Motorola Morrison positioned as the maker's entry Android O.S. powered smartphone at Celluloco.com

. Allegedly, Motorola is readying a new Android UI and their rumored Motorola Morrison finally got some specs to look at. The hardware specs seem to put it in the same ring as the other Android-powered devices.

The Motorola Morrison will have a 528MHz CPU and 256MB RAM (the Hero has 288MB), the screen is HVGA - 320 x 480 pixels - practically all Android phones use this resolution. The autofocus camera has 5 megapixels resolution. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS are covered too as well as smaller goodies such as accelerometer, 3.5 mm audio jack, microUSB port, proximity and ambient light sensor. The internal memory is expandable by microSD cards up to 32GB.

What really sets the Motorola Morrison apart is the side slide-out QWERTY. So far the specs claim only a QuickOffice viewer, but that keyboard would be a huge plus if Motorola goes for an editor instead just a viewer.

Motorola Morrison running vanilla Android (photo: Phandroid)

It seems that the new Android Morrison will run on a new custom Android UI developed by Motorola and called Blur. Heavily web-oriented, it will give users quick access to popular sharing websites. No surprise, Android is quite a web-oriented platform to begin with, but Motorola is adding a touch of social networking - combining your personal contacts with info from social networking sites, a la WebOS (HTC did it too with Hero's Sense UI to some extent). The OS will be upgradeable over the air but more importantly it seems that it will feature push updates.

It's not a giant leap of faith to think that the Motorola Morrison will run this new UI and the Heron (headed to AT&T) is a likely candidate too - it's the one that is undergoing an interesting "sex change" - from Windows Mobile to Android.

The Morrison is rumored to come out on 21 October with specs indicating quad-band GSM support and tri-band 3G but in two versions - 900/1700/2100MHz and another one at 900/1900/2100MHz.

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Celluloco.com Unveils HTC Click : Another Android O.S. Powered Smartphone

Several spy photos of the yet unannounced Andoid-powered handset leaked online. The HTC Click is said to be an entry level handset that should help bring the new OS to a much wider user base.

As you might have guessed the information available about the HTC Click is pretty limited at this stage. All we know is that it packs a 3.5mm standard audio jack and a camera of some kind. Its appearance is hardly too surprising as after the HTC Hero was released, the Android army is one entry-level handset away from covering the whole range.

HTC Click

The image source also mentions that the body of the HTC Click is about the size of the HTC Magic so we should expect a 3.2" screen too. The HTC Click replaces the trackball found on the Magic with an extraordinary large D-pad but the rest of the controls on the front panel remain unchanged

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Google Ion is Google's Gift to of its Developers - Celluloco.com is looking for a piece of the action.....

At an Android developer's conference called Google I/O, the company handed thousands of Google Ion phones the the attending developers for free. Google Ion, of course, HTC Magic, running Android and in a fancy new outfit.

The Google Ion is obviously hardware and design-wise identical to the Vodafone-exclusive HTC Magic smartphone. However it's got the Google I/O conference logo on the back, it comes in shiny black/blue and the retail package has a SIM card with 1-month T-Mobile service, which initially led us to believe that it's c-branded by T-Mobile USA (but guess what, it's not).

Google Ion

The difference from the T-Mobile G1 comes with the bundled OS update (Cupcake) and the lack of a hardware keyboard.

There also seems to be more good news for Android lovers on the horizon. According to Andy Rubin, senior director for Mobile Platforms for Google and the spearhead of the Android operating system, there will be at least 18 Android-running phones on the market by the end of the year. That number might also go as high as twenty, coming from eight or nine different manufacturers.

And finally, Google announced their next Android Developer challenge. Participating developers will be able to submit applications in a total of 10 categories starting in August.

The Android users will vote the applications and rate them in order to get the 200 best in the final round.

The prizes range up to 100 000 US dollars for each category plus up to 150 000 US dollars for the three over all winners.

You can learn more about the second Android Developer Challenge here.

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HTC Lancaster & Motorola Heron - Android Galore!

Great news for Android fans as two spanking new Android devices sporting sliding QWERTYs and shiny touchscreens seem to be in the works - the HTC Lancaster and the Motorola Heron are both included in the massive AT&T leak, we're reporting on today.

The HTC Lancaster is in a way reminiscent of the original HTC Dream thanks to the QWERTY keyboard, but with a more "Magical" face.

The Lancaster's specs contains almost everything you may expect from a smartphone - a 528MHz. Qualcomm MSM7225 processor, 2.8-inch QVGA touch display, a hardware QWERTY keyboard, 3 megapixel fixed-focus camera and the full connectivity package - HSDPA, Wi-Fi, GPS with A-GPS support, Bluetooth, microUSB plug and a microSD card slot.

HTC Lancaster

There are no particular details about the Android OS running on the Lancaster, but AT&T will obviously have it branded their way. The HTC Lancaster is expected on 3 August.

Surprisingly Motorola will also release an Android powered device for AT&T. It's called Heron and its specs are almost the same as HTC Lancaster.

The Motorola Heron sports the same 528MHz CPU, 2.8-inch touchscreen, a vertical sliding full QWERTY keyboard, a 3 megapixel fixed-focus snapper with LED flash and video recording in QVGA@24fps. The connectivity as usual for a smartphone is complete - HSDPA, Wi-Fi, GPS with A-GPS, Bluetooth, microUSB port and a microSD expansion slot.

Motorola Heron

What's curious about the Motorola Heron is has obviously been conceived as a Windows Mobile device - visible from those images on the slide, but AT&T clearly enough claims "Subject to change due to move to Android".

The Motorola Heron is expected to hit the AT&T network on 2 November this year.

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