also plenty of third party applications like Amazon MP3, Blockbuster, Kindle, Quickoffice, Slacker, and Telenav GPS Navigator. And on top of the Android Market, we find T-Mobile's AppPack app which basically provides some apps that are recommended by T-Mobile – but they can all be found in the Android Market as well.

Camera:

There isn't much to expect out of the CLIQ 2's 5-megapixel auto-focus camera seeing that image quality for the most part is sub-par and is probably best reserved for candid shots. In outdoor environments, details are particularly slim which make the overall shot look muddy. As for color production, it generally has a cooler tone, but looks more neutral indoors with artificial lighting. Conversely, there is an abundant amount of noise with images taken in low lighting. However, the LED flash does a decent job in illuminating the scenery – thus reducing noise while still presenting some neutral colors.






You'll have to move on if you're expecting HD video capture since the Motorola CLIQ 2 only has a maximum shooting resolution of 720 x 480 (DVD quality). If you're able to overlook that, you'll be surprised to find its quality to be acceptable with its smooth capture rate of 28 frames per second. Moreover, audio recording is natural in tone without much evidence of distortion.


Motorola CLIQ 2 Sample Video:



Multimedia:

With the Gallery app, it might not capture your attention with its grid-like presentation , but it'll display your photos and videos into specific folders. In addition to being able to share content with a variety of services, the CLIQ 2 boasts a medley of editing functions that should appease even the most hardcore photo enthusiasts out there.


If there is one thing we love about its music player, it has to be the fact that it's powered by tunewiki which will display the matching lyrics as a song is being played – much like a karaoke. As for presentation, there isn't much in terms of visual appeal since it displays only the bare essentials with no unique flare. Blasting some powerful and near deafening tones from its speaker, there's no arguing about its bombastic volume, but there is a ample amount of crackling and screechy tones at its maximum setting.


Strangely, the Motorola CLIQ 2 would not load any 720p videos, but instead, we were able to load one encoded in DivX 800 x 480 resolution. Still offering some nice looking details, we're more than content with its smooth and lag-free playback. Plus, the nice size of the display makes it conducive for those situations when you're traveling for an extended amount of time.



Connectivity and Internet:

The Motorola CLIQ 2 is a quad-band (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) GSM and tri-band (850/1700/2100 MHz) UMTS smartphone which means you can use it just about anywhere. However, it's only enabled for 3G speeds on T-Mobile's AWS band domestically – with EDGE if used on AT&T's network. Still, you can opt to use its built-in Wi-Fi connection if you're out of range of any data network. Furthermore, it sports Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR to enable a variety of other wireless devices to connect with it.

Seeing that it's running Android 2.2 Froyo, there is support for Flash 10.1 which naturally provides you with that spot-on desktop like experience. Although complex pages load in a timely manner, we noticed some sluggishness going on Flash heavy pages, but it doesn't dramatically affect the overall experience. On board, you'll find all the common set of features that make the web browsing experience more than satisfying – such as multi-touch gesture support for zooming and reasonably smooth kinetic scrolling. All in all, you won't be disappointed with the web browsing experience offered by the CLIQ 2.



Sure it might not be ample enough for those media-centric users out there, but the 2GB microSD card that comes pre-installed can be replaced with cards up to 32GB in capacity.

Performance:

Granted that the earpiece might not emit the loudest tones out there, we're more than satisfied with the overall calling quality with the handset. On our side of the line, voices are neutral in tone, but there is some static sound that can be hear – however, it doesn't adversely impact the experience. Flipping it around, our callers were more than happy with our natural and pronounced voice as they easily recognized every word uttered. Additionally, the speakerphone presents audible and clear voices that aren't muddied down by much distortion.

Signal strength remained uniform throughout our testing in the Greater Philadelphia area as it retained a healthy amount of bars in high coverage areas and didn't drop any calls.

Sadly, we're not fond of the poor battery life offered by the Motorola CLIQ 2 as it managed to chug on easily through an 8-hour work day, but quickly depleted at the 12 hour mark on normal usage. For light users, you'll probably get less than a day out of the handset while heavy users will want to keep a spare battery or charger at hand.

Conclusion: 

First and foremost, we're glad to see that the Motorola CLIQ 2 received some reasonably upgraded specs over its predecessor – like its high resolution display and 1GHz processor. Secondly, it's far better in terms of design and construction with its refined choice of materials. Additionally, we easily like that the keyboard has a decent look and feel to it over the original which adheres to the needs of messaging oriented users out there. In reality, it does everything right when you consider the fact that it's a successive device that doesn't steer off the mid-range category that it's targeting. But if you just prefer something more impressive, we'd recommend something like the T-Mobile G2 – which of course will cost you more. But in the end, we're confident of the Motorola CLIQ 2 being one of the more respectable mid-range Android offerings on T-Mobile's lineup right now.

Software version of the reviewed unit: Android 2.2, Build: BGN_1.0.23, System version: 1.0.23.MB611.T-Mobile.en.US

Motorola CLIQ 2 Video Review: