Common Paradox Tech Blog

Good news for those of you who are fans of Motorola’s Backflip and its somewhat funky form factor. AT&T now offers the backward flipping smartphone for $99 through its website.

There are a couple of caveats, of course. To get below the $100 price point, you’ll have to play the mail-in-rebate game, which comes in the form of an AT&T Promotion Card "valid wherever VIsa is accepted, and for 120 days after issue date." You’ll also need to commit to a 2-year service agreement and $30 per month data service.

What you get in return is an Android 1.5-based smartphone capable of being upgraded to Android 2.1. The Backflip also sports a 5MP camera with 4X zoom, 3.1-inch touchscreen with a 480 x 320 resolution, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0, GPS, a 3.5mm headphone jack, microSD card expansion up to 32GB, and a 1380 mAh battery Motorola claims amounts to up to 6 hours of talk time and 13.5 days of standby.

Product Page

Image Credit: Motorola

Normally a phone like the Motorola Backflip wouldn’t get much fanfare when it appears on a retail web site, but this is AT&T’s first Android phone (of many), so let’s give it, say, 40 words or so, shall we? [AT&T]

AT&T’s first Android phone, the Backflip, is a smartphone for people who probably wouldn’t otherwise buy a smartphone. And for them—and only them—it might just work.

The Price

$100, on a two-year contract with AT&T. As usual, you can expect retailers to beat this price, and soon. (Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Backflip end up free, or nearly free, within a close timeframe.)

The Theory

It’s cute. It’s ever so slightly odd. It’s, in short, the opposite of what nearly every other Android phone on the market has strived for. But where Motorola’s Cliq and Devour had identity issues—the Cliq was unavoidably viewed as Motorola’s grand entrance into Android, even though it was a second-tier product; and the Devour suffered from perceptions of downgraded Droid-ness—the Backflip knows what it is, and who it’s for: a budget phone, for the masses.

The Hardware

The first thing you notice about the Backflip is the way it unfolds. It’s weird! Quite weird! Instead of closing screen-to-keypad, clamshell-style, it closes with the screen and keypad facing outward. (Contortionist-style?) Behind the screen is a hidden trackpad, which does what a trackball or d-pad does on other Android phones.

The advantages, as far as I can tell, number three:

• since the keyboard doesn’t have to slide inside of the screen, it’s free to take up the entire rear surface
• when the phone is closed, you can still see the screen
• the phone can be propped halfway open, so you can set it down on a table for movie watching.

It’s a concept that works if only because the Backflip is fairly compact, just a bit thicker than the iPhone, and smaller in every other way. The rounded outside edges mean the body slides in and out of your pocket with ease, and that it feels even smaller than it is. The keyboard is spacious, and despite its smooth surface and lack of gaps between keys, provides juuuuust enough surface differentiation and feedback to make typing effortlessly fast. The rear trackpad strikes me as a gimmick most of the time, especially since you can only use it when the phone is open, but I will give it some credit—it’s no worse than a trackball for most tasks, and for scrolling through long email messages and webpages, I actually prefer it to a Droid-like d-pad.

It’s when you drill down past the surface that the Backflip reveals its weaknesses. The touchscreen is resistive, and a bit squishy to the touch. Wi-Fi and GPS are all included, but really, how couldn’t they be? And that camera, with a 5MP sensor and LED flash, couldn’t be classified as better than “good enough,” though the fact that it’s mounted on the keyboard makes MySpace-style self-portraiture dangerously easy.

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The processor is an outdated 528MHz Qualcomm number, and the whole system is propped up, Motoblur and all, by 256MB of RAM. In terms of raw hardware specs, the Backflip is really no better than the Cliq, and more damningly, the G1. If you’re the kind of person who snaps up phones from the bleeding edge, the Backflip isn’t for you. Just buy a Droid.

The Software

Last I saw Motoblur, Motorola’s social networking-centric Android skin, it was on the Motorola Devour, a similarly-placed Android phone on Verizon. I’m not a huge fan of the interface, but I get what it’s going for, and who might like it—it makes sense for social networking hounds, even if it’s a little clumsy sometimes.

But here’s where it gets weird: The Backflip runs Motoblur atop Android 1.5, which means that at its core, its software is older than the G1’s. And there’s no way around it: This is a bad thing. New Google apps like Google Maps Navigation don’t even show up in its App Market, 3rd party apps increasingly won’t support it, and Android 1.6+ accoutrements like voice commands just aren’t there. Add to that Motoblur’s inherent slowness, and you’ve got a decidedly strained software experience.

This would be a dealbreaker—even for the smartphone noobies the Backflip is targeting—if not for one thing: Though they couldn’t give me a timeframe, AT&T tells me that a software upgrade to 2.1 is coming—something which I couldn’t confirm for the Devour, which shipped with a slightly more futureproof 1.6. On the one hand, this is reflective of a truly bizarre software and upgrade strategy on Motorola’s part; on the other, it means that the Backflip could actually be a buyable phone, for the right user.

The Right User

If you’ve read through this review and you’re feeling flat about the Backflip, that’s fine. It’s not for you! And honestly, it’s not for me. There are objectively more capable phones on other carriers, and soon, probably, on AT&T as well. But if you’re not even sure you need a smartphone, plan to spend most of your time texting or on Twitter or Facebook, don’t really know about (or care to know about) the newest apps in the Android Market, and aren’t bothered by quirks like Motorola’s replacement of Google search with Yahoo search, don’t count the Backflip out. Just keep in mind what we don’t know for sure:

• When exactly to expect the software upgrade to Android 2.1
• That Motoblur on 2.1 will be significantly faster that Motoblur on 1.5 (The enhanced speed of 1.6 on the Devour could be attributed to its fast processor)
• That newer apps in generally will perform well on the Backflip’s 528MHz processor
• That AT&T won’t release another Android phone that’ll instantly nullify the Backflip entirely.

These are some serious caveats for a new phone, to the point that even my tempered recommendation comes with a separate recommendation to wait and see—what Motoblur has in store for Android 2.1, what AT&T has in store for Android, and what retailers have in store for the Backflip’s price. To us, the gadget nerds, the phone is basically unbuyable. But Android’s future is as much about Backflips as about Nexus Ones—not because the Backflip is comparable to the Google Phone, but because it’s not. As an agent from Android’s budget future, the AT&T’s firstborn gets a lot right.

It’s more functional than the messaging/feature phones it’s attacking

The backwards folding mechanism is surprisingly functional

Android 2.1 to come

Spacious keyboard

Launch price too high, though it will probably fall

The rear trackpad: great when the phone’s unfolded, but useless when it’s closed

Ships with Android 1.5

Resistive screen

Underwhelming hardware specs

AT&T’s first Android phone won’t ship with Google Search. Instead, The Motorola Backflip’s home screen will sport a Yahoo Search widget, and its browser will run Yahoo searches by default. Yep. I think that’s what they call a burn.

It’ll be the first Android device of any kind with Yahoo as the main search engine, which makes sense: Android is Google’s platform, so Google Search is a natural fit. But Android’s also an open platform, which means that carriers can do with it what they please—including denying its creator a chunk of valuable search revenue.

AT&T’s undisputed bread and butter is the iPhone, which means that appeasing Apple is high on their priority list. And it’s hard to see what other advantage this move has for the carrier other than scoring a point in their patron’s favor in the escalating Apple-Google feud.

There are four more AT&T Android phones on the horizon, and it’ll be interesting to see how many of them follow this same track. That’ll probably have something to do with the consumer response to Yahoo. In the meantime, the Backflip exposes a noticeable chink in Google’s Android armor: an open system is, by definition, one you can get shut out of. [Engadget via Android Community]

Short Version: Hey ladies! Your Droid is here. The Motorola Devour (it’s actually DEVOUR but I refuse to shout at you) is a social media Android phone with enough style to beat down a million Droids. But is it just one more brick in the Android wall?

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Ten years ago, Quake III required a PC tower with some gaming cred. Today, all you need is a smartphone running Android 1.6 or later. And it’s even a free download.

The hobby project of thunderbird2k, this video shows Quake III running pretty well on a the Motorola Droid—between 20 and 30fps—while allowing perks like multiplayer and customizable controls. (Also impressive: before the Quake was optimized for the platform, it still ran at about 22fps.) Given that the Droid doesn’t have the fastest processor around, I’d be curious to see Quake III running on something like a Nexus One. In fact, maybe we should start using games to benchmark these phones, just as we do with beefy PC rigs.

Oh, and on a slightly related note…

Unreal 4EVER. [Android Quake III via Slashdot]

Motorola this morning announced that it has completed the previously announced acquisition of BitBand, an Israel-based provider of content management and delivery systems, specializing in video on-demand for IPTV.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Beecem’s upcoming BCS500 4G chip is going to be able to handle both WiMax and LTE connectivity. Not only that, it’ll be able to switch seamlessly between the two, depending on which provides the best signal in your location.

The chip is the result of a collaboration with Motorola, with mass production starting early next year. That may sound like a long ways off, but our WiMax and 4G networks aren’t built up enough now for there to be much of a rush anyway. And anything that’ll simplify our manifold 4G options of the future makes me feel just a little more warm and fuzzy inside. [Beceem via Engadget]

Beginning March 7, AT&T will start selling the Android-powered Motorola BACKFLIP. Although the carrier is slated to sell the Dell Mini 3 exclusively later this year, the Motorola BACKFLIP will be the first Android device sold by AT&T.

Motorola debuted the new device — which combines a reverse QWERTY flip keyboard with a custom Android operating system supporting the company’s social media-intensive MOTOBLUR technology — back in January, but AT&T will be the first carrier to sell it stateside. AT&T will sell the device for $199.99 with a required two-year contract and smartphone data plan at retail locations and online.

The union of AT&T and Android became official earlier this year when we learned that AT&T would begin selling at least five Android phones in 2010. AT&T has been slow to sell phones powered by Google’s operating system, which means come March it will be the final major U.S. carrier to embrace Android.

Given AT&T’s size and reach we should see Android’s market share continue to climb in 2010. With Apple taking more than 25% and Android doubling up to 5.2% of the smartphone market, every additional carrier and Android device creates an opportunity for Google to close that gap.

Tags: android, att, Google Android, Mobile 2.0, Motorola, motorola backflip

AT&T and Motorola this morning confirmed earlier rumors that the BACKFLIP with MOTOBLUR will be available in online and in AT&T stores across the nation, beginning March 7.

This is the first Android handset for the carrier.
The device will go for $99.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate.

More information, pictures etc. are available here.

Also check out our hands-on review of the phone.