After what seems like aeons in the wilderness, Motorola is back with a new phone, the Dext. It's the brand's first effort at a phone on the Android platform, and it has high hopes that this will be the one to bring it back into the light.
We take a look at the new Dext and give you all the reasons why Moto should be feeling positive - and a few why it should feel a little ashamed.
1. Motorola has actually released a phone
Yes, it's a little bit obvious, but hands up anyone that can point to the last big phone Motorola had (and the Razr doesn't count). The company has been practically in hibernation for over a year, shedding staff in the process, and things looked pretty bleak.
But now there's a shiny new toy for everyone to see and play with, and the stocks have responded in kind, shooting up over 20 per cent since strong rumours of the launch were leaked.
2. It's based on social networking
As Motorola is by no means the first to market with Android, it had to do something different, and that's been achieved by 'Happenings' on the MotoBlur platform. These are essentially embedded widgets which link to Facebook, MySpace and Twitter and provide real-time updates to the services.
So if your mate changes his status on Facebook, it will pop up on the home screen instantly.
But it goes further than that, by integrating your mates' social networking personas into your contact book as well, in a much deeper way than that seen by Palm, INQ or HTC. It means you can choose which way to reply to someone as a drop-down menu, or post a status update of your own to one or multiple accounts at once.
Social networking on a phone isn't a new idea, but Moto has taken it and rammed it so far into the Dext that you feel like you'd see a Facebook message if you took the battery cover off.
3. The Dext embraces open source through Android
Motorola looks to have backed a winner in the Android platform, as it's not only wide open to the development community (meaning better and faster upgrades and tricks) but it comes with all the goodies Android Market application portal has to offer.
While the iPhone clearly has the best App Store, it's limited to a handful of Apple handsets. Google's Android Market may only have a small portion of the applications Apple has, but that number is growing quickly, and more importantly, it's open to other brands.
This means that not only has Motorola picked a platform that it can tinker with (meaning it can create MotoBlur) but it means it automatically comes with applications like Spotify and Doom for free, making it a better proposition.
