Motorola kicked off 2012 by announcing the arrival of both the Motorola Defy Mini and Motorola Motoluxe budget Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) handsets and Pocket-lint's eagle eyes spotted the latter tucked away on the soon-to-be Google owned company's booth over in Vegas at CES. It was only right a proper then that we gave it a quick run for its (not much) money.

The Motorola Motoluxe is the larger of the two low-end offerings that was announced, coming with a 4-inch touchscreen display. The resolution isn't exactly high end but, for a handset that is likely to hit the bottom end of the market, 480 x 854 is none too shabby either and it held up well in the bizarre lighting inside the Las Vegas Convention Centre.

It is powered by a single-core 800MHz processor and 512MB of RAM which proved sufficient for basic app running and watching back a bit of stored video. 

It boasts an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with autofocus and an LED flash and we also quite liked the funky illuminated lanyard slot that gives a different colour indication depending on whether you've received a text, missed a call or have an email waiting. We managed to get it glowing a cool blue and a vibrant green and both were clear.

There's a front-facing camera for video calling too and its 1400 mAh battery offers up to 6.5 hours of talk time or 19 days of standby time. It will be available in liquorice or white colour schemes, we're guessing the black one we tested was liquorice.

Still no official release details but, as ever, we'll keep you posted.