Motorola BACKFLIP review, Price, pictures, Details, model specifications
Android elders must be staring at this one in disbelief. Looking down at it for all we know, measuring it up. What about the BACKFLIP? We guess it’s exactly the kind of gadget to stare back, humble but defiant.
Android was a life-saving blood transfusion for Motorola. Not only did the MILESTONE put them back on the map – it gave them a license to experiment. They didn’t think twice to take it. So here we are, watching the BACKFLIP do the robot dance. This one is no ordinary droid, though at first it might look like a faithful follower of the G1. QWERTY keyboards fell out of Android favor soon after the G1 but we’re witnessing a strong comeback, much credit for which goes to Motorola.
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So, QWERTY it is but the Motorola BACKFLIP wants to have it its own way. So much so that it doesn’t seem to care what you think. Unique as in “shame no one thought of it before” or in a freak of nature sort of way, the BACKFLIP won’t leave you indifferent. It’s got a one-of-a-kind form factor written into its name but the whole backflip thing seems to serve a higher purpose than simply drawing attention to an otherwise ordinary package.
It all makes sense once you’ve used the BACKFLIP for a while. The uniquely folding full QWERTY keyboard, the BACKTRACK touchpad and the capacitive touchscreen are all there to put you in control. It’s an unusual phone to interact with but in a good way. On the inside, premium connectivity options are standard here, but the earliest Android version does sound underwhelming. It has the social-networking-centric Motoblur on top and that makes sense in a QWERTY-enabled midrange smartphone. More importantly though, the promised Android upgradeability makes the BACKFLIP likely to stick around.
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Key features
- Unique form factor and sturdy build quality
- Quad-band GSM and tri-band 3G support (7.2 Mbps HSDPA)
- 3.1″ 256K-color 320×480 pixel capacitive touchscreen
- Android OS v1.5 (upgradeable to later versions) with MOTOBLUR UI and Live Widgets
- Folding four-row QWERTY keyboard
- BACKTRACK touchpad at the back of the screen
- Qualcomm MSM7201A 528 MHz processor; 256 MB of RAM
- 5 MP autofocus camera with LED flash and geotagging
- CIF (352 × 288 pixel) video recording @ 30fps
- Wi-Fi and GPS with A-GPS
- 512MB storage, microSD slot, bundled with a 2GB card
- Accelerometer and proximity sensor
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
- microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v2.1
- Noise cancellation with a dedicated microphone
- Office document viewer
Main disadvantages
- Poor sunlight legibility
- No multi-touch
- One-finger zoom works only on the BACKTRACK touchpad
- No smart and voice dialing
- Limited camera features, lens on the QWERTY keyboard
- No free GPS navigation solution
- No Flash support for the web browser
- No FM radio
- No DivX and XviD video playback
- Below par audio quality
Everyone is keen to make Android phones, but Motorola seem to know how to make a difference. The BACKFLIP hits the right spot and the novel form factor puts together standard navigation tools to offer unique handling. The back-folding keyboard may look like a questionable choice, but it won’t take you long to reconsider.
The BACKTRACK touchpad at the back of the screen is another nice touch. It does what a front-mounted trackball will do but on the BACKFLIP you scratch the phone’s back instead. Anyway, effectively you have three different ways to interact with the handset: touchscreen, touchpad and a full QWERTY keyboard. Just imagine BACKTRACK on a transparent display – wicked stuff. But who knows maybe that’s where it’s all heading.
Well, we for one are not going anywhere before we’ve seen all of the BACKFLIP.
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Design and construction (continued)
Unfolding the phone reveals the neat rear – the actual back of this two-faced handset. The back of the keyboard is the battery cover, which is a breeze to open and fit back in place thanks to the nice release knob. Under the thin metal cover are the battery and SIM compartment, along with the microSD slot.
The memory card slot is hot-swappable but getting there involves an extra step: you need to unfold the keyboard to release the cover and handle the card.
User interface: Android in a BLUR
The Motorola BACKFLIP comes with the version 1.5 of the Android OS, which seems a bit outdated now that version 2.1 is already available on several handsets. However, the MOTOBLUR UI that comes preinstalled is quite a nice add-on and some (social-networking addicts mostly) might even prefer the BACKFLIP software to, say, the MILESTONE package (Android 2.1 and no MOTOBLUR).
Of course, having them both would be getting the best of both worlds but this is still not an option as MOTOBLUR isn’t available for Android 2.1 just yet.
The homescreen of the Motorola BACKFLIP is pretty much stock Android at first sight but the MOTOBLUR custom widgets make it even easier than before to stay on top of your favorite social networks and emails. Facebook, MySpace and Twitter all have their reserved spots by default on one of the five homescreen panes.
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Telephony does well
We had little issues with the signal reception and in-call voice quality of the Motorola BACKFLIP. The phone’s earpiece is loud and clear enough and the volume in loudspeaker mode is good enough in most scenarios.
Messaging all set and ready to go
Messaging is definitely among the Motorola BACKFLIP and MOTOBLUR elements. The UI adds a consolidated inbox to let you see all new stuff without needing to browse several apps.
Refreshed image gallery
Motorola BACKFLIP brings a new gallery view mode, which looks pretty attractive. The 3D effects and smooth scrolling add to a pretty pleasing user experience in general.
Video playback: troubling Androids since 2008
Video files can be accessed either by clicking the videos shortcut in the image gallery or by launching the dedicated app from the main menu. The video browser is identical to the image gallery and the player is pretty much standard Android stuff.
This is pretty bad news as video playback is probably the weakest point in the otherwise multimedia-friendly Android OS. The poor codec support maxes out at H.264 so DivX and XviD videos need to be converted for playback.
The performance is decent but the interface is as basic as it gets. You get a scrollable video timeline, fast-forward, rewind and play/pause keys and that’s that. No aspect ratio settings, no subtitle support, no nothing.
Music player does the job, barely
The music player on the Motorola BACKFLIP is hardly affected by the MOTOBLUR UI and this is another piece of bad news as the Android music player is anything but perfect. The core functionality is all there and the looks aren’t half as bad as the video player either, but there is still some catching up to do before it matches the best in class.
Poor audio quality
Unfortunately the Motorola BACKFLIP doesn’t have particularly good audio output to boast about. Its loudness is decent and the frequency response is spot-on and the distortion levels are kept well under control but the noise levels (or otherwise said, the signal-to-noise ratio) and the dynamic range are plain poor.
The result is higher than usual background noise bringing us back in the days of analogue tapes. Of course the BACKFLIP isn’t that bad (the usual signal/noise ratio of a tape is 40 to 50 dB) but it isn’t much better either.
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Uninspiring camera
The Motorola BACKFLIP comes with a 5 megapixel camera for a maximum resolution of 2560 x 1920 pixels. A LED flash is also mounted next to the lens to assist low-light performance but its effective range is pretty limited so miracles aren’t to be expected.
The camera interface in Android versions prior to 2.0 is virtually non-existent. Not to mention flash support was only added in Android 2.0. So we gotta give it to Motorola for coming up with their own camera UI for the BACKFLIP.
Disappointing video recording
The Motorola BACKLFLIP is even worse in terms of video recording. The phone captures CIF video at 30 fps, which is barely good for anything else than the occasional MMS.
The camcorder interface is almost identical to the still camera’s. It sports a setting for picking video quality, color effects, autofocus and white balance.
Good all-round connectivity
True to its smartphone nature, the Motorola BACKFLIP offers excellent connectivity. The quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE ensure worldwide roaming capabilities while the tri-band 3G (850/1900/2100 MHz) comes with 7.2Mbps HSDPA
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 as well as USB v2.0 take care of the local connectivity. Bluetooth support is far from being so good though. It’s limited to headset use and does not support file transfers. At least the A2DP support is there.
You can also make use of the hot-swap microSD card slot by pairing it with a card-reader to get some pretty impressive data transfer speeds. Unfortunately we didn’t find a tethering option in the BACKFLIP menus.
Browser lacks Flash, the trackpad isn’t very useful
The Android web browser has always been good, although the newer version we’ve seen on Android 2.0 has a better, more intuitive UI. Still, the Motorola BACKFLIP browser renders most pages flawlessly and is very snappy.
The BACKFLIP doesn’t have pinch zooming, despite its capacitive display, so instead it relies on the +/- zoom buttons and the magnifying glass feature.
Organizer is good, views Office documents
The Motorola BACKFLIP comes with a nicely stocked organizer and that includes document viewer, which sometimes gets left out on Androids.
The document viewer in question is Quickoffice and it has support for viewing document files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF, including the Office 2007 versions). For editing, you will need to get the paid app.
GPS navigation doesn’t do voice-guidance
The Motorola BACKFLIP comes with a built-in GPS receiver. It took a couple of minutes to get lock but it did even without A-GPS help. Positioning was quite accurate too.
Google Maps is a standard part of the Android package and of course makes an appearance on the Motorola BACKFLIP as well. Its voice-guided navigation version, the Google Maps Navigation is available only in the US, but even without Navigation, there is some kind of guidance: your route and current location appear on the screen so you’ll reach your destination eventually.
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