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Motorola Reinvents the RAZR

Posted by Soulskill on from the remember-when-clamshells-were-hip dept.

zacharye writes with news that Motorola has reinvented their popular RAZR clam-shell phone as an Android smartphone. The new device is 4G LTE-capable and 7.1mm thick, and it contains "a 1.2GHz dual-core TI OMAP processor, a 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED display, 1GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel camera with 1080p HD video capture, an LED flash, an HDMI-out port, noise cancellation capabilities, 16GB of built-in storage and a 16GB microSD card pre-installed." iFixit did a teardown of the phone, finding that the construction necessary for such thinness will make repairs problematic.

13 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. One simple question... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How many people actually try to fix their own phones? Even on /. I have to imagine that the number is low.

    1. Re:One simple question... by PPH · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Like putting in a new battery?

      Call me when they make it as simple as it is with my old school RAZR.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
  2. Repair a smartphone?? by John+Hasler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Aren't they meant to be disposable? I thought you just threw them away when they became obsolete after six months.

    --
    Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
    1. Re:Repair a smartphone?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I've never known anybody to just throw away a smartphone that works. They pack them away in a drawer, sell them or hand them down, but never throw away.

      My sister is still using a 2g iPhone with no intention of upgrading as long as it works.

    2. Re:Repair a smartphone?? by Anonymus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The RAZR was not even remotely a smart phone. In fact, if anything is deserving of the term dumb phone, it does. The original Razr was essentially one of the lowest quality cell phones you can imagine, with out-of-date technology and terrible software design, combined with a gargantuan marketing blitz (take a look at some movies and television shows, and even celebrity news articles, for the two years following its release).

      I actually owned one because, if nothing else, it was the nicest looking phone for the price. Using it was painful, though.

  3. Went on sale Nov. 11th at 11:11? Really? by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I don't know whether to be impressed by their gall or appalled at their ignorance. More likely the latter; to the marketing types who come up with this kind of gimmick, anything that happened more than five minutes ago is one with Ninevah and Tyre.

    (And yes, I know it was 11:00 in 1918. Somehow that makes this worse, not better.)

    --
    The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  4. Reinvented? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seems a bit of an overstatement, how about slapped the Razr brand on a modern smartphone which isn't a clamshell.

  5. Re:HDMI? by Nyall · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes they are powerful enough.
    Second, some people want to use their tv as a slide show projector.
    Third, its an extra feature for those people out there who shop based on feature lists.
    Fourth it creates a need for people to buy a mini HDMI to full size converter. Even if its just to experiment with and never use again.

    --
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
  6. Is it too much to ask... by Millennium · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Come on. Can't even one smartphone maker do a decent clamshell design? I've found the slide mechanism on slide-outs way too vulnerable to breakdowns, and the bar phones are even worse. When did the idea of a reliable case design that protects the important stuff go out of fashion?

    1. Re:Is it too much to ask... by mustPushCart · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When apple stopped doing it.

    2. Re:Is it too much to ask... by J.+T.+MacLeod · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Today's giant scree designs make clamshell a bit difficult. You could have the hinge on the other side, but that makes vertical operation awkward. You could keep the traditional clamshell orientation, but then it becomes a very long, weird device... unless you make the screen smaller, which just isn't what makes a desirable smartphone for the vast majority of people.

      They do make cases for people such as yourself, though: http://www.oriongadgets.com/Apple-iPhone-3GS-Leather-Flip-Type-Case-Crocodile-Pattern-Red-pid-5305.html

  7. Re:Went on sale Nov. 11th at 11:11? Really? by migla · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Remembrance(TM) of your departed loved ones, brought to you by Mc Donalds. Coca-Cola with the United Fruit, Inc. presents Peace(TM) and Happiness(TM). Have a nice(TM) day, in association with Nike.

    --
    Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
  8. Re:HDMI? by g00ey · · Score: 3, Insightful

    > It is a fairly respectable desktop machine even today

    I hope you do realize that you cannot compare it to a desktop computer just by looking at the specs. A desktop computer with the same performance as this phone would be pretty awful.

    As for the hard drives, the first multi-gigabyte hard drives came somewhere before the mid nineties but it took a few years before they reached the consumer market. I bought my first multi-gig hard drive 1997 and that particular model had been around for at least a year when I bought it. It wasn't cheap but it was fully existent.