The Purchase – Motorola Backflip

What I needed

I was looking for a phone that I could use as a PDA, primarily to keep a calendar and be able to quickly access my e-mail. I wanted it to be easy to use.

What I considered

I researched smart phones online particularly paying attention to the offerings from AT&T. My family has been customers of AT&T and the companies that were bought, sold and re-branded since I got my mother a Motorola bag phone with a whopping 15 minutes a month of air time. We have always had good service from them.

I looked at a couple of Windows Mobile phones the Tilt 2 and the Pure. From what I read they would do all that I wanted. I went to the local AT&T store and tried them out. Both phones ran slow even after I powered cycled them and I just didn’t care for them.

While in the store I tried out a Blackberry 9700 and liked it. Both of my kids have had Blackberry phones and really like them. I liked it while using it in the store and went home to do some internet research. I found nothing to dissuade me from my conclusion the the Blackberry was a solid smart phone and RIM has a lot of experience build these things.

Hands on Research

Back I went a few days later to look at the Blackberry again. While the keyboard and screen were small The phone is solid and I knew would probably work great. I walked away from it having made my mind to go home and order it online. Before leaving the store I walked around just to look at what else was available. I was in browsing mode, just exercising curiosity.

As I walked around I saw the lone Backflip on display. No big signs, no posters – just a lone demo phone glued, in the open position, to one of those tethers that prevent theft. In the case of the Backflip it makes it impossible to really get a feel for the form factor of the phone and how different it is.

I knew that the Backflip ran Android and started looking at it and trying the different features. An hour went by pretty quickly. I tried every feature of the phone that I could. The Backflip was actually smaller than the Blackberry with a larger screen and a larger keyboard. The screen was smooth and responsive. The keyboard required enough push to be able to tell when you engaged a key and my fat fingers could type with few errors.

Because I could not close the phone I ask a salesman if I could see a phone that wasn’t tethered. To my surprise he went into the storeroom and brought out a brand new phone in an unopened box. He put the battery in it so I could feel what the weight was assembled. After using the phone tied down and stuck in the open position having the phone felt tiny and super light in my hand, but solid.

At that point my only question was, “Do they come in any other color?”.

Checking out

I made my purchase on March 6.

The salesman took me to the register and we went through the purchase dance. While he was working at the terminal I was on the phone signing up for the MotoBlur account, entering my gmail address into the phone and deleting a bunch of stuff off the home screens. Then the process came to a thudding halt.

Salesman: Uhoh… Me: something wrong? Salesman: This phone doesn’t go on sale until tomorrow. Me: So I have to come back? Nearby Salesman: I sold one earlier, the manager can override that.

The salesman gets the manager, he does some magical stuff at the terminal.

As I am paying I ask about the rebate form. The sales man asks and tells me they don;t have them yet he will email me the form the next day. I walk out the door with a new Backflip.

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