Motorola Backflip hands-on

We're not quite sure what to make of the Backflip just yet -- closed, it looks almost exactly like a CLIQ, but the keyboard (which rests on the outside of the device) is allegedly rugged enough to withstand a beating. Rugged or not, we're worried about feel -- believe it or not, it has even less tactile response to it than the Droid, putting it a distant third in Moto's QWERTY Android efforts so far. Obviously we'll need a good deal more time to gel our opinion, but out of the gate, we're not encouraged.

The touchpad on the back of the screen is... well, interesting, but that's about all we can really say about it at this point -- as Sanjay said during the keynote, it'll be up to devs utilizing Moto's API to do the really awesome stuff with it. In the meantime, it acts exactly as you'd expect a trackball or optical pad to work on Android -- just upside down.

In terms of the screen and the Blur experience, it's a dead ringer for the CLIQ, for better or worse -- the big difference, of course, is the fact that the screen can be tilted. The phone's got a sensor so it can detect when the screen's at a 45-degree angle, putting it in a media mode and making it particularly useful as an alarm clock. Would we buy one? We're not sure -- it's no Droid, certainly -- but maybe it doesn't have to be. Check some raw video after the break!%Gallery-81826%