Motorola Cliq Android Phone

The Android-based Cliq resembles a beautified G1, and includes a custom social networking interface.

Fall in the love with the look of a Motorola phone, learn to tolerate the software. That’s always been our approach to Motorola’s undoubtedly stylish but hard-to-live-with phones. Even when the company hit it out of the park with the original Razr, the phone’s operating system drove many early adopters crazy in the ensuing years of ownership.

Which is why were elated to hear Motorola has embraced the Android operating system with the upcoming Motorola Cliq for T-Mobile, mating the company’s own knack for design with one of the most exciting mobile platforms.

Like the T-Mobile G1 before it, the Cliq gets a full touch screen up front and a QWERTY keyboard that slides out below. It even gets some much-needed flourishes the G1 didn’t have, like a 5.0-megapixel camera and an all-important 3.5mm headphone jack. To our eyes, it’s also a whole lot prettier. Unfortunately, it will also match the dimensions of the G1 almost to a tee, and will even be a smidge heavier, making it quite a potential pocket anchor.

To differentiate its own crack at Android from the G1 and myTouch already on T-Mobile, Motorola has developed its own social networking application, dubbed Motoblur. It aggregates Twitter, MySpace and Facebook into one home screen, which allows you to keep tabs on your friends and also send info back out, like tweets to Twitter and pictures to Picasa.

Although Motorola has officially announced the phone and posted detail specs, the company hasn’t yet revealed a launch date, other than “later this fall,” or price. More details can be found at both T-Mobile and Motorola.