Motorola Backflip

The Motorola Backflip has a fold-over, reverse flip, QWERTY keyboard: whatever its features, full marks, it appears, for stylistic content! The Backflip represents a move away from the continuing rise and rise of smartphone functionality, with such wonders as Google's Nexus One and Moto's own Droid.

It's a beautifully crafted device with a 3.1 inch, highly responsive HVGA display and a 5 megapixel flash-enabled shooter just for starters. The Backflip lays claim to quirkiness in its reverse-flip, tabletop mode for listening to music or viewing videos hands free. This sit up and look mode can then turn into a bedside alarm clock.

The QWERTY keyboard is unusually large and is found on the back of the phone, which opens up like a book: the keyboard hinges into place like a slide-out. The jewel in the Backflip's crown, though, is a feature called Backtrack, a touch panel or trackpad on the other side of the device to the screen that enables you to scroll through menus, photos, web news feeds, texts, emails and the like, without obscuring the home screen. Backtrack is one of number of features designed to keep phone conversations moving simply by sliding your finger along the back of the device, so the keys can be larger and easier to tap.

We live in exciting times for mobile devices and the Backflip illustrates this is partly because they really are getting smarter rather than simply more feature-rich and capacious. Just as the chaps in charge of Dubai might come to realise that height is not the only measure of a building's worth, so smartphones can be judged on more than fancy functions.

Tech Spec

Slide phone
3G
High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA)
Wi-fi ready
Bluetooth enabled
GPS
Camera
Five megapixel camera
Video camera
Touchscreen technology
Keyboard (QWERTY)
Loudspeaker
Quadband