Motorola Android Phone: Too little, Too late?

Motorola has recently announced that they will soon be releasing their own version of an Android phone. They claim it will be "Cheaper, Better, Funnerer". I really hope the person who coined this phrase doesn't have a say in the design of the phone in any way. A 5 year old probably has a higher IQ to stay away from words like "funnerer".

Word is that the phone will have a higher-end look when compared with the HTC G1, which goes on sale starting this week. While the G1 will sell for about $180 after rebates with a new contract, the as-yet unnamed Motorola Android phone will be priced at the $150 level.

The bad news is that the phone won't be ready until sometime in the second quarter of 2009, which could easily put it as much as six months behind the G1's launch. We don't know if this is because Motorola started developing later for the Anroid than HTC did or simply because Motorola is taking its time to make sure things turn out as good as possible.

As usual Motorola enters a saturated market and if my guess is right, they will enter the market with a phone which is poorly designed, buggy and expensive (and call it AndroidMoto?). I'm not sure how they can claim that the phone is going to be sold at $150 6 months down the road. We could definitely see a whole bunch of android phones in the market by then and the G1 could well be below the $100 mark if they are benchmarking against it. C'mon moto, wake up and smell the coffee!