Google's flexible operating system for mobiles lets phone manufactures do some funky things with their devices, but you probably won't find a quirkier Android handset than the Motorola Backflip.
As its name hints, this smart phone has a keyboard that flips out. The catch is that it flips in reverse; the keyboard actually faces out when closed. You'll instinctively want to snap it shut with screen against board, but trust me; it doesn't work.
There are a few apparent reasons for this seemingly odd engineering decision. Perhaps the most obvious is that it creates a built-in stand so you can watch videos more easily on the phone's relatively small but pleasantly crisp 3.1-inch 480-by-320 pixel touch display.
Another effect of the reverse design is that the keyboard and display snap to a gentle angle that feels ideal for thumb typing. Sliding keyboards typically keep the screen on a level plain with the board, and traditional clamshells sometimes see users monkeying with screen position. These aren't issues here.
It also allows the Backflip's five-megapixel camera with LED flash to be placed on the keyboard. This location makes no difference most of the time, but you'll appreciate it when it comes time to snap a self-portrait since it allows you to frame yourself on the screen.
Of course, with the keyboard constantly exposed it has to be a bit more rugged. Its membrane keys are hard and smooth, but also sometimes difficult to tell apart by touch alone. I'm a slow enough thumb typist that it didn't affect me, but I wouldn't be surprised if it caused texting speedsters used to more tactile keys to make a few typos.
The Backflip's other noticeably idiosyncratic feature is a trackpad on the back of the screen, which I really enjoyed using. It lets users scroll through messages, emails, and menu selections without running their fingers down the screen and blocking what they're trying to see -- a problem that could be a bit more apparent with this handset than other smart phones given its slightly smaller display.
Once you train yourself to interact with the back of the screen (which is a bit weird at first) it works as well as one might hope and essentially serves as a mouse scroll wheel in most situations. The only downfall is that the keyboard has to be open in order to use the trackpad.
The rest of the hardware is about what you'd expect of an Android device. A power button and headphone jack are on the top, a charging port, volume rocker, and dedicated shutter release button reside on the right edge, and a trio of navigation buttons sit below the screen.
Moving to firmware, the Backflip runs on Android 1.5, which means some of the Android Market's newer apps won't work (alas, I really wanted to give Google Goggles -- a search app that uses pictures snapped with a phone's camera in place of text queries-a go, but it requires Android 1.6 and above).
Still, Android 1.5 is good enough for the app that Motorola is most interested in pushing: Motoblur, a proprietary social networking hub, and the sort of program that seems all the rage amongst Android handset makers these days.
Motoblur fills your desktop with the latest updates and messages from a wide variety of social networking clients, including Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace, as well as emails, texts, and instant messages. It also lets you post status updates of your own to all or select services.
It's useful, but I found the boxes of text on the home screen a bit less elegant and organized than Sony Ericsson's Timescape, which I tried via the Xperia X10 a month or so ago. I ended up ignoring the desktop most of the time and just tapping the "Happenings" icon in the apps menu, which provides a tidier chronological list of recent posts and status updates.
Of course, the Backflip isn't just an app-running, video-playing, keyboard-equipped camera. It's also a phone, and a pretty good one at that.
Motoblur automatically imports your contacts across multiple services -- e-mail, social networks, etc. -- and puts them in a single book, where you can customize each contact as you like. It also backs everything up in the cloud. Should you ever lose your phone you can restore everything on your new handset in seconds.
And when you get one of your contacts on the line you'll likely be impressed with the call quality, thanks to a bit of dual-microphone noise cancellation wizardry that works to cut out background sounds and brings voices to the fore.
I didn't conduct any formal battery drain tests, but I did use the phone on a business trip that saw me making plenty of calls and constantly checking e-mail. I never had to stop to recharge in the middle of the day, but the battery was pretty much depleted by the time I arrived back in my hotel room at night. The fact sheet Motorola provided me states that they rate the Backflip for up to eight hours of talk time and 293 hours in standby mode.
The Backflip isn't the best Android phone I've tried, but I liked it. The non-traditional hardware felt strange at first, but quickly grew on me. Motoblur could use some fine tuning, but it met my admittedly modest social networking needs well enough. And I have no complaints regarding its performance as a phone. If Motorola upgrades the operating system and tweaks its social networking hub, and the Backflip could be a real Android contender.