According to sources at Business Week, Motorola has been sharing a spec sheet and some concept images of its new Android smartphone with carriers around the world. Sources familiar with the documents claim the new Android phone will be a high end version of the HTC G1 with a 3.5″ touchscreen, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a host of social networking features. The Android handset will reportedly take some of its design cues from the new Motorola Krave ZN4. Android with an interactive touchscreen clear flip? We are not sure if that is what they meant but a Minged-out Android smartphone with a social networking presence would be an interesting concept. Also interesting to note is that much of the Android project is apparently being handed over to the Good Technology team that Motorola acquired back in 2006. The Android project is being headed by Rick Osterloh, formerly Good’s VP of marketing and product management. A recent job posting on Monster.com (don’t go looking for it, it has already been pulled) confirms that Motorola is looking to hire Android developers for their branch in Sunnyvale, California where the Good team is based. That same job posting also reveals that the Android project has been funded to the tune of $50M and has strong executive level sponsorship. Money and high level support is a good combination. Last but not least, Motorola’s first Android offering is expected hit a rock-bottom price point of $150 after 2-year contract with a tentative launch date sometime in Q2 2009 in the US and Q3 2009 in Europe. Hit the jump to see a larger image of the Monster.com job posting and how happy people are when they work for Motorola. So happy they want to dance?

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Thanks to one of our ever-sneaky sources, we’ve just learned that Motorola will be holding a “virtual media briefing” for media at 9AM EST on October 14th. That’s this coming Tuesday for all your early weekend party starters. We’ve explored the Motorola Krave ZN4 in depth with our exclusive hands on review a while back, and we weren’t thrilled about it. In fact, we were pretty disappointed. Let’s hope they have polished it up a whole lot or else this thing is going to be one single raindrop of a Storm. Ya’ dig?

Thanks, P-Nut!

After releasing some touchscreens from LG and Samsung, Verizon is going to carry the Moto ZN4, or “Krave”. It certainly looks a hell of a lot like the Ming A1200 with the clear flip and the earpiece almost magically floating in that clear piece of plastic. Oh wait, we had one of these! The phone sports a 2 megapixel camera and is pretty standard with EV-DO Rev A, Bluetooth, HTML browser, microSDHC (always a good thing) and support for VCast Mobile TV. At the attractive price of $149 after a $50 mail-in-rebate, and the gimmicky-ness of the clear flip where most consumers hadn’t seen or heard of the Ming, this could be quite a nice dumbphone for VZW. Next up is the VU204 which is just a basic flip phone. Any phone marketed “Buy 1, Get 3 Free” is not going to be the most spectacular product out there, but for those who usually opt for the free or cheapest phones on new contract, this is a pretty decent option. At $29 after $50 rebate, all the features are what you’d come to expect from such a phone: VGA camera, 160×120 display, and Bluetooth. Pretty blah, we say. Motorola, care to cut back on the boring factor?

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