Motorola Backflip (AT&T)

Call quality: We found call quality on the Motorola Backflip to be pretty good: we could hear callers clearly and callers had no problem hearing us as well. It’s easy enough to adjust the cell phone’s volume with the corresponding buttons on the side of the Backflip. We particularly like the voice activated call feature built into the cell phone keypad. It looks a lot like the RSS reader icon, but it works great. Additionally, there was no degradation in call quality when we used a Bluetooth headset, and we could still hear callers in a noisy environment, such as a crowded store.

Audio quality: The playback of music on the Motorola Backflip speaker is solid; songs sounded loud, but not distorted or too tinny. The Backflip sports a 3.5mm headset jack so you can use your own high-end headphones to listen to music stored on the Backflip, however, unless they are also cell phone compatible you won’t be able to take calls. Music sounded even better when listened through a pair of 3.5mm headphones. The Motorola Backflip also supports stereo Bluetooth so if you prefer to go wireless, you can always listen to tunes via an optional Bluetooth-enabled stereo headset.

Menu/phone book: The Motorola Backflip runs Google Android OS 1.5, so it’s the same as the version found on the Motorola Cliq. It also has another feature found on the Cliq and the Motorola Devour, Motoblur. This is Motorola’s social media interface. Just enter information for many of your social media accounts such as Twitter and MySpace and updates will appear on the screen in real time. Not interested in Motoblur? No worries you can use one of the other 5 screens as your home screen and never really have to see the Motoblur interface.

The Google user interface is fairly straightforward and icon friendly. To access the cell phone’s applications simply select the up arrow key and they’ll appear. Here are a few things to note about navigation. If you’re in a screen and want to go back to the previous screen simply press the back arrow. If you want to exit a program simply press the button with a picture of a house, since you can’t manually quit applications running on the Motorola Backflip. For the most part, this is not an issue. Whenever you’re in an application and want to do more press the Menu key (it’s the button with four squares and one is darkened) and a set of options will appear.

The Google Android OS is really all about having all your contact information in one spot and constantly synched. When we say all your contact information we mean all – including social networking sites, multiple e-mail accounts, messaging (messaging is threaded – so you can see a complete text message conversation in one view), and even photo services where you may have accounts created. You can add all pertinent account information easily when you set up the device. If you want to sync with your computer simply connect it via the included USB synching cable and it will appear as an additional drive on your desktop, making it easy to drag and drop files from a computer to the cell phone’s 2GB MicroSD card included in the box.

Messaging: The Motorola Backflip can handle multiple e-mail accounts either corporate e-mail or web-based e-mail. We did find the mail feature is more of a nice way to stay up to date on incoming mail, but that’s about it. For example, if you delete a mail on the cell phone it doesn’t delete in the account and vice-versa (at least that’s the case for the POP3 e-mail), so there’s a lot of repetition.

Camera/video: The Motorola Backflip has a 5-megapixel camera with a flash, but lacks a tiny mirror for snapping self portraits. The camera is technically on the back of the cell phone, however, since the keyboard is also technically the backside of the cell phone when it’s closed, the lens and flash are located in the corner of the QWERTY keypad. This means you can take self-portraits if the keyboard is open. However, the shutter isn’t exactly what we’d call speedy. Overall, picture quality is impressive. Images are crisp and colors are true. Once you snap a picture, you can save it, trash it, or share it to a multitude of sites including Flickr, Facebook, Motoblur, Picassa, and various messaging options. There are a few camera settings including Zoom, Color Effects (Sepia, Negative, Black and White, Blackboard, Whiteboard, Solarize, and Aqua), White Balance and you can also tag the location of where you take pictures.

Additionally, you can view and shoot videos on the cell phone. Shooting videos is pretty easy and the quality is actually pretty good. However, you’re probably going to enjoy watching videos you download or stream from the Internet over a WiFi connection.

Music: As noted, the Motorola Backflip has a music player. You can listen to songs stored in MP3, AAC (Apple’s audio format), and WMA (Microsoft’s audio format) formats. There aren’t many music-centric features included in the player, but it has the ones we’ve come to expect: Repeat, Shuffle, and Playlists (you can even create them on the fly). The Motorola Backflip comes with a 2GB MicroSD card, so you will have room to store music on this cell phone. However, if you want more storage space, the cell phone will support up to a 32GB microSD card. Besides adding your own music to the cell phone, you can also download songs, listen to AT&T Radio (you won’t need to plug in headphones to listen to AT&T radio, but it does require a $6.99 subscription), and learn more about songs from MusicID. Additionally, there are quite a few free music applications that you can download from the Marketplace such as Pandora.

Connectivity/Bluetooth/WiFi:You can do a lot with the connectivity options on this cell phone besides easily being able to connect to a Bluetooth headset (we found call quality was decent when we used the Motorola T505). The Motorola Backflip also has built-in WiFi, so you can use this smartphone to log onto available WiFi networks to surf the Web or send/receive e-mail. It’s a nice feature and it just takes moments to set up. The only thing you need to know is the WiFi network you want to use and password if needed. We should note surfing the Web on the Backflip wasn’t bad, but WiFi was often faster. There’s also an AT&T WiFi Hotspot app on the cell phone that lets your find local AT&T hotspots. In fact, there’s not much you can’t do with the Motorola Backflip when connected to a WiFi network, except make a call.

Look and feel: When looking at the Motorola Backflip from the front it looks like many cell phones available today: the front is essentially a large display. However, when you look at the Backflip from the back it doesn’t look much like a cell phone at all, since the back is a full QWERTY keyboard with a camera lens and flash in the upper left hand corner. The idea is that you flip down the keyboard when you want to use the keyboard or just lift the display up half way and use the keyboard as a stand. There’s even a desk clock that appears, complete with a weather update on the display when positioned correctly. That’s not all. Behind the display is a touchpad that works similar to a touchpad on a laptop. Using it isn’t immediately intuitive, but it doesn’t take long to figure out how to use it. However, navigating through web pages or features on the main screen works just fine.

Overall, the display is bright, crisp and viewable in direct sunlight. That said, you might consider changing the amount of time that elapses before the display goes dim. Once the display is dimmed the only way to activate it is by pressing the power button on the top left hand corner of the cell phone. While this was done so you don’t accidently activate the cell phone in a pocket or a purse, we did find it a bit tiresome. On the sides, you’ll find a 3.5mm headset jack, volume keys, camera button, and microUSB port. We should note the Backflip’s display does attract a fair share of face grease and fingerprints. When the display is not illuminated that’s when you can really the see the marks, otherwise it’s not that visible. To be fair, this is an issue with most touchscreen cell phones currently available.

Keypad:The Motorola Backflip sports a 4-line QWERTY tactile keyboard. The keys are nice to the touch and we only suffered a few mistypes. As noted, the keyboard is on the backside of the cell phone so it also acts as the back of the phone, which may add to the overall wear and tear of the Backflip. However, if you prefer using the touchscreen that’s also an option since it has an onscreen keyboard as well. We found the touchscreen keyboard was easy enough to use, but we often preferred the flip-down keyboard.

We found battery life on the Motorola Backflip on par for many smartphones available today. For starters, if you leave WiFi activated the Motorola Backflip will last about a day. However, if you turn WiFi off and use the cell phone frequently to make calls, listen to music, as well as send/receive text messages and e-mail, this smartphone will probably last about two days before needing to recharge. On the plus side, you can charge the Backflip when the cell phone is connected to a computer via the included USB synching cable. We should note that depending on what applications you download to the smartphone battery life can drain faster, practically cutting battery life in half.

Clingo Universal Hands-Free Mount Our Price: $34.99 Add with Phone

Motorola Backflip Screen Protector Our Price: $5.99 Add with Phone

Nite Ize Medium Horizontal Clip Case Our Price: $14.99 Add with Phone

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