Motorola Motus and AT&T to sing sweet sweet music come spring of 2010?

While my year long honeymoon with AT&T left me looking for annulment, for my fellow gadget lovers still calling Big Blue home I bring you more hopeful information of AT&T’s potential first Android device. The Motorola Motus was last in the headlines about three weeks ago when we first caught wind of some leaked specs. But we’ll come back to specs in a hot minute. As for the whole rumor of AT&T picking up the Motus — well, that is a starting to look a little more likely. AT&T badly needs an Android phone not only for their customers who deserve at least one option, but for themselves as well. For the longer they remain glued to the iPhone image, the more it’s going to hurt when the band-aide is ripped off sometime before the year 3000 when Apple is said to be dropping exclusive AT&T support.

Right, now about those specs. When we last saw the Motus and the spec sheet that followed, we were left slightly underwhelmed. I understand OS optimization making the most of the archaic 528MHz ARM CPU destined for the Motus, but come on, every high-end Android device here on out should have Snapdragon. There’s no excuse not to. But internal specs and internal anger aren’t what we’re here for.

The latest word involving the Motus has several new external hardware features getting detailed:

• Backwards flipping keyboard: We’ll start with the weird first — the physical keyboard on the Motus is reversed meaning when it is “closed” in the traditional sense, the keys are on the back of the phone facing outward. I’m not sure how those delicate smartphone keys will stand up to the constant abuse pockets, bags, and other dangers place on them. But the design supposedly is meant to cater the next feature…

• Trackball: A trackball mounted behind the keyboard (so when the keyboard is closed, it will be between the back piece of the phone and the front — this thing is weird) will allow scrollable navigation when the keyboard is open thereby maximizing spacing for keys while still providing physical navigation.

• Camera: 5mp camera w/ LED flash

• MotoBLUR: It will run Motorola’s “MotoBLUR” which is also found on the CLIQ

• Keyboard: The keyboard is backlit (a big plus) and said to be “domed”. All I can gather is that they’re more “clicky” or pronounced than the Droid’s.

• Size: From the pictures it looks to be that the Motus will be a fuller figured beast falling more into line with the G1 than the Droid.

• Processor: As mentioned earlier above, sources say that the 1GHz Snapdragon processor will replace currently slated 528MHz MSM7201A. (I say good riddance)

That’s quite a bit to chew on so I’ll give you a second…

Second’s up. The Motus is shaping up to be a decent phone at least on paper and from what our minds can draw from the few pictures we’ve seen so far. The keyboard which is always a hotly debated topic among smartphone enthusiasts looks to be a tad more responsive than the Droid’s in the sense that the keys have more key travel. I also like how the keyboard stretches the entire length of the device, relocating the trackball (which I also like better than a d-bad or arrow keys) to behind the keyboard giving a much more natural position in the hand and still allowing physical navigation.

As far as being AT&T bound, the jury’s still out. It’s still a 50/50 in my book as it could very easily go either way. For all of the Android hopefuls eying T-Mobile or Verizon, I sure hope AT&T is the carrier picking up the Motus. AT&T simply can’t sit back and watch the rest of the cellular world pass them by and remain ignorant and stubborn in their little iPhone bubble.

Android Central > Engadget