Motorola Charms T-Mobile With Latest Android PhoneMotorola Charms T-Mobile With Latest Android Phone

The Charm is the latest MOTOBLUR-equipped handset to launch with T-Mobile. It is a somewhat odd looking monoblock-style phone that has both a 2.8-inch Gorilla Glass touch display and a full QWERTY keyboard for messaging. It sort of resembles a BlackBerry in its basic form factor.

As with many of Motorola's Android phones for T-Mobile, the Charm has MOTOBLUR for social networking. MOTOBLUR offers users an easier way to manage messages from a number of different social networking sites, such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.

Motorola says the Charm has a new version of MOTOBLUR, which will allow users to better filter their messages and customize the software's behavior. That's a good thing, because in my experience MOTOBLUR can be a dangerous battery hog and a major distraction. Motorola says the new software offers users the ability to tweak MOTOBLUR's power consumption.

The device has a decent list of features, including a 3-megapixel camera that has Kodak Perfect Touch software. It doesn't have auto-focus, but it does have digital zoom and can capture video at 24 frames per second. It will be packed with a 2GB microSD card for all that media you're going to capture, but will support cards up to 32GB if you feel like adding more storage.

On the connectivity side of the equation, the Charm will support T-Mobile's HSDPA 3G network, though the slower 3.6Mbps version of it. T-Mobile is already rolling out faster HSPA across much of the U.S., it's a shame the Charm can't take advantage of the faster network speeds. It will also come with 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, stereo Bluetooth, GPS, Motorola's Crystal Talk Plus for improved voice quality, and USB 2.0.

It comes with the usual crop of Google services, and will support turn-by-turn navigation, Exchange corporate email, Gmail, Google Talk, and more. The Charm will ship later this summer with Android 2.1. Motorola doesn't offer a reason why Android 2.2 won't be on board at launch. It will have Flash Lite baked into the browser, but no Adobe Flash Player Mobile 10.1.

Pricing wasn't disclosed.