Verizon unveils Motorola Devour with MOTOBLUR (See all news)

Verizon and Motorola announced the availability of a new Android phone, the Motorola Devour. The smartphone will be the first Verizon Wireless phone to feature MOTOBLUR, Motorola's unique Android-powered content delivery service created to make wireless phones more personal and customizable.

“MOTOBLUR is the first solution to sync contacts from work and personal e-mail services, including Gmail, with posts, messages, photos and more from popular sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. With MOTOBLUR, content is automatically delivered to the home screen and fed into easy-to-manage streams.” states the official Motorola press release.

Much like the Motorola Droid, announced with drums and whistles in November last year, the Devour is a sideways slider with full QWERTY. It packs Android version 1.6, a 3.1-inch capacitive touch screen (320 x 480 pixels), optical track pad, microSD card slot, a 3-megapixels camera, 802.11b/g WiFi, stereo Bluetooth, an accelerometer, a 3.5mm headphone jack, GPS, and a 1400mAh battery good for up to 6 hours of talk time.

Verizon Wireless has positioned Android phones as its main alternative to the iPhone, available in the U.S. exclusively through AT&T while Motorola, who faced strong competition from Apple and RIM in recent years, is finally beginning to show some signs of life after having reorganized their handset unit.

Motorola Devour key features:

- Pre-loaded applications such as Gmail, Google Talk, YouTube, Google Search and Google Maps with Google Maps Navigation.
- Android Market support to give users access to more than 20,000 applications.
- Universal Inbox: MOTOBLUR gathers texts, social network messages and e-mails into one home screen widget for quick response.
- Back-Up and Security: Contacts, log-in information, home screen customizations, e-mail and social network messages are backed up automatically on the secure MOTOBLUR portal.
- Remote Wipe: used for clearing information from a lost device.
- 8 GB microSD card included.
- Bluetooth with A2DP support.

Verizon said it expects the phone to be available in March but did not mention anything about pricing.