Are you in search of a phone that runs Android, has a QWERTY keyboard, and you can throw against a wall? Then Sprint has the phone for you. The Motorola Titanium is a “military grade” Android phone with a portrait QWERTY keyboard. The Titanium was originally announced alongside Moto’s XPRT, which shares the same form factor. Due to a leaked image of an internal memo it now looks like Sprint is launching the Titanium on July 24, according to SprintFeed.
Portrait QWERTY phone s are typically aimed at business users, the most successful phone in this segment would be the family of BlackBerrys. What the Titanium does that no BlackBerry can is that it can take a licking and keep on ticking. It meets Military specification 810G for dust, shock, vibration, temperature extremes, and the ever important solar radiation. The Titanium also supports Nextel’s direct connect feature, which you don’t see too often these days.
The Titanium isn’t the first heavy duty Android device, but it is the first one with a physical keyboard. Motorola also makes the Defy, which is a purely touch interface. We are excited to see just how well that physical keyboard holds up to dust and shock.
One big drawback of the Titanium is that it is running Android 2.1, which is very outdated. With the limited options for rugged the Titanium comes in at a reasonable price point, and proven form factor and should provide clumsy business oriented people with a sense of security for the low price of $149.99 on contract.
