Review: Motorola Backflip
Calls
The dialer application is launched from a dedicated software button on the Backflip's home screen. There are no physical send/end keys. The main dialer has a large numeric keypad in the middle, with four tabs along the top and three buttons at the bottom.
The top tabs take you to the dialer, recent calls, frequently called numbers, and your speed-dial/favorites list. The default action when you launch the dialer is to search through your contacts. It's annoying that you have to turn the phone sideways and open it up to actually type in this search box (same as on the Cliq). It isn't possible to launch the software QWERTY on this screen.
The three buttons on the bottom let you open the contact list, call whatever number is on the screen or open up the voice dialer.
Contacts
Motoblur incorporates every single contact database you have into one, massive list, which makes the address book almost unusable. Twitter is the main culprit — but only if you follow a lot of people. I do, and that's a problem for me. I had to remove Twitter from my Blur services to make the contacts database more manageable.
Search is still the best way to sort through a large list of contacts. Similar to the way Windows Mobile devices work, simply start typing in the name of a contact from the home screen, and the Backflip will auto-sort through your contacts to find someone.
Motoblur is still hit or miss in the way it organizes your contacts. Sometimes it finds all the right email addresses, phone numbers and such for a person and puts them in one place, and other times you'll have five different versions of the same contact. Blur is not perfect.
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Motorola Backflip
