For the most part, first impressions of Motorola's recently launched Droid X have been largely positive, but it's the eFuse chip contained inside that's getting all the attention. As was reported all over the place last week, modders who muck with the device's bootloader will set off the chip and end up with a bricked smartphone for their trouble, but that's all a bunch of hogwash, says Motorola, who set out to clear the air.

"Motorola's primary focus is the security of our end users and protection of their data, while also meeting carrier, partner, and legal requirements," Motorola wrote in an email to Engadget. The Droid X and a majority of Android consumer devices on the market today have a secured bootloader. In reference specifically to eFuse, the technology is not loaded with the purpose of preventing a consumer device from functioning, but rather ensuring for the user that the device only runs on updated and tested versions of software. If a device attempts to boot with unapproved software, it will go into recovery mode, and can reboot once approved software is reinstalled."

In other words, altering the phone's firmware won't result in a dead device like many had feared, but it does sound as though the Droid X will be harder to hack than other smartphones. Does that mean it will be impossible? We highly doubt it, given the modding community's never-die attitude, especially now that we know the Droid X isn't any danger of dying either.

Motorola late last week announced a surprisingly sleek looking smartphone designed for the Enterprise, the ES4000 Enterprise Digital Assistant (EDA).

"Motorola recognizes that mobile teams are the lifeblood of an organization, and empowering these teams with unmatched features and functionality to eliminate road blocks in the field is critical to an organization," said Gene Delaney, president, Motorola Enterprise Mobility Solutions. "The new ES400 EDA combines the best features of mobility, communications and task functionality without compromising performance or design – offering mobile workforces the ability to take action and capture information with a single click – in front of the customer where it counts most."

Featuring a 3-inch VGA screen and full QWERTY keyboard, the ES4000 comes built around Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.5 platform. Powering the device is an ARM 11 processor (MSM 7627) clocked at 600MHz, along with 256MB of memory and 1GB of internal Flash storage (upgradeable to 32GV via microSD card slot).

Motorola said it will ship the ES4000 later this year for an as-yet undetermined price.

Motorola's new Flipout (or FLIPOUT, if you prefer Motorola's penchant for all-caps) phone is not for squares, it's just shaped like one. Built around Google's Android 2.1 platform and sporting a pivot design, you'll find a five-row QWERTY keyboard underneath with a separate row for numeric keys. One look at the device and you can tell that it's, well, different.

"Flipout merges Motorola’s design heritage with Android to deliver a new take on the typical smartphone form. In an incredibly compact square, Flipout fits neatly in your palm, purse or small pocket, making it fun and easy to stay connected while on the go," said Ralf Gerbershagen, vice president and GM, Mobile Devices, Western Europe, Motorola. "For fans of social networking, Flipout also features enhancements to Motoblur, allowing users to connect with their networks however they want."

With Motoblur, users will be able to sync contacts, posts, messages, photos, and more from social destinations like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Gmail, and even last.fm. In other words, Motorola is targeting the same demographic as Microsoft is with its competing Kin phones.

On the hardware front, the Flipout includes a 2.8-inch touchscreen display, 3MP camera, Wi-Fi, 512MB of internal storage, microSD card slot (supports up to 32GB), Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, and 3G connectivity.

Europe will get first crack at the Flipout starting this month before it heads stateside.