Why? Well, the CLIQ, or DEXT as it will be confusingly branded in the U.K., incorporates Motorola’s new “MotoBlur” service, which essentially corrals Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Picasa, GMail and MS Exchange activity into a single feed and presents them on your phone.

In form, the CLIQ is a sideways slider. Like the Palm (PALM) Pre, the device boasts a full touchscreen and QWERTY keyboard. It’s got a 320 x 480-pixel, 3.1-inch HVGA screen and a five-megapixel camera. The CLIQ is video-capable (play, stream and capture) and supports the broad spectrum of media formats. It runs Android 1.5 (Cupcake), and Motorola (MOT) claims a battery life of six hours.

Jha says the phone is not intended to be a single iconic device–like, say, Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone. Rather, it is the first of a broad line of handsets, all running Android and Motoblur, that will be targeted at different customer segments around the world.

A wise strategy in the current market? Who knows? But at least it’s a step in the right direction. Motorola clearly needs to do something to right itself after the past few disastrous years. Hard to believe the company controlled 16.1 percent of the global handset market just two years ago. It’s market share today? A modest 6.5 percent. The CLIQ will be sold through T-Mobile in the United States.

The device’s spec sheet below; click to enlarge.

More specifically, they’re buying fewer Motorola (MOT) phones. The company saw its share of the handset market fall to 21 percent from 32 percent a year ago. And that 11 percent loss was the competition’s gain. “Quarterly unit-sales of handsets fell to their lowest level since NPD begin tracking the category in 2005,” Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for NPD, said in a statement. “Even so, most major manufacturers picked up market share that was lost by Motorola.” And that’s left the market in a bit of a three-way tie. Samsung and LG each have 20 percent share to Motorola’s 21 percent. Bringing up the rear: Nokia (NOK) and RIM (RIM) with 9 percent and 7 percent respectively.

A few other data points worth noting: Consumers who actually bought handsets in the quarter paid an average of $84 for them. Of those handsets, 81 percent were Bluetooth-enabled, compared with 69 percent last year. And 65 percent were music-enabled, compared with only 45 percent last year. Finally, sales of handsets with a QWERTY keyboard rose to 28 percent from 12 percent. So while Americans may be purchasing few cellphones, the ones they are buying are more feature-rich and more expensive.

So there is some merit to those early concerns about the device’s virtual keyboard after all. But just a bit. Because the methodology of User Centric’s study didn’t allow for much of a learning curve.

A total of 20 participants were brought in for one-on-one usability sessions with a moderator. All sent text messages at least 15 times per week. Ten of the participants owned a phone with a QWERTY keypad, and ten of the participants owned a phone with a numeric keypad. … During each session, participants were required to use their own phones. In addition, they were provided with an iPhone for use during the study. None of the participants were iPhone owners. … Although participants were given one minute to familiarize themselves with the iPhone’s touch keyboard, their texting abilities on the iPhone were still at the novice level.”

In other words, User Centric’s study of iPhone keyboard usability didn’t account for improvement over time, which most reviewers, and even Apple CEO Steve Jobs himself, have said is essential to its mastery.

“The iPhone has the best, most advanced keyboard in any mobile device,” Jobs told Walt Mossberg back in June. “Like all small keyboards, it takes three or four days to get used to. IPhone users will quickly learn to trust its intelligence to correct their mistakes automatically. So far, everyone who has used it loves it and reports that they are typing as fast or faster than they did on their Treo or BlackBerry or other smart phone. … We think the iPhone’s keyboard is one of its greatest assets and competitive advantages.”