Motorola Backflip

   

Lets take a trip through time and remember the Backflip with some specs. This phone was the first Android powered smartphone released on AT&T. It had dimensions of 4in x 2in x .6in. It had a capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 320x480 (about 186ppi). The screen was also something new called "Gorilla Glass". It had 256mb of RAM, with a 528MHz ARM11 processor  It ran Android version 1.5 (cupcake) and was upgraded all the way through 2.1 (Froyo). The standby time was up to 315 hours and talk time was 6 hours, with a 1400mAh battery.

What made this phone unique was how it was opened. The keyboard was exposed on the back while closed and then "flipped" around to the front to open it:

With this phone you either hated it or loved it. It was hard to get used to the new operating system and the keyboard all at once and you found yourself fumbling with it at first. However when you got the hang of it, it became just as easy to open as a traditional flip phone. On the back of the screen was a small trackpad. It was used for navigating around the screen and could even select applications or slide through your homescreens. The only real use that I found in it was selecting text from a large document because the touch screen didn't have multi-touch. The camera placement on the phone meant that when the keyboard was open, or flipped to the front, you could see yourself on the screen. This made self shots possible without a front facing camera and I loved that about this phone. 

The software it where this phone shines. Before the Backflip if you wanted to get an Android phone you needed to be on T-Mobile and get the G1 made by HTC. You could only buy this straight from Google for about $500. Then after this phone was released and the Droid was released by Verizon we started to see Android take off. I bought this phone the first day that it came out and I can remember the Android Marketplace well. It had a grey/black background and a side scrolling list of apps at the top. 

I remember that I could scroll through all of the applications in a very short amount of time. I also remember them all being free. I got a flashlight app and was amazed at how I could use my PHONE to light up a room!  There were a few good games for this phone but they were very simple.
I had this phone until I upgraded to the Samsung Captivate, and I loved almost every minute of it, in fact I still have the phone in my drawer of phones and tablets.

Next up I think I will do the Samsung Captivate.