Motorola Flipout review

Motorola will inevitably turn a few heads with the quirky Motorola Flipout, which features a rather unique design, the MOTOBLUR UI and a full Qwerty keyboard.

We didn't have high hopes for this device and are generally of the opinion that Motorola's finest moment to date is the DROID – and it's really struggling to top this.

Sure, the Flipout isn't going for the same demographic as the DROID but it's difficult not to make comparisons.

Nevertheless, if there's one thing that you can be sure of in this game, it's that you can always be surprised by a new handset – despite all your preconceptions.

So, lets see what the Motorola Flipout is made of…

The Flipout is a lot smaller than the Dext, and the square design is bound to be controversial. But, when you get it in your hand and swivel the screen to reveal the keyboard, you will see a five-row keyboard that is similar in size to that offered by the Sony Ericsson X10 mini pro.

Compared to the X10 mini pro, the Flipout comes out on top for processing power, if you ignore the camera.

On the back of the phone is a measly 3-megapixel camera and no flash. Video is restricted to CIF-resolution. If you're wondering what that is in terms of pixels, given how everything now is DVD-quality or HD, it's 352x288 pixels. In other words, complete rubbish.

Despite the disappointing camera, the phone still packs in GPS, Wi-Fi and 3G. It also has a larger display that the Sony Ericsson, although with the same resolution and a rather tacky font, it does the phone no favours.

The blocky text makes the phone look decidedly low-rent, made worse by things like the web browser that renders text in a sort of 'draft' mode until you zoom in, making it difficult to get an overview of the overall page content. Fortunately, you can download another browser easily, and there are plenty to choose from.

Although Motorblur hasn't really taken off, partly because the higher-end Android devices from Motorola have shipped without it, it is still a worthwhile addition to the package.

By collecting data remotely (you will need to register for an account to enable Motorola to collect your information), it reduces the amount of data being sent to your phone, which will be of particular interest to anyone on a prepay package that doesn't include a generous mobile data allowance.

The downside of Motorblur? Well, it's still nicer to use a dedicated Facebook or Twitter client for anything more than occasional use. The more content you pull in, the more cluttered it can become. The 'happenings' application and associated widget are also pretty basic, and nowhere near as swish as HTC's Sense applications.

Motorola has included some worthwhile extra options in the settings menu, such as Data Saver which will queue certain media transfers for when you're using Wi-Fi, as well as turning off photo downloads and reducing the image quality when using a 2G or 3G data connection.

By doing away with the need to have separate apps running for Facebook, Twitter, Picasa or the many other services you can synchronise, the battery life should be improved too. To boost the standby time even more, Motorola has included a range of battery saving options to restrict data usage at certain times of the day.

If that's not clever enough, they've even included a 'backup alarm' feature in the alarm clock that will make the phone emit an extra loud alarm if the standard alarm plays for longer than five minutes. Anyone who has slept through their alarm will probably find this the most beneficial feature of the entire phone! 

By running on Android 2.1 (there's no indication that there will be an upgrade to 2.2 as yet), you can find plenty of applications on Android Market, as well as use live wallpapers on the homescreen – giving it an edge over the X10 mini or mini pro.

The phone is also very fast and has plenty of memory. With an impressive 512MB of RAM, I still had over 200MB left even after loading a number of apps, compared to around 30MB on a Milestone. More memory enables apps to remain loaded in memory, offering faster app switching that makes the phone feel a lot quicker to use.

 Although this might be an entry-level handset, it outperforms both the Milestone and the newer Milestone XT720.

Nevertheless, the impressive performance and a surprisingly tactile and usable keyboard is still not enough to convince me that this phone will enjoy any success. Besides the low-resolution display, the phone is designed so that the screen is primarily used in landscape mode, but some apps are designed for portrait mode and require you to rotate the phone sideways. Not a major problem if it simply means the soft keys are on the side, but certainly a bigger problem when you use an app that stays in portrait mode while you use the keyboard.

Another 'feature' is the automatic unlocking when you slide open the screen, which means you should be careful where you put the phone. Throw it in a bag and you might find that it opens by itself, making it possible to start pressing things by mistake.

The Flipout is a mixed bag and it's not easy to draw a conclusion because the design of the phone is intentionally unique. Motorola isn't suggesting this is how all phones should be, and they should be commended for taking a gamble in making something that will appeal to people wanting something individual.