So we got to spend a little hands on time here at eTechTour with the new Motorola Flip Out that just launched on Rogers a week or two ago and so we thought we’d give you a quick review on it.
Hardware First off the Moto Flip Out is small. It’s only about 2-inches by 2-inches and about 1-inch thick. For people that are getting more and more used to phones with 4-inch or bigger screens it feels a little strange holding a smaller phone again but the FlipOut has a really nice feel to it. The touch screen is very responsive and more likely because of the small size, everything seems easily within reach and very thumb-able. 
The touch sensitive buttons on the front respond well and are separated enough to make touching them simple and nice to use. The buttons along the side for locking/unlocking we found seemed out of place on the right side of the phone as we normally would hold the phone from that side making locking or unlocking it very awkward, but that may just be something you have to get used to for it to be easy to get to. The other buttons were all clicky and felt well placed so we had no issues reaching or using them at all.
The swivel feature on the FlipOut is a nice change from the normal slide up to reveal the keyboard (reminds us of our sidekick days) and it feels sturdy enough that you shouldn’t have to worry about breaking it off from continual flipping. With the screen “flipped out†the phone is about 4-inches high which sits nicer in our hands and leaves a lot of room for the keyboard and typing which we were very pleased with. It feels light enough in our hands to not be uncomfortable but heavy enough to not feel cheap.
The keyboard itself is positioned quite nicely. The buttons are raised up in a bubble style and are all very clicky and responsive and there is enough space between them that even people with larger hands should not have any problems. The only gripe we have with the keyboard is the 4-way directional thumb pad. It seems entirely too small and is difficult to direct accurately, so much so that we found we ignored it and would only use the screen for all navigation. Besides that minor annoyance we were very happy with the keyboard and could find social updating and messaging a real pleasure on the FlipOut. Software The FlipOut is running Android 2.1 with MotoBlur 1.5 ontop. As much as we aren’t big fans of the MotoBlur skin we think it seems more suited to this kind of a device than the stock Android experience.
Motorola has taken time to make sure their home made Blur widgets are small, compact and to the point which makes good use of the small display real estate that they have. Surprisingly you can fit a number of widgets per home screen which you can’t on the Sony Ericsson X10 Mini which is more similar in size to this device. Besides the usual skinning with MotoBlur and Android 2.1 Motorola hasn’t gone too far out of their way to do anything special for this device. It’s the same usual Android experience we’ve come to know and love with Blur pasted right on top. A huge plus is that it’s running at least 2.1 so that you still have access to Live Wallpapers and other Éclair goodies but we’re hoping Motorola will bring out a 2.2 update very soon! Camera The FlipOut holds a little 3.15MB snapper onboard without any kind of flash. The pictures it takes we found to be slightly disappointing as we could rarely get it to focus properly. The application for the camera itself runs smoothly and quickly and offers quick options at your thumbs easily, the one strange thing we found was that if closed, the preview would only display on about half the  screen yet when you Flip Out the keyboard the preview takes up the full screen. The camera placement we found abysmal as well as it’s on the left most edge and when Flipped Out that’s exactly where we would rest our thumbs to stabilize the phone meaning we had a lot of pictures with a dark thumb across the screen. Conclusion The FlipOut is a great little phone for social updating and messaging friends. It’s no powerhouse so don’t expect to be blazing along at the forefront of technology but for someone that prefers slightly more simple devices without going crazy on screen size or in need of an amazing camera this could definitely be the right phone for you! We were really pleased with it except for its few drawbacks like the camera placement and annoying directional pad but all in all we enjoyed our time with the FlipOut! Check out the video below! (edit video is having issues uploading, will get it up ASAP)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsyPVJeWZPY&hl=en&fs=1]