Motorola i1

While I was in the air heading to Las Vegas for the 2010 CTIA show, Motorola and Sprint launched the i1, the first iDEN Push-to-Talk smartphone running Android.  Later in the day I got a chance to shoot some videos and photos of the i1, as well as talk to Motorola about the phone.

It turns out that the i1 runs a pretty generic build of Android 1.5. No MOTOBLUR, only 3 homescreen panels, few non-standard widgets apart from the PTT widget for Direct Connect functions.  Motorola seemed to indicate that we could possibly expect a newer version of Android in a later OTA update, but refused to be nailed down on any specifics.

The device feels a lot like a CLIQ XT.  It is very solid, has the same HVGA 3.1-inch display we’re used to on most Moto Android phones, and the PTT functions performed well.  The phone uses a 600MHz Freescale CPU (ARM11 based), unlike what we’ve seen on other Moto Android devices.  Data options include WiFi and the very slow iDEN data network (25Kbps), which is why Opera Mini comes pre-loaded. The Android browser that the phone also ships with has built-in Flash Lite support, though, which is nice.  Swype and XT9 are available for text input tasks.

Overall, a somewhat plain phone, apart from the PTT additions, but nicely built and quite solid.  Photos and video after the jump.