Motorola Flipout review

Can a lower price tag flip this phone up the popularity charts?

Motorola Flipout
The definitive Motorola Flipout review

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Motorola Flipout review: Camera

Motorola flipout

With just a three-megapixel camera and no flash on offer, things don't bode especially well for the Motorola Flipout in photographic terms. The main problem we encountered, though, was one of ergonomics.

To get the viewfinder to work using the full screen rather than a central column of it you have to flip out the keyboard. That's irritating, but even more annoying is that we found when we did this it was easy to put a finger over the lens.

That's because with the Motorola Flipout opened, the camera lens sits about halfway up the handset at the top of the sticking-out keyboard section – just where you want to put a finger for a solid no-drop hold.

Motorola flipout

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OUTDOORS: There's a certain blurred quality to this image, which we got in quite a lot of our shots. No, we weren't shaking the phone at the time, and we don't really know what was going on, but photos were pretty unsatisfactory as a result

Motorola flipout

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CONTRAST: Here's the blur again. And can you see how badly out of focus the bottom right section of the photo is?

Motorola flipout

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TOO DARK: Our main photography day was a bright crisp one, but the Motorola Flipout wasn't always keen on letting enough light in to take a decent photo

motorola flipout

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COLOUR: When we got close to a subject, the results were reasonable in terms of colour – though again the focusing is dodgy

motorola flipout

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NO LIGHT: In this dull, snowbound morning shot looking out from the warmth of indoors, you can see how little light the Motorola Flipout let in

motorola flipout

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PANORAMA: The Motorola Flipout is capable of a six-shot panorama, automatically taking photos as you move the camera around. The final resolution is very, very thin and wide (9742 x 1014 pixels), and the stitching is pretty good. We had to wait ages for the processing to be completed, though, and on the phone the panorama looks like a thin strip of nothing. This is one photo you will have to take out of the handset to get a good look at