Motorola makes the BACKFLIP official, other handsets to see Android 2.1, Flash 10.1 updates

By on Jan 6, 2010 at 9:17 PM
Breaking January 6, 2010

motobackfilp

Motorola’s time to shine at CES just wrapped up and the North American manufacturer announced the Motorola BACKFLIP. As rumored, the BACKFLIP will have a backwards-folding, outward-facing keyboard, a touchpad on the back of the screen whose functionality is customizable and even API-accessible, 3G connectivity, Wi-Fi, a 5 megapixel camera and MOTOBLUR. The BACKFLIP is headed to multiple carriers worldwide including one North American carrier, not identified by Motorola but we will spill the beans — AT&T. In addition to the BACKFLIP, Motorola revealed some additional information that will interest current Motorola Android owners:

  • All Motorola Android handsets, including the CLIQ, will be updated to Android 2.1
  • Motorola is working on Flash 10.1 integration, is optimized for the DROID’s chipset and will be pushed out the DROID at some time in the future
  • Motorola DROID will receive a second maintenance update in the near future

Motorola kept is short and sweet so that is all folks!

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  • Will

    First off, the HTC Hero (overseas, dont’ know about the Sprint version) has had Flash in the browser since it was released months ago; I flashed a Hero ROM to my rooted G1 and had flash running on it without issue. I don’t know why everyone seems to think it’s something brand spanking new when the Hero has been out for some time now.

    Second, Android phones are PHONES FIRST, not media players with phone internals as the iPhone is. That’s one of the reasons they’ve included MMS from their first release, as the iPhone obviously DIDN’T. On top of that, there are multiple media players available for Android OS, and even if there weren’t, the OEM media player may be “boring” if you’re used to frickin’ iTunes, but the objective of it is to decently play MUSIC/VIDEO, which it does well.

    Multi-touch capability in the Droid/N1 is there, it just hasn’t been implimented in the native google apps; who cares? Big whoop… so I won’t feel the need to find a reason to zoom in/out on an app using two fingers instead of one. I’m sure I’ll get over it.

    I was under the impression that Tethering support (wired, not sure about wireless) was being implemented on newer Android builds, but I could be wrong. I’m running a 2.1 ROM on my G1 currently, and it doesn’t have it built in. Rooted Android users have been tethering via USB and wirelessly for a while now though.

    As far as dual-mode capability for GSM and CDMA networks… um… what phone currently marketed by carriers in the US has that exactly?

    • Antonio

      Blackberry Storm 1/2, Samsung Saga, Samsung Ozone, HTC TP2, HTC Imagio, BB World, BB tour to name a few.

      • Mikee

        So less than a dozen out of thousands?

  • Will

    As an aside, I also find the complaints about the size of the SD card it ships with hilarious… seriously? It’s the 1st phone on the market with the 1Ghz processor and has increased RAM, and people are complaining about having to purchase a higher-capacity microsd if they so choose? That’s just funny.

    Oh, and i’ve read on multiple occasions that the developers at Google are working on a native method to store apps on the SD card in Android. It’s only a matter of time. It’s being done regularly on rooted android phones as we speak using an ext3 linux partition, with great results, provided the microSD is class 6 or higher.

    • T

      Ok – First, Flash Lite and Flash Player 10 are totally different beasts. The Droid has Flash Lite. The Hero has Flash Lite. Flash Lite does not allow you to play videos or games, which is certainly what people want when they refer to their desire for it. Secondly, the 16 gb SD card costs 80 dollars on its own. And the 1ghz Snapdragon isn’t much faster than the 600 mhz ARM8, so please don’t go getting confused by numbers. Kinda like how PowerPC chips were faster than Intel chips despite having lower clock numbers. You simply can’t do a 1:1 comparison of chips not in the same family… I’m not saying the Snapdragon isn’t faster, but it isn’t going to be as big a difference as the raw number makes you believe.

  • Plan B

    All I’ll say is this phone looks pretty nice. Welcome back Moto. Its good to see you’re sticking around.

  • victoria

    As for the adobe flash 10.1, Clearly, Google see the advantages of having a flashplayer on their superphone. A thing the iPhone lacks. More details: http://bit.ly/nexus-one-updates-mashup-details

    and now motorola is jiving in

  • http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-fri-ces-motorola-0108-jan08,0,1847808.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+chicagotribune%2Fbusiness+%28Chi Chris R

    Just read this from an article in the Chicago Tribune from the AP

    Ed Snyder of Charter Equity Research believes that although Motorola benefited from a strong push at Verizon for the Droid, the company may feel some pressure this year as the carrier turns its attention to webOS phones from Palm. Having the Backflip at AT&T may help make up for this, Snyder said.

    “We expect AT&T to push it hard as a hedge against its impending loss of iPhone’s exclusivity to Verizon mid-year,” Snyder wrote in a note to clients late Tuesday.

  • Wirecup

    BackFlip is Bad Design. Who wants a phone with the 2 most important items (screen and keyboard) open to the elemenets when the phone is closed. Motorola is certainly quiet on this. Rightfully so!

    • TRACE FACE

      how do u thinkk blackberries are designed? lol. same thing everything is exposed lol ur silly

  • Andrew

    has anyone noticed that the backflip on the motorola site has the date feb. 14. 2010 on it???? i checked the one on china’s site as well but cant tell what the date is on that aswell to see if they put the same day it was released as well!!!! guess we will have to wait till tomorrow to see what the release date is but its either febuary 14th, march 7th or 15th. and im confirming it is with att as i have seen the att sim card inside 2 backflips now

  • Andrew

    @ wirecup

    this phone design is actually amazing. as for the screen its scratch proof just like the iphone. and you will be about to purchase screen protector. the keyboard is quite solid as well and when closed it is inactive and have a bit of resistance to the keys so you cant ware out the keys in your pocket. dont you think that moto wouldnt release such a bad ass phone and make just as much as a big deal about it as the iphone if they didnt make it super sturdy? this is the first phone since the iphone that has been hidden and not talked about since the iphone. i for one will be standing in line to get it the day it comes out.. you can be stuck with your crapple or what ever you have lol

    • TRACE FACE

      major perk #1 its not made of glass!! :)

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