Motorola Flipout: hip to be a square?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Friday, 24 September 2010 13:52

Your IT - Mobility

Motorola's latest Android handset squares up to the relentless Android competition by taking the 2.1 version of the OS, a squarish design and a keyboard you can really flip out over. Is it hip to be a square?

 

Remember when Nokia used to come up with all kinds of funky designs for its handsets? Those were the days when Nokia was really adventurous, and it was always fun to see what shapes and sizes it would come up with next.

 

But now that most smartphones seem to be all screen, a la iPhone, there's still a desire by some for a "real" keyboard, and manufacturers are listening, offering keyboarded and keyboardless versions of their smartphones to cater to consumer tastes.

We're next to really see this in action when Microsoft launches its Windows Phone 7 devices with all manner of form factors promised, but in the absence of Microsoft's mobile OS, Android is the one the manfacturers are all experimenting on, with the Motorola Flipout the latest handset the company hopes you'll flip out head over heels for.

Aside from squarish good looks, a 2.8-inch QVGA screen and that swivelling, flip out keyboard, Motorola has also taken to software to help differentiate itself from the rest of the Android iClone gang, although all of the Android manufacturers in question seem to be playing a similar customisation theme.

Motoblur's revolves around - surprise, surprise - social networking, but naturally that's not all. The updated Motoblur "sk"interface now offers:

- Happenings and Messages. These are "widgets filtered by social networking account, by contact(s) or by contact group to only see the information you want".

- Screen customisation. This lets you "move and resize preloaded widgets on up to seven home screens"

- Battery Manager. You can use this to "manage battery consumption by operating in one of three performance modes".

- Data Manager. Here you can "monitor data usage from the home screen to better manage pay-as-you-go and limited data plans".

- Personal and Corporate email. As you'd expect, this can be "pushed directly to the device".

- Re-tweet capabilities. This one rounds off the list, letting you re-tweet, rinse and repeat, although surely coming up with your own original tweets would deliver greater tweetersfaction.

Seeing as Android 2.1 handsets are now common, with Android 2.2 handsets to appear very shortly, Motorola talks up the Flipout's flipping features and benefits as it seeks all the unique selling points it can get.

It has "CrystalTalk" technology that, like some other smartphones, adds a "second microphone to improve a caller's voice quality while filtering out background noise" alongside the existing proprietary benefits that Moto's CrystalTalk tech already delivers.

As with other Android 2.1 handsets, the Flipout is also multitouch capable, thankfully - it's now weird whenever handsets don't offer multitouchability. As it's only Android 2.1, though, you'll only get Adobe Flash LIte and not yet the whole enchilada of Adobe Flash compatibility.

So, what else is included that makes the Flipout... "different"? Please read on to page two for more, and the specs...