Motorola BACKFLIP

Motorola, a company that has seen better days, has largely placed its corporate bet that the Android smartphone operating system is going to be a big winner. As such, the company has put out an impressive number of Android-powered smartphones in the past 6 months. The BACKFLIP for AT&T, the subject of this review, shares much in terms of hardware specs and software with other MOTOBLUR-equipped Android smartphones from Motorola, like the CLIQ and DEVOUR.

Size and Weight :

It only weighs 141.7g (5.0oz) and measures a respectable 112.5mm x 53mm x 16.5mm (4.4in x 2.1in x .6in) adds further to the good feelings I have for the hardware design as a whole. the full handset 53mm width is on offer and 108mm in length.

Network and connectivity:

The Motorola Backflip is a quad-band GSM phone with support for the 850/1900/2100MHz 3G bands (coincidentally, AT&T's 3G bands), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS. There’s triband 7.2Mbps WCDMA (850/1900/2100) and quadband GSM/EDGE, along with WiFi b/g and Bluetooth, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Camera and Video:

The Backflip’s camera is unsurprisingly positioned at an odd location. It’s at the bottom left corner of the keyboard. It’s definitely a concern that extended use may result in faster wear and tear for the camera’s lens. As for the technology behind it, it’s a 5 megapixel camera with a 4x digital zoom. A built-in flash also helps improve images taken in low-light situations. The camera app starts within 5 seconds or so. The viewfinder is surprisingly responsive. Snapping a shot takes a second longer than it probably should, possibly leading distortion from movement. The auto focus fixes in on an object quickly and even makes a great device for self-portraits since the camera flips over along with the keyboard.

Memory and Display:

The Backflip sports a 3.1 inch, 256k TFT touch screen with a 320-by-480 pixel resolution. It’s the same resolution as the iPhone but on a slightly smaller screen. Unfortunately, it can’t compare to the responsiveness, quality, or clarity of an iPhone’s display. Colors don’t look great, it isn’t easily visible under bright light, and is a bit too small. At the least, Motorola took some right steps by treating it with scratch-resistant finish since it’s exposed at all times. The glossy screen attracts smudges, fingerprints, and grime just like every other modern gizmo on the market. The included 2GB card doesn’t offer much storage for either images, videos, or music, however it’s easily expandable up to 32GB. The interface offers some options to control the flash, enable geotagging, and use some color effects.

Entertainment Features:

The special features of this handset are Digital compass, Noise cancellation with dedicated microphone, Google Maps with Street View. The media player supports MP3/eAAC+/WAV/WMA9 & MP4/H.264/H.263/WMV9. MOTOBLUR offers AT&T customers a new way to connect to their favorite people, content and applications, whether it’s work or personal email, messaging or social networking. Motorola’s exclusive Android experience syncs contacts, posts, messages, photos and much more from sources such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Gmail, Picasa, work and personal e-mail, and Last.fm and automatically delivers them to live widgets for immediate reply, right from the home screen. And, for customers who prefer multi-tasking, AT&T’s 3G network offers the added advantage of talking and surfing the Web and accessing applications at the same time. YouTube videos play in the proper orientation, but they're hideously low-res. MP4 videos had lip-sync problems, the Backflip doesn't support H.264, and AT&T's MobiTV program crashed multiple times.

While Motorola tried with the Backflip, it simply isn’t a viable option for AT&T customers. Unless there’s a person that absolutely needs the Android OS and can’t leave AT&T, there’s no reason to buy this.