It’s finally available! The wait is over, everyone can calm down now!

The Motorola BACKFLIP is available at Telus stores now for $99 on a 3-year activation with a voice/data plan of $50/month or more.

So, in other words, it’s not cheap.

Should you buy it? I think, no. For less money you can get a more powerful, better-equipped phone in the HTC Hero. And for $100 more (remember, you’re paying around $60/month, which is $720/year on this cell phone plan. You might as well have the phone you want) you can have the newly-Eclaired Motorola Milestone.

Other prices are:

2-year: $299.99

1-year: $349.99

no-contract: $399.99

Who should get this phone? Kids who would otherwise buy an iPhone but whose parents won’t fork out the $199 for a 3GS; those who want to keep in touch with their friends over social networks all the time; those who like the cool design but don’t realize how limited the phone is in other respects.

I’ve played with the BACKFLIP. Sure, I’m not their target demographic, but in my opinion, the phone leaves a lot to be desired. The keyboard is shallow and barely usable; it is extremely difficult to touch-type. The screen, while bright, was not remarkable. The features of the phone are attractive at first glance (5MP camera w/flash, WiFi, Android Marketplace, GPS, etc.) but there is one thing you should take into account when purchasing a MOTOBLUR device. These skins, like the HTC Sense UI, are proprietary software, and are unlikely to be updated for a long, long time. This means that you are essentially purchasing software, in Android 1.5, that is almost two years old. This is not acceptable in today’s market, and the more people who purchase these devices, the longer developers will have to create applications for older Android versions, often limited in their functionality, taking time away from the current versions of Android that can offer so much more.

So all-in-all, the MOTOBLUR series is fine. For teens, it’s probably quite nice and usable. But from a philosophical perspective, I would not recommend purchasing one of them.

Motorola claims their software will be updated to 2.1 later this year. I won’t hold my breath, especially considering how long it’s taken HTC to update their early 1.5 Sense UI devices like the Hero and Magic, to 2.1.

Just my 2 cents.

Check out the Telus BACKFLIP page for more info.

PS. Yes, I realize that the HTC Hero on Telus still hasn’t been updated to 2.1 either. But the phone itself is much, much faster than the BACKFLIP, and the Sense UI, even on 1.5, is way more intuitive and better-designed than the MOTOBLUR UI. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.