Motorola’s industrial designers seem to set on turn your back with this time-honored handset styles. First they released this spring’s reverse-folding Backflip, and now they’ve released the tetragon-themed Flipout. The most remarkable aspect of this Android 2.1-powered smart phone is its relatively small and almost perfectly square 6.6-by-6.6 centimeter surface, which instantly stands out in the present marine of longer, rectangular handsets. The top of the phone, which plays host to a small touch screen, swivels on a corner turning point to disclose a five-row QWERTY keyboard below, transforming the device into a more standard rectangle shape. Its 320-by-240 pixel 2.8-inch screen is completely functional, but not ideal for, say, media consumption. It’s nearly a complete wash in sunlight.
But keep in mind this is a relatively economical smart phone. If you want a bigger, better screen, expect to pay for it. Motorola also makes good use of the customizability of Google’s mobile operating system. Users are provided seven panels that can be accessed with a swipe of the screen to sort out their widgets – a good way of combating the lack of real estate on the smallish display. Motorola’s social networking hub for Android phones seems a useful way to keep track of the doings of Twitter followers and Facebook friends and collate text messages and e-mails all in one place. It’s not the best such application I’ve seen – I’d like more ways to quickly sort incoming updates – but it does the trick.
NEWS SOURCE: www.theglobeandmail.com