subject: Motorola Flipout Goes Beyond Conventional Affordability [print this page] The mobile phone markets always have room for something new. Even if it"s just skin deep. Welcome the new Motorola FlipOut. It"s the latest Android handset from the former number one mobile phone maker and it happens to be its first to run on the 2.1 clair version. Just as the new Android 2.2 Froyo is already out, Motorola is quite late in getting an clair out its factories. But the Android market can be forgiving especially with a radical styling that defies form factor conventions on two fronts.
Throwing Convention Out the Window
First of, the new Android handset is housed in a perfectly square body measuring 67 x 67 x 17mm. How many square mobile phones are there? But this is not the first quadratic handset form Motorola. It had the squarish Motocubo A45 full-QWERTY slider released in September last year. Few will remember it for its lackluster features. But this time, instead of using the same slider mechanism, Motorola opts a different route with a single pivot point on a corner to swivel the screen out and reveal its full QWERTY keyboard.
Its only direct competitor could have been the Nokia 7705 Twist, but it was released exclusively under Verizon for its US CDMA market and has no GSM version. It sports the same pivoted swivel design on a square body which gives some suspicion that Motorola might have violated a design copyright, assuming Nokia has copyrighted their 7705 Twist.
Upscale Features
In substance, the Motorola FlipOut is based on the DEXT hardware, powered by a 600MHz TI OMAP3420 considered as powerful as the 528 MHz Qualcomm processor on the DEXT. With a 512 MB RAM and 512 MB ROM it gets equal footing with many upscale smartphones. In-built memory for the user is a minimal 150 MB but who cares when you have microSD expandability for up to 32 GB.
Its 2.8-inch TFT LCD screen with QVFA resolution and 256k colors in default landscape gets beefed up with capacitive touchscreen and multitouch technologies, apart from having an accelerometer and proximity sensors. Imaging only gets a 3.2 megapixel fixed focus shooter but you get face detection and geo tagging.
The Motorola FlipOut carries just about the whole gamut of radio and data connectivity options mobile phone. It"s has a dual band UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA on 3G, a quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE on 2G, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, microUSB 2.0. It has in-built GPS radio with A-GPS, a digital compass and Google Maps with Street View for SatNav functionality.
With the Motoblur UI on its Android OS, you know right away the FlipOut is a social networking handset with its Facebook, MySpace and Twitter apps as well as messaging tools aggregated on the homescreen for instant access and updates.
Availability
Coming in June, the Motorola FlipOut has yet to be priced but we don"t see it anywhere near the current Motorola Backflip priced at "'400 SIM-free. It will have 7 deferent interchangeable back cover colors at launch - saffron, licorice, brilliant blue, raspberry crush, poppy red, fairway green and white. GP
