Motorola Hint QA30

The Motorola Hint QA30 is short and squat, but still provides a QWERT keyboard and more.

Pardon the cliché, but it’s finally hip to be square. From LG’s decidedly short and squat Lotus to the fat little Samsung Propel, designers are increasingly ditching the rectangular status quo and going back to that four-sided equilateral simplicity.

Motorola’s Hint QA30 is among the latest to join the club, and it’s also one of the company’s few keyboard-equipped phones without the features of a smartphone. The simple square slider may not run with the likes of the iPhone and G1, but it may be one of the most attractive and unique handsets Motorola has dropped in a while.

On the face, the phone gets a broad 2.5-inch display in the standard 320 x 240 resolution, as well as hard music controls to switch tracks, pause, and play without ever needing the screen. Sliding the black-trimmed face up reveals a wide QWERTY keyboard below, and shows off the red accents that run around the phone’s perimeter.

Image Courtesy of Motorola

In addition to the standard voice capability, the Hint handles e-mail and SMS text messaging, and also has a 2-megapixel camera for shooting both still shots and video. There’s also a built-in browser, Bluetooth capability, and room for up to 8GB of external memory through a microSD slot.

Motorola will release the phone in the fourth quarter of 2008, but it hasn’t yet announced a price or which carriers it will appear on. More information can be found at the company’s Web site.