|
Home > Android Phone Reviews > Motorola Flipout
Motorola Flipout (video review)
What's hot: Surprisingly decent keyboard, unique design, affordable.
What's not: QVGA display is cramped and grainy, MOTOBLUR software clutters desktop.
Reviewed October 19, 2010 by Lisa Gade, Editor
in Chief
Motorola, particularly in conjunction with AT&T, keeps turning out novel entry to mid-tier Android smartphones. It started with the Motorola Backflip, a somewhat larger and more expensive mid-range handset that was AT&T's first Android phone. Now we have the Flipout, an even funkier square phone with a swing-out full QWERTY keyboard that's actually pretty decent.
The Flipout may be square, but the resolution is QVGA 320 x 240, a rectangular aspect ratio that was common in smartphones and feature phones a few years ago. By today's standards, and particularly Android's where the base resolution is HVGA 320 x 480, that's low. Given the phone's relatively small dimensions and 2.8" display, there's really no room for more pixels. Our complains with this resolution are:
1) Some Android apps don't support QVGA.
2) The display looks pixelated, though colorful
.
3) Motorola's MOTOBLUR software customizations simply overrun that tiny screen.
In terms of speed, the Flipout is fast, and it packs a 720MHz CPU. Even MOTOBLUR can't bog it down. The smartphone runs Android OS 2.1 and the rest of the specs are mid to entry level: 3G HSDPA 7.2Mbps, 3 megapixel camera with fixed focus lens, WiFi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR and a microSD card slot pre-loaded with a 2 gig card.
Sadly, like all AT&T Android phones, installation of non-market apps is blocked. That means you can install apps from the Google Market (what most folks want to do), but you can't install them from other sources including side-loading over USB (what some power users and beta testers want to do).
|
