Motorola Flipout

A sure-fire way to get noticed is to make a proper spectacle of yourself, and that’s clearly what Motorola’s designers had in mind when they cooked up the Flipout. With its square design and kooky swivel keyboard, it’s certainly going to stand out when placed alongside its more orthodox rivals, and rekindles the spirit of the fashion phone with considerable aplomb.

However, for all of its quirkiness, the Flipout has all the hallmarks of a serious smart phone challenger. For starters, it boasts Motorola’s traditionally robust build quality, and despite its compact dimensions, it possesses a reasonable amount of heft.

Granted, the swivel mechanism isn’t as rigid as we’d like, but we’re pretty sure it’s unlikely to fall off at any point. Opening up the Flipout reveals a 45-button QWERTY keyboard, which will come as a positive godsend to text-addicted mobile users.

Finger-friendly

In a refreshing change from the norm, the keys are large and tall, allowing even chubby-fingered typers to get comfortable in double-quick time. Another neat addition is a line of dedicated numerical buttons – something that is usually missing from most mobile phone keyboards.

Unfortunately, cramming all of those lovely buttons into such a small space has resulted in one lamentable sacrifice – the D-pad in the bottom-left corner is unforgivably small, and its unusual rectangular shape makes it awkward to use. While the Motorola DEXT’s D-pad made it perfect for gaming, the one offered here is only fit for basic navigation of the Flipout’s menu system. A missed opportunity, to be sure.

Another area of disgruntlement is the Flipout’s screen. Due to the size and shape of the phone, it’s a landscape-format display, and this has lead Motorola to tinker with the Android interface layout somewhat. Your app drawer, contacts and call commands are all located on the right-hand side, as opposed to being at the bottom of the screen, as they are on standard Android phones.

Lack of definition

This isn’t an issue in itself, but it does take some getting used to. The low resolution of 320 x 240 pixels is also disappointing, and makes browsing detailed websites something of a chore. While we’re covering negative points, the modest processor – which runs only a smidgen faster than the one seen in the now ancient T-Mobile G1 – can cause some slight dips in operating speed, but the low resolution mitigates this issue a little; the CPU arguably has less legwork to do than many of its rivals.

And of course, there’s Moto Blur. Motorola’s unique Android skin has divided critics since it was launched with the DEXT some time ago, and it could be argued that Android 2.1 (which comes loaded on the Flipout, incidentally) has reduced the need for services by seamlessly connecting your Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm profiles.

Despite this, Moto Blur is hanging in there, and it’s a joy to see how quickly and painlessly the Flipout is able to unify your contact information and place it in the cloud. Of course, much of this functionality is only useful if you intend to purchase another Moto Blur-compatible phone once the Flipout is obsolete, but it’s neat all the same.

Get your game on

As a gaming device, the Flipout benefits from having a capacitive touchscreen, which grants accurate and precise control over the many finger-friendly titles currently available on the Android Market – including Fruit Ninja and the brilliant Angry Birds. The aforementioned D-pad is a little too small to be of any real use for apps like SNESoid or Gameboid, but it’s possible to use a surprisingly effective combination of virtual on-screen pad and physical buttons for your retro-gaming gratification.

So despite its odd exterior and low-resolution screen, the Flipout still managed to impress us. The keyboard really is brilliant, and the curious shape of the phone actually starts to look quite handsome after you’ve cradled it in your palm for a while. It’s certainly a device that will draw glances in public, although you may find the reaction varies equally from confusion to admiration.

Motorola has clearly put all its eggs in the basket marked Android, but it’s refreshing to see that the company isn’t simply resting on its laurels and is at least making an attempt to differentiate itself from its rivals. The Flipout is too under-specced to impress serious Android fans, but it should find favour with fashion-conscious users who want to stand out from the crowd.