Motorola Backflip Android

All Android phones available in the market look the same. Most of them are touch-driven devices with a few also sporting a slide-out keypad. But here comes an innovative and interesting phone from Motorola's stable— the BackFlip .

Living up to its name, the Backflip has the touch display on the top and the QWERTY keypad at the bottom. This is what differentiates it from the regular flips in which the main display and key­board are hidden inside. Right opposite the display is the 'Backtrack'. Replicating the work of a trackpad or a joystick, it is designed to be used with the index finger that is rendered use­less when one is using the QWERTY keypad. Using the 'Backtrack', one can navigate up, down, left and right. Interestingly, it can even be used for opening an application with a double tap. However, we found that accessing the 'Backtrack' along with the physical keypad wasn't as easy as we imagined.The 'search' key that is usually found below the display has been moved to the left corner of the QWERTY keypad that can be accessed only when the flip lid is open. When held like a bar, the keypad automatically gets locked, making it easy to use.

The innovation in design helped this flip device score full marks in the looks as well as innovation and utility depart­ments. It was the ancient version of the Android operating system (v1.5) that disappointed. Still, it managed to handle emails, updates on so­cial networking sites, web search and downloading third party application with ease.