Motorola just announced their first Android based smartphone and it is called the CLIQ. It seems to conform to a rapidly developing standard with a smooth rounded look and touch screen functionality. It will run Android 1.5 Cupcake and it is fully 3G capable. Has it done enough to stand out from the crowd? Let’s take a closer look at the specs.

There is a large 3.1 inch HVGA touch screen which supports a resolution of 320 x 480 pixels and conceals a slide out full QWERTY keyboard beneath. There is a 5 megapixel camera with support for video recording. It works as a digital audio player and includes Amazon’s MP3 store, Shazam, Last F.M. and Imeem as well as a dedicated YouTube application. You will of course be able to access various Google services such as Google Maps and the phone supports loads of email clients. There is also a QuickOffice Suite for viewing documents. You’ll also be able to surf the web via a Google Browser and there is Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS support.

You may be left wondering what the difference is between this and similar products like the Samsung Galaxy i7500 or the HTC Magic. Well the answer is, not much. Motorola seem to have fallen behind in recent months. The one major selling point which might persuade you to pick up the CLIQ is the inclusion of their new MotoBlur service. MotoBlur is designed to bring together all of your communications into one feed. It ties into your email accounts, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter and consolidates it into a single feed so you don’t have to dip in and out of different applications.

The Motorola CLIQ will be made available by T-Mobile within the next few months. It is set to be offered in titanium or winter white but the pricing has not yet been confirmed. Motorola also confirmed they would be releasing a second Android based phone very soon. On this showing I’ll be waiting to see what else Motorola have up their sleeve. You can check out a video demo on YouTube.