Motorola were one of the first mobile phone manufacturers, with a history in the industry dating back to the 1970s. They were always at the forefront of the market helping to push technology forward, but since the 2007 launch of the iPhone the company has seen a fall from grace.
Although the company initially struggled to get to grips with the new demand for touchscreen phones, they did manage to get back on the right track with a string of successful Android devices including the Droid/Milestone, the Atrix and the Defy. Even so, Motorola has so far not managed to claw back the sort of popularity it had before Apple elbowed its way into the industry.
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Just before the first iPhone launch, Motorola was enjoying enormous success with the Motorola RAZR handsets. These were the must have gadgets of 2005, and were the first mobile phone sensation that swept the industry (a sign of things to come with the hysteria surrounding the iPhone). Judging this to be their finest success story, Motorola have now decided to take the best features of the original RAZR phones and blend them with its new breed of Android smartphones.
The Motorola Droid RAZR XT910, also known simply as the RAZR, is what they have come up with. With physical specifications and software features similar to many of the leading Android smartphones, the exceptional slimness is the main thing that Motorola have revived from their earlier phones.
The feud between Apple and Samsung over the title of ‘world’s thinnest smartphone’ (between the iPhone 4 and Galaxy S2) shows that there is still a love amongst consumers for exceptionally slim phones. This slimness was one of the biggest selling points of the original RAZR phones, and it is hoped by Motorola that it will also manage to single out their smartphones from the increasingly crowded Android market.
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Motorola Droid RAZR Review
At 7.1mm the RAZR is certainly a very slim device. The first impression that many people will no doubt have is that this phone is so slim it will be liable to snap easily. While this may be true for some other flimsy phones it is not the case for the new RAZR, as it is made from highly durable Kevlar – the same material used in bullet-proof vests.
Motorola Mobility was recently bought by Google, leading to some concern amongst Android vendors that Motorola would get unfair access to the best Android features. With this first RAZR this does not appear to be the case. Rather than coming with Ice Cream Sandwich, which has just been launched by Google on the Galaxy Nexus, the RAZR comes with Gingerbread. Of course, the phone will most likely get an update in the foreseeable future.
Android has been modified with the Motoblur interface, which brings some excellent social networking integration to the table. All of this is powered by hardware that would make the iPhone 4S blush – a 1.2GHz dual core chip with 1GB RAM, DLNA Wi-Fi and a superb 8 megapixel camera that not only comes with 1080p video support but also very high frame rate 480p video recording too.
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One of the features of the RAZR that makes it well suited to competing against the current Android favourite, the Galaxy S2, is its screen. The screen is one of the biggest selling points of the Samsung phone, and the RAZR has one of the first smartphone screens to really give a run for its money.
The 4.3 inch display uses Samsung’s Super AMOLED technology which, while not quite as vibrant as the Super AMOLED Plus of the Galaxy S2, does offer a comparatively better experience thanks to a sharper qHD resolution.
Forget the iPhone 4S – if there is going to be a phone to knock the Galaxy S2 from its current spot as bestselling phone and favourite gadget of the online tech community, it will be the RAZR. Released just in time for the Christmas rush, if Motorola RAZR contracts prove to be popular enough we could be seeing many more RAZR phones in 2012.