Motorola's first UK Android phone, the Motorola DEXT will be available from October 7th.

The DEXT Android phone will be offered free to new customers as part of a 2-year Orange contract priced at £35 per month.The £35 tariff will include 900 minutes, unlimited texts, data allowance and Orange maps.

Known in the US as the Motorola CLIQ, the UK DEXT features a slide-out QWERTY keyboard similar to the T-Mobile G1, a 3.1-inch touchscreen display, 3.5mm headphone jack, GPS support and expandable memory up to 32GB with a microSD card.

The Motorola DEXT is also the first handset to run Motorola's new MotoBlur user interface that offers increased social networking options and features.

“Motoblur, which will be available on multiple Motorola Android-powered devices in our upcoming portfolio, helps us to create phones that are instinctive, social and connected.

“Today’s mobile phone needs to be more than just ‘smart’. It needs to be social. The Dext is such a phone, offering the ability to funnel your entire social life into a single stream.” - Ralf Gerbershagen, vice president and general manager of Motorola Western Europe.

[via shop.orange.co.uk]

Motorola UK have confirmed that their upcoming Android phone, the Motorola DEXT, will be available across the UK from October on the Orange/T-Mobile UK network.

Motorola officially unveiled their first Android handset last week at the GigaOm's Mobilize 09 conference. Known in the US as the Motorola CLIQ, UK Android fans will be able to pre-order the Motorola DEXT from Orange starting September 22nd.

The MOTOROLA DEXT with MOTOBLUR will be available from early October. You will be able to pre-order in Orange retail stores, or pre-register online from 22nd September.

[via motorola.com]

It appears that Vodafone are getting ready to reveal their first Android powered handset. According to reports from BoyGenius, the new Vodafone handset will a European exclusive to boot!

As you can see from the image, it appears that what many Android fans believed to be the HTC G2 is in fact now the HTC Magic - although that name may again differ.

Other than a handful of rendered images, little is know about the HTC Magic handset, although Vodafone are expected to make an announcement this week at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona.

[via BoyGeniusReport.com]

During Motorola's Q4 earnings call this morning, co-CEO Sanjay Jha revealed that Motorola are shifting their focus away from Windows Mobile in favour of the Android platform.

Jha is quoted as saying that the Google Android platform is "more competitive" than the current Windows Mobile 6.

Motorola are expected to release an Android phone by the end of this year.