Criteria
Comments
Rating
- Reception and call quality No comments
- Display No comments
- Battery life No comments
- Camera No comments
- Ease of use No comments
- Design and form factor No comments
- Portability (size / weight) No comments
- Media support No comments
- Durability No comments
- Ecosystem (apps, accessories, etc.) No comments
Detailed review
Well I went out and bought 2 Motorola Backflip's the day they came out. One for me and one for my wife. I was eager to get on the Android bandwagon on AT&T's 3G network. Having had a T-Mobile version of the Nexus One I knew what the speed that 1Ghz processor provided. The Backflip is usable but it is no speed demon.
The design is good, I absolutely love the reversed keyboard design which gives you a much larger keyboard. It took me a day or two to get used to a hardware keyboard after coming from an iPhone 3G and a Nexus One. The camera on the keyboard is great. Great for self portraits... if your into that kinda thing. But I did find a use for it the other day, and that is self video recording. Why would you want to record yourself on your phone? I found it useful to record short messages and send them to your friend and family. I had a few people wondering how I did that on my phone. The Backflip easily allows you to send the recorded video in a MMS, Email, ect. If the front facing camera becomes popular in Android phones, think of the possibility of 2 way video chat over 3G or WiFi.
Software wise the Backflip comes with Android 1.5 running the MOTO BLUR skin/OS. They say that it is upgradable to 2.1... But when? If this phone was released 9 months ago it running 1.5 wouldn't have been such an issue. But now that there has been 3 major updates to Android 1.6, 2.0, and 2.1. Why no 2.1 Motorola? It's almost like selling a new computer with Windows 2000 or Mac OS X 1.4 Tiger...
And for all the bloatware that AT&T adds into the phone when they sell it. You shouldn't be mad at the phone or Motorola for this. AT&T adds all that crap to the phone, puts the restrictions of not allowing non Android Market applications to be installed, and doesn't allow you to change the default search away from Yahoo!. Motorola sells the phone on their site for $500 without all these AT&T restrictions on it. AT&T sells the phone for $100 after a $100 mail in rebate or $350 unsubsidized. I went with paying the $350 instead of the $500 because when I pay $500 for a phone I better be getting Nexus One material, not a 9 month old phone.
If you have any questions just ask.
The design is good, I absolutely love the reversed keyboard design which gives you a much larger keyboard. It took me a day or two to get used to a hardware keyboard after coming from an iPhone 3G and a Nexus One. The camera on the keyboard is great. Great for self portraits... if your into that kinda thing. But I did find a use for it the other day, and that is self video recording. Why would you want to record yourself on your phone? I found it useful to record short messages and send them to your friend and family. I had a few people wondering how I did that on my phone. The Backflip easily allows you to send the recorded video in a MMS, Email, ect. If the front facing camera becomes popular in Android phones, think of the possibility of 2 way video chat over 3G or WiFi.
Software wise the Backflip comes with Android 1.5 running the MOTO BLUR skin/OS. They say that it is upgradable to 2.1... But when? If this phone was released 9 months ago it running 1.5 wouldn't have been such an issue. But now that there has been 3 major updates to Android 1.6, 2.0, and 2.1. Why no 2.1 Motorola? It's almost like selling a new computer with Windows 2000 or Mac OS X 1.4 Tiger...
And for all the bloatware that AT&T adds into the phone when they sell it. You shouldn't be mad at the phone or Motorola for this. AT&T adds all that crap to the phone, puts the restrictions of not allowing non Android Market applications to be installed, and doesn't allow you to change the default search away from Yahoo!. Motorola sells the phone on their site for $500 without all these AT&T restrictions on it. AT&T sells the phone for $100 after a $100 mail in rebate or $350 unsubsidized. I went with paying the $350 instead of the $500 because when I pay $500 for a phone I better be getting Nexus One material, not a 9 month old phone.
If you have any questions just ask.
good review!
1 person found this review helpful