Android Authority

Motorola BACKFLIP

I’ve posted my full review of the Motorola BACKFLIP for AT&T on MobileBurn. Oddly enough, I like the device more now than I did originally, which bodes well for how real world users might react to the phone.

I still dislike the large keyboard, and I think the BACKTRACK directional controller’s a bad idea, but the camera is solid, the touchscreen is nice, and the signal reception seemed really good.  MOTOBLUR is good, too, though far from perfect.  But what really bothers me is the fact that you can only install apps that come from the Android Market.  That likely bothers bleeding edge types more than it will the average consumer, but I’m still baffled as to how AT&T thinks that will help anybody.

In the end, I think the BACKFLIP will make Android-craving AT&T users happy enough.  There are better Android phones available from other carriers, but this one is a reasonable enough first effort for AT&T.

You’ll find plenty of live photos of the phone, videos, and photos shot with the BACKFLIP itself on MobileBurn.com.

Motoroi-XT720

According to yonhapnews.co.kr, the South Korean Government is aligning itself to ‘ban’ the Android market. Indeed, “Google Inc. may be barred from operating an Android market place in South Korea, if it continues to circulate game contents without approval from the country’s regulating body, government officials said Thursday.”

“If Google does not take any measures, we may block the Android market here,” said Lee Jong-bae, a board official.

This could have far-reaching consequences for the Android OS as a whole within South Korea. It should be noted that Android smartphones have been available in South Korea since the middle of last year so this comes somewhat as a shock. The Android Market now has around 4,400 types of games that have not been rated in the ratings by South Korea Game Rating Board to establish whether or not these games are suitable to be played by children.

As things stand now, the SKGRB (no, really, I did it) have sent a letter to Google Inc. based in South Korea to effectively ask all companies involved to collaborate on this problem. According to the company’s spokeswoman Park Sun-kyung, at the moment Google’s Korea branch is reviewing and processing the letter.

Dell Mini 5 loves Amazon

The Dell Mini 5 seems to be picking up pace at the moment, and the latest development with this piece of kit includes a host of services from Amazon preinstalled to the hardware. The most interesting of which is a Kindle application. We’re reading inbetween the lines somewhat here as all the picture displays is a bullet point staying “Kindle Book Reader Applications”. Nonetheless, to our ears this can mean only one thing. Of course we are expecting the device to already come with Amazon’s MP3 store preinstalled as this is already the case on a number of other Android powered phones.

To put things into context, there has been an iPhone and Blackberry Kindle application for some time now. It makes sense that Amazon will want to cash in on the fastest growing mobile OS providing the possibility to buy 300,000 popular books.

[Via Android Community]

Weekend warriors with a Motorola DROID can point their browsers to the Cyanogenmod forums where Koush has ported the latest Cyanogenmod to the Motorola DROID. Other than having to switch to Clockwork recovery, the install is pretty straightforward for the experienced flasher and the resulting ROM is reportedly fast and super stable. If you take the plunge, your first impressions on this latest DROID ROM are welcome in the comments.

Motorola BACKFLIP

I meant to post this yesterday, but the business side of this web stuff got in the way (tax season approaches, you know).  In any case, here are my two videos of the Motorola BACKFLIP for AT&T.  I’m currently working on a full written review for MobileBurn.com, but I can share the videos and some thoughts with you before that is complete.

For starters, the BACKTRACK trackpad controller on the rear side of the display is really annoying for people with big hands like me. I had to disable it to keep from inadvertently moving the cursor around the screen randomly. Folks with smaller hands might not have that problem, though.  I’m also no fan of the keyboard, which is housed on a reverse folding flip section of the phone.  It is too spacious, requiring a lot of travel time for your thumbs. On top of that, the keys don’t have very good feel to them.  The reverse flip was a cool idea, but I think it offers no advantages over a conventional slider from the consumer’s perspective.

Good stuff? Sure, the HVGA res touchscreen display seems more responsive than the similar display found on the CLIQ. The UI in general seems snappier, too.  There are a couple of nice apps that AT&T has added, like the Yellow Pages app, but there’s also a lot of bloatware that you can’t uninstall.  MOTOBLUR still works well, and with more services than ever. It’s not going to be the best [insert social network name here] client you can get, but it is the only one that handles most all of them at one time.  It will work quite nicely for a lot of people.

So watch the videos (one below, one after the jump) and stay tuned for my full review, coming soon.  I’ve also included a few photos from the upcoming review, for your enjoyment.

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Another of our MobileBurn compatriots, Todd Haselton, has put together a video of the new Motorola CLIQ XT for T-Mobile USA that he’s currently reviewing.  The CLIQ XT is very much like an original CLIQ that has lost its keyboard and gained a new touchpad controller and camera flash.