Motorola Citrus

Motorola Citrus Review

Motorola has released what is being called the world’s first “eco friendly” phone. The Motorola Citrus is now available through Verizon Wireless. The phone is considered “eco friendly” because it is made of 25% recycled material, and contains no PVC or BFR. The Citrus is packaged in an eco friendly box, and is certified to be a “carbon free” item, as Motorola takes documented measures to offset the carbon dioxide emissions from the manufacturing, distribution, and usage of the phone throughout its lifetime.

In addition to this phone being easy on the environment, it’s also pretty easy on the wallet as well. You can get a Citrus for a mere $50 after rebate at Verizon if you sign a two-year contract. That is dirt cheap for a brand new Android phone.

Is this a superphone to compete with the Droid, Evo, or HTC Droid Incredible --which is the best of the HTC line in terms of repair ability and therefore green friendly phones? No, of course it’s not, but it does pack a pretty big punch for its size and price. What remains to be seen is how modular it is (ease of repair) because Motorola Droid repair can range from difficult to sort of difficult. So if it is difficult to repair than it's hard to call it eco-friendly.

The small size and curved body of the phone makes it fit into hand and pocket very easily, and the 3 inch screen has full multi touch capability, with an on-screen keyboard that can be used in portrait or landscape.  As seen with the earlier Motorola Backflip, the Citrus also includes the BACKTRACK touch panel on the back side of the phone.  This is a finger pad, much like a smaller version of your laptop’s touchpad, that is placed on the back of the phone so you can scroll and navigate without having to touch the actual screen or a joystick on the front of the phone. This device comes in handy on the Citrus, given the small size of the phone.

The Citrus includes a standard 3 Megapixel camera with digital zoom and autofocus. The camera can also be utilized for video capture. I wouldn’t expect this feature on a low end phone like this, but the Citrus does include Wi-Fi. It also includes Bluetooth, which is becoming standard on all phones anymore. There is 2GB of onboard storage on the Citrus, with the capacity for a microSD card of up to 32GB. The phone boasts pretty good battery life:  up to 300 hours of standby, and 380 minutes of talk time. The Citrus ships with Android OS 2.1 (Éclair) installed. I have not seen any indications of a planned update to Android 2.2 (Froyo), but given this is a new phone, it wouldn’t surprise me if the phone receives Froyo in the near future.

All in all, this seems like a pretty good entry-level Android phone that picks up where other entry level handsets, such as the Droid Eris, left off.  If you’re in the market for a cheap Android option, or just like a smaller phone and don’t need a whole lot of power…. Of if you care deeply about the environment, then I would recommend the Motorola Citrus to you.