Motorola readying own Facebook phone

Motorola readying own Facebook phone
The Motorola EX225

Motorola looks like it's going to be the next to join the Facebook phone race with the launch of a dedicated handset.

The snappily-named Motorola EX225 has been outed over on the Bluetooth accreditation site Bluetooth SIG, and shows a simple QWERTY-keyboarded device with a little blue Facebook key in the corner.

There aren't any Android buttons on show, so Motorola has either developed its own OS to power the device, or gone with something more widespread like Qualcomm's Brew - unless the company is still working out where to place the Android keys.

More of the same

If it's anything like the Vodafone 555 Blue, which also doesn't run Android, we can expect Facebook to be part of every element of the phone from photo uploading to music sharing - and this time even a spot of 3G.

There's also a 2.4-inch screen (apparently non-touch) and is described as "a product for trendy generation who enjoy connecting to the world anytime, anywhere". Hyper-rad.

Another odd element: the phone will apparently come in a non-Facebook version, which helps us understand what Motorola is intending with this phone: a low-cost handset to service the rapidly-growing developing nations market that has an insatiable thirst for Facebook but limited access to the internet.

If it's passing through Bluetooth SIG now, we can probably expect the phone to land before Christmas, and our money's on this being at the cheaper end of the spectrum.

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.