5 Key Highlights About Motorola Android Devour

Motorola DEVOUR

With 20-plus smartphones on tap for 2010, Motorola has a busy year ahead. Its first 2010 release: the Devour, a Google Android-powered handset that will launch on Verizon Wireless in mid-March. Like Motorola’s Droid and Cliq phones, the Devour melds a touch-screen with a physical Qwerty keyboard. But the Devour differs from its siblings in a few key ways:

Devour = Droid with easier access to Twitter and Facebook Devour is the second Motorola Android phone Verizon has picked up, but the first that runs Motorola’s social networking application, MOTOBLUR. Verizon views MOTOBLUR, which pulls social networking updates to the phone’s home screen, as the chief difference between the Devour and Droid. “You can do Twitter and Facebook on both phones, but Devour gives more instant access,” says Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Boyd Raney. Devour is also the first Motorola Android phone that can wireless synch photos and videos to DLNA-certified devices, such as TVs and game consoles. Motorola has said it will expand MOTOBLUR to include music, media and gaming, so think of this multimedia synching feature as the future of MOTOBLUR.

Devour runs Android 1.6–but it’s upgrade-able

The Droid was, famously, the first phone to launch with an advanced version of Android, called 2.0, and has since been updated to the latest version of Android, 2.0.1. The Devour, meanwhile, will hit stores running 1.6, a comparatively outdated version of Android. Motorola says it plans to upgrade the phone to a more recent Android build, but declined to say when the update would be released. It may take a while; the Cliq, which is based on Android 1.5, has only received a minor update since its October debut.

Yes, you can get Google Maps Navigation

Even without Android 2.0, Devour owners will be able to use Google’s free navigation application, Google Maps Navigation. The phone will ship with Verizon’s navigation application, VZ Navigator, and regular Google Maps, built in, but users can download the navigation-equipped version of Maps onto their phones.

You can buy the Devour at Best Buy or Verizon

As a Verizon phone, the Devour can naturally be purchased at Verizon stores. But the impatient and thrifty may want to get it at Best Buy, which will begin selling it sooner than Verizon (on Feb. 25) and $50 cheaper ($99 versus $149).

You can use it for work–but that’s not really the focus

Like the Cliq and Droid, the Devour has QuickOffice software pre-installed that can be used to view Microsoft files (Word, Excel) and PDFs. Work messages, contacts and calendars can be managed through MOTOBLUR.