AT&T does a BackFlip for their first Android
Posted in News on March 17th, 2010 by gkrakow
Motorola’s new BackFlip smartphone is an odd duck. Not because it doesn’t perform its tasks in a proper manner but because it’s somewhat backwards.
The BackFlip is another “innovative” Android phone from Motorola – and the first with Google’s operating system to make it to AT&T.
It sports a 3.1-inch screen and a real QWERTY keyboard but both of those features are on the the outside of the handset’s case. The phone flips open so you can type and view the screen at the same time but when flipped closed you can use the standard Android on-screen keyboard leaving the hardware keyboard fully exposed.
After a year or two of banging around in a pocket or purse – or possibly falling off a nightstand – I wonder just how pretty your BackFlip will still look.
Behind the screen – accessible when the phone is flipped open – is a touch-pad controller/mouse of sorts. One finger lets you move from one screen to another. But movements on the back pad is a mirror image of finger movements on the front screen. What that means is – when you slide your finger to the right on the front the screen move to the right. When you slide your finger to the right on the back pad the screens move to the left.
I know it’s called a BackFlip but any new phone design which requires a long explanation about layout and navigation features is odd — to say the least.
The BackFlip features Motorola’s social networking themed home screen apps called MotoBlur. That means the phone runs on a slightly older version of the Android OS (1.5/Cupcake). Because it’s a two-part, flip open design the 15.3-ounce handset feels somewhat bulky/heavy in your hand despite its manageable overall size (2.0 by 4.25 by 0.6 inches).
Once you get past the oddities using the phone is very intuitive and fun. BackFlip There is everything else you would expectincluded in a modern-day, quad-band Android world phone including a 5.0-megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth and turn-by-turn GPS directions. There are also a slew of neat software titles like AT&T Maps, AT&T Music, GoogleTalk, Google Maps, MobiTV and lots more.
The BackFlip also seems to hold onto AT&T’s 3G data network signal a whole lot better than some of it’s better known competition (like the rival super smartphone designed by some Cupertino engineers). And, I haven’t dropped a voice call yet.
Back on the odd side of the equation, even though this is a Google/Android phone the home screen search engine features Yahoo Search. I told you this was an odd design.
AT&T and Motorola boast that the included battery pack offers up to 6-1/2 hours of talk and as much as 13.5 days of standby time per full recharge session. The key words here are “up to”. In real life light-to-moderate use (some voice, some messaging) expect to be able to squeeze a day’s worth of battery life out of your phone.
It looks like the best feature of the phone may be its price. AT&T is selling the Motorola BackFlip for $99.99 with a two-year service contract (a voice contract, $30 per month data contract and any activation charges). According to the AT&T Website that price breaks down to $199.99 minus a $100 online rebate.
Cell phones which sell for less than $100 are what fuels the cell phone industry and could help make this handset a big winner with customers. That should explain the overwhelmingly positive comments about the BackFlip on the AT&T Website