Motorola on Wednesday evening held a low-key press conference where it revealed an upcoming handset, the Backflip, which was leaked under the Motus nickname. The handset is unique in that it flips open without a traditional hinge, leaving more space for a hardware QWERTY keyboard. Motorola calls the design a reverse QWERTY flip. Equally unique is the BackTrack surface that lets users reach behind the screen and control a virtual pointer.
It has an alarm clock mode much like the Droid but, because of its design, doesn’t need a dock to trigger the mode change.
Otherwise, the BackFlip has a 3.1-inch display with a 480×320 resolution (HVGA) touchscreen that can also display an onscreen QWERTY keyboard. It runs on Android 1.5, and is powered by a 528MHz Qualcomm processor; like the Cliq before it, the phone runs Motorola’s customized MOTOBLUR layer with social networking components.
Inside, the Backflip touts a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash, Bluetooth, GPS and Wi-Fi. There is also stereo Bluetooth and assisted GPS functionality. Storage out of the box begins at 2GB, but it supports as much as 32GB through external microSDHC memory cards.
Motorola didn’t mention pricing or what carrier it will partner with on the device, though it is expected AT&T will carry the GSM and UMTS device. The Backflip will ship to four markets nearly simultaneously, including North and Latin America, Europe and Asia, in the first quarter of the year.
