Motorola Flipout joins compact Qwerty Android ranks

The Flipout has a five-row Qwerty keypad that, unusually for a smartphone, includes a separate row of numeric keys.

The phone is the second compact Android phone with a physical keyboard to be announced for this year, the first being Sony Ericsson's X10 Mini Pro. The Mini Pro weighs the same as the Flipout and has the same screen resolution — although its screen size is smaller — as its rival.

Motorola's Flipout runs Android 2.1 with the manufacturer's Motoblur user interface.

The Flipout's version of Motoblur allows for seven customisable homescreens and live wallpapers and comes with battery and data use managers. As with other Motoblur handsets, the Flipout automatically backs up contacts, login information and email to a secure server, and can be remotely wiped if lost or stolen.

The handset's media player also comes with enhanced functionality such as lyric support, integrated song identification and what Motorola calls "a social solution for knowing what people around you are listening to".