Motorola will launch new smartphones in the UK today with the hope of enticing new customers rather than focusing on getting people to switch from RIM's BlackBerry or Palm's Treo handsets.

"With the Moto Q we found that over 90 percent of people taking up the smartphone offering from Motorola in the US were new customers to the smartphone arena", a spokesman for Motorola told us.

The new model will come in two variants - the Q8 which is a GSM/EDGE enabled device and the Q9 - a HSDPA model for faster email and web access.

These two new editions follow the MOTO Q that launched in North America in 2006 and feature a full QWERTY keyboard, Windows Mobile 6.0 TM operating system along with a 2-megapixel camera.

The devices will also feature a series of shortcut buttons and be aimed at new smartphone users.

The devices, which are due out in the UK in late June/early July, will not sport Wi-Fi connectivity.