In a Thursday announcement, Motorola said that its new touchscreen phone 'Cliq' will be available in the fourth quarter this year.

Noting that the Cliq will be Motorola's first handset based on the Google Android operating system, Sanjay Jha, co-CEO of Motorola, said that the phone will be available from T-Mobile USA; and will also be introduced with Orange in France and the UK; América Móvil in Latin America; and Telefónica in Spain.

The Cliq, unveiled by Motorola at the Mobilize conference in San Francisco, would use Motorola's forthcoming Internet-based service, the innovative MotoBlur, which combines information from the users' contacts on diverse social-networking services, like Twitter, and MySpace.

In addition, the open source Google Android operating system, which gives the Motorola Cliq a robust interface, featuring tools that are comparable to the leading smartphones, would help boost sales and revenue figures for Motorola.

The other notable features of the Cliq include 320-by-480-pixel display; a slide-out QWERTY keyboard; 2GB MicroSD card; Wi-Fi; 3G connectivity; 5-megapixel camera; and a standard 3.5mm headphone jack. The smartphone, which also boasts of GPS and Google Maps with Street View, would provide six hours of talk time and 325 hours of standby time.

Cole Brodman, Senior VP at T-Mobile USA, said that all applications available on the Android Market will work on the Cliq, which will be called the 'Dext' in other markets.