Motorola to offer direct-to-consumer handset via Google

During last week's quarterly earnings call, Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha indicated that Moto would release at least one handset this year with the same, direct-to-consumer channel used for the Nexus One.

While Jha didn't elaborate on the handset, I imagine that Motorola will want to offer a device at least as powerful as the Nexus One, if not more. And for inspiration, we can look at the Android handsets that the company is introducing overseas.

Though the Moto's Droid and Cliq are its only Android handsets with U.S. carriers, elsewhere it has started pumping out multiple designs as it builds to 20 or more smartphones for 2010. Many of those models have a screen size of 3.7 inches and a resolution of 480x854 pixels, which is about the same as on the Nexus One.

As for cameras, most of Motorola's phones have been 5 megapixels, save for the MotoRoi, which boasts an 8-megapixel resolution. And as competitors introduce phones with high-resolution shooters (Sony Ericsson's Xperia X10 also has 8 megapixels) I'd like it to be the baseline for future high-end phones.

In an interview with Engadget, Sanjay mentioned that Motorola will "deliver those gigahertz processors in the marketplace." With the exception of the 1GHz processor on the Nexus One, most current smartphones have been in the range of 528MHz to 624MHz. Anything faster would be a step up.

Whether by coincidence or not, I've noticed that most of Moto's handsets sold outside of the United State are loaded with the stock Android experience and not MotoBlur. With the forthcoming Devour and Backflip both running MotoBlur, I imagine Motorola will continue to promote smartphones centered on social networking.

As Android remains not quite enterprise ready, it currently skews heavily to the consumer/prosumer demographics. I'd love to see Motorola's new handset usher in the next big features of Android with functionality for IT managers and business professionals.

Rumor also has it that the next handset from the Google channel will feature a QWERTY keyboard. Already nicknamed the Nexus Two, there's no official word as to who will make this phone or when it will be released.

On a side note, we're only a few days away from finding out what Moto's football ad campaign entails. We'll see what happens.