Box View

SingTel send me the Motorola BackFlip for a review last month but because of my busy schedule I can only review it till recently. I apologize for the delay. I will be only covering the physical aspect of the phone because in terms of OS and software it is very similar to the Motorola Dext which I reviewed 5 months ago.

Package Content

If you notice the battery cover comes separately in the package instead of being pre-fixed to the back of the phone.

Back View

I would consider the Motorola BackFlip a form factor of its own because it is neither a candybar phone, sliding phone or a flip phone. The reason it is called a BackFlip because at the back instead of the usual battery cover, you will see a keyboard and the keyboard can be flipped so that it is directly below the screen.

Keyboard And Screen

Trackpad

Once you did that, the hidden trackpad at the back of the screen is revealed. You can use the trackpad to navigate around the phone. It takes quite sometime to get used to. Because of the trackpad, the Motorola BackFlip has 3 forms on input method, touch screen, QWERTY keyboard and trackpad. I would say it is an overkill because I don’t think you can move the mouse cursor faster than you tap on the screen.

Keyboard

The keyboard does not have any gap because most of the time it will be facing down on a table and having gaps means dust and even bits of food will get into the keyboard (like our desktop’s keyboard, I know we all eat in front of our computer at one point). The keyboard provide moderate tactile feedback but it felt a little stiff when typing on it. The camera and LED flash light is located on the keyboard also put placed at the top. It looks pretty well camouflage.

USB Port Light

Charging

When your battery is getting weaker, it will prompt you to charge via blinking the light around the micro USB port. When it is being charged, the light will be lighted permanently. I think that is a pretty cool feature.

The review unit that I received is still Android 1.5, but no worries as it is upgradeable to Android 2.1 when it is make available by Motorola. I can’t seem to find any difference in terms of hardware when compared to the Motorola Dext. The battery of Motorola BackFlip is 20mAh lesser than the DEXT which I don’t think it will be that noticeable. Similar to the DEXT, navigating around the BackFlip is laggy as well and all the cons about MOTOBLUR platform that I mentioned in my Motorola Dext review are still present. Pretty disappointed with that. Common Motorola, I believed you can do better than that!

You can get the Motorola BackFlip exclusively from SingTel Hello Stores or SingTelShop.com for SGD$248 with a monthly subscription plan of SGD$39.00 (3G Flexi-Lite AMPed) or for just SGD$98 with a monthly subscription plan of SGD$55.99 (3G Flexi-AMPed).

Official Site: Motorola BackFlip
SingTel Site: Motorola with SingTel

Motorola DEXT with MOTOBLUR
The Motorola DEXT is the “social” phone from Motorola and another SingTel exclusive phone, similar to what INQ is doing with it’s Mini 3G and Chat 3G. Motorola took a new approach and created its own service called MOTOBLUR. Just imagine Apple’s MobileMe and MOTOBLUR is the Motorola’s version. Similar to MobileMe where it can track your phone and remotely wipes its data, you can do that using MOTOBLUR as well. You can do so by logging into MyMOTOBLUR and from there you can “Locate Your Phone”, “Delete Data” and even perform an OTA “Import Contacts” to your Motorola DEXT from a CSV file. Pretty impressive and best of all, this service is 100% FREE. I tried the “Locate Your Phone” feature and it works perfectly, I am pretty amazed!

Even though is my first time reviewing/playing with an Android mobile phone, I will not be touching any of the default Android stuff aka Google stuff. I shall be focusing on the enhancement Motorola did with Android. I would like to apologize first if some of the stuff I mention are part of Android instead of an enhancement by Motorola.

Specifications

• OS: Android 1.5 (Cupcake)
• Input: QWERTY slider with Touch Screen
• Display: 320 x 480 pixels, 187 DPI; 3.1 inch HVGA screen
• Battery: 1420 mAh lithium polymer
• Standby Time: up to 325 hrs / 13.5 days
• Talk Time: up to 360 min / 6 hrs
• Camera: 5.0MP with Auto Focus
• Bluetooth: 2.0+EDR, stereo Bluetooth
• WiFi: 802.11 b,g
• Headset jack: 3.5mm audio jack
• Connector Type: MicroUSB 2.0 high-speed
• Weight: 163g
• Size: 114mm (H) x 58mm (W) x 15.6mm (D)
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor
• Network: WCDMA 900/1700/2100, GSM 850/900/1800/1900, HSDPA 7.2 Mbps (Category 7/8), EDGE, GPRS Class 12, AGPS
• Built-in Memory: 256MB + 2GB MicroSD bundled
• Removable Memory: MicroSD up to 32GB

For more detailed specifications, check out the Official Motorola DEXT Specifications Page.

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