Android was a life-saving blood transfusion for Motorola. Not only did the MILESTONE put them back on the map – it gave them a license to experiment. They didn’t think twice to take it. So here we are, watching the BACKFLIP do the robot dance. This one is no ordinary droid, though at first it might look like a faithful follower of the G1. QWERTY keyboards fell out of Android favor soon after the G1 but we’re witnessing a strong comeback, much credit for which goes to Motorola.

Key features

* Unique form factor and sturdy build quality
* Quad-band GSM and quad-band 3G support (7.2 Mbps HSDPA)
* 3.1″ 256K-color 320×480 pixel capacitive touchscreen
* Android OS v1.5 (upgradeable to later versions) with MOTOBLUR UI and Live Widgets
* Folding four-row QWERTY keyboard
* BACKTRACK touchpad at the back of the screen
* Qualcomm MSM7201A 528 MHz processor; 256 MB of RAM
* 5 MP autofocus camera with LED flash and geotagging
* CIF (352 × 288 pixel) video recording @ 30fps
* Wi-Fi and GPS with A-GPS
* 512MB storage, microSD slot, bundled with a 2GB card
* Accelerometer and proximity sensor
* Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
* microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v2.1
* Noise cancellation with a dedicated microphone
* Office document viewer

So, QWERTY it is but the Motorola BACKFLIP wants to have it its own way. So much so that it doesn’t seem to care what you think. Unique as in “shame no one thought of it before” or in a freak of nature sort of way, the BACKFLIP won’t leave you indifferent. It’s got a one-of-a-kind form factor written into its name but the whole backflip thing seems to serve a higher purpose than simply drawing attention to an otherwise ordinary package.

This Android-based model will supposedly have a shape somewhat similar to the popular Motorola Droid, but without many of the high-end features.

Like its big brother, it will be a slider, with a landscape-oriented QWERTY keyboard. It will apparently have a smaller, lower-resolution screen than the Droid, though.

On this device’s front, next to the touchscreen, will be three touch-sensitive buttons and an optical trackpad, rather than a trackball or D-pad.

The Droid Devour will allegedly debut with Android OS 2.1, the latest version of Google’s mobile operating system, and have the standard suite of software for connecting to Google services.

In addition, it will have support for Verizon’s EV-DO mobile broadband network, plus it will include Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

The Devour is also allegedly going to have a 3 megapixel camera, 3.5 mm headset jack, a GPS receiver, a microSD memory card slot, and a 1420 mAh battery.

Motorola Sholes is the latest Android phone that has been designed for Verizon Wireless. There have been many speculations made about the specifications of the Motorola Sholes but not much information is available as of now. There are very few facts that we actually know about this phone and we are going to enumerate on those in this review. Regarding the design and outlook of the phone, there are a few images available on the internet, which throw some light the external features of the Motorola Sholes. The exterior is black and most probably there are no more color variants as the design is basically very professional and generally meant for business users. The phone slides up horizontally to reveal the QWERTY keyboard. The keys are distantly spaced and are raised which makes typing easy. The Motorola Sholes also has a huge touch screen which not only looks impressive but feels and works efficiently as well.

Motorola Droid redefines the smart phone becoming the first device built with Android 2.0. On Droid you will experience a PC-like browsing experience on a mobile device that has a massive high-resolution display, the thinnest touch QWERTY slider available, and twice the speed of the leading competitor. Motorola Droid takes the search that Google is known for to the entire phone, going deep into your phone and all of your applications. The more you search, the better Droid gets to know you and the quicker you get the information you need.

Motorola Droid sets a new standard for the smart phone. The power of Web search takes on a whole new meaning, going deep into your phone and all of your applications. Motorola Droid takes the search that Google is known for to the entire phone. Type or speak your search with voice command, and not only will you get results from the web, but also anything you have on your phone contacts, music, photos, applications and more. Not more digging into menus and contacts to find what you need, it’s all available from the home screen. Let work and life co-exist in harmony with work and personal email pushed diretly to you.

The Cliq was announced a few weeks before CTIA, and we saw a lot of this intriguing handset at the show. While I used the Cliq only briefly, I already knew that I liked its design best out of all the Android phones. Like the Samsung Moment, it has a keyboard and a touchscreen. A physical keyboard is necessary, as the native touch keyboard on the current version of Android is far from perfect (as we found out in our review of the T-Mobile myTouch and the HTC Hero). I got some more hands-on time with the Cliq at CTIA and loved the keyboard’s ergonomics and bubble-like keys.

The Motorola Cliq will also be the first phone to showcase MOTOBLUR, Motorola’s skin for Android. In my quick hands-on tests, I found the MOTOBLUR interface to be clean, intuitive, and responsive. MOTOBLUR has a lot of cool features, such as a Happenings widget that gives you instant access to your social networks from the home screen. It also aggregates all your contacts and their information from various sources and displays them in one seamless client. The Cliq will be available later this fall from T-Mobile and will cost $200 with a two-year contract.

The Motorola Karma QA1 keeps the conversation going with multiple ways to stay connected on your terms. IM-style texting with an all-in-one view of messages and easy scroll navigation helps you keep track of conversations and stay organized. Take your social status to the next level by sending instant messages to multiple friends at once using popular services like Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Live Messenger. Social networking addicts can add Facebook and MySpace quick launch icons to the home screen for one-click access, and updating your status, sharing a comment or posting pictures and video from the Karma’s built-in camera is a breeze.

The 2-megapixel camera includes an LED flash and up to 8x digital zoom (depending on resolution selection), and it also captures video clips. In addition to a digital audio player (compatible with MP3, WMA, AAC/AAC+/eAAC+), the phone also offers a video player that’s compatible with MPEG4 and H.263 video formats. You’ll enjoy the 3.5mm headphone jack for use with a wide range of headphones.

Today’s cellphone arena is dominated by phones operating on the symbian and windows platforms, but Motorola is trying to compete with its Linux platform. The company has launched a number of phones running on this OS and the latest one to be launched in India is the MotoMing A1600. Following the trend of touchscreen flip phones, A1600 succeeds the much successful MotoMing A1200 launched two year ago.

The MotoMing A1600 is loaded with features and caters to those who need smartphone or multimedia devices. The handset offers access to e-mail and comes loaded with a document  viewer. The web browsing experience over Gprs connectivity, however, was quite pleasant as the attachments could be viewed without problems.

The call accessing keys, for example, are etched into the body, making them difficult to use. Even the battery life wasn’t impressive; it hardly lasted a day with just a couple of hours of talktime. But thankfully, a car charger has been added to the pack that comes to resuce.

The Moto Q marks Motorola’s entry into the highly-competitive PDA cell phone market. The company has earlier tried getting into this market via their A series of phones, but failed to garner any footing. For the Moto Q, Motorola has gone with the tried-and-tested design for a QWERTY phone. It is wide but well proportioned, and therfore feels much better to hold when compared with Nokia’s E61/61i. Lessons learnt from the RAZR have been used to good effect on the moto Q; the phone is slim for a PDA phone.

The Moto Q runs on windows Mobile 6, and the user interface is zippy. By default, the Moto Q uses Motorola’s theme, but we prefer the Windows theme. The today screen can be customized to show events such as meetings and birthdays, as well as e-mails and text messages.

The “Document To Go” application comes preinstalled, and it’s great; it ably handles Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and ZIP files.  A default Windows file manager helps browsing the device effectively. System tools include a memory manager and task manager.

Motorola has been generous with the bundle: a portable adapter, a good-quality leather pouch, a headset, the USB cable, the 1 GB miniSD card, and two batteries. The higher-capacity battery is fatter and requires a different battery cover, which also comes bundled.

With the release of the MOTO RAZR 2 V8, motorola has yet again raised the bar for stylish cell phones. In fact, just”stylish” doesn’t do it justice-it’s stunning!in its second iteration, the body of the MOTO RAZR is built from exquisite materials; it comes with two large screens, a revamped keypad, and a great music player.

The RAZR 2feels slimmer than the original RAZR, thanks to a less pronounced chin. The 2.2-inch LCD on the flap is the first of its kind on any phone-it’s sharp, and the clarity is amazing. Near the bottom of this screen are touch-sensitive electrostatic keys. All the keys on the new RAZR, including the touch-keys, vibrate when pressed-this, we think, is good in terms of haptic feedback.

The interior of the V8 are pretty similar to those of the original RAZR except for the keypad layout and the overall feel. The main display is similar to the one on the flap-2.2-inch,256k colours. The display is sharp and completly legible outdoors. The keypad has changed for the better-it has more feedback, and the backlight is much better than on the original RAZR.

The most significant change, however, is in the user interface. The phone is based on the linux+java platform, called MOTOMAGX. The interface is visually more refined and definitely better than the older motorola phones the multimedia, especially the music player is excellent. Playback can be controlled without opening the flap,thanks to the touch-sensitive buttons. Audio quality is excellent, and the bundled earphones are good. The phones supports the MP3, AAC, and ACC+ formats, but there’s no FM radio. Also, bundled memory is just 512MB, with no expansion allowed-lame, from a media player perspective.

The camera is reasonably good-about as good as any other 2MP cell phone camera. Indoors, photographs turn out dark; colours also get affected in low-light conditions. Video recording is strictly okay.

In our tests, signal reception was good in all conditions we put the phone through. Voice clarity was good, with no crackling or echo when we used the speakerphone. Battery life, when compared to the earlier model, is much better: with nominal usuage, the phone remained alive for two days.

The motorola RAZR is expensive at Rs16,799;you can get a better-featurd phone at that price point. However,there ia a RAZR fan following, and the new phone strikes the right chord.

The MOTO SLVR line features typical, nonsense, slim candy-bar phones with a reasonable amount of features. The SLVR L9 is the successor of the L7; in the looks department, the two are nearly identical.

Despite it being entry-level, the fit and finish of the L9 are surprisingly good. The pearl-grey finish is a good as that on the more expensive RAZR 2.The back cover is finished in rubberized material, and therefore offers good grip.

A 2-inch, 256 colour, 176* 220 LCD is more than enough for this phone. The screen is sharp and bright, and stays perfectly legible out-doors. The navigational keys consists of a roundel and two buttons.

The keypad is well-spaced, with each key being separated from the other by small ridges; however, the tactile feedback isn’t as good as that on the new RAZR 2, despite the visual similarities.

We had no problems as far as signal reception goes, but the speakerphone clarity could have been better. Battery life is strictly okay- we got around two days with nominal usage. At Rs 8,399 the L9 is reasonably-priced; however, we can’t see any compelling reason to recommend it to anyone.