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Motorola's Legendary RAZR Flip Phone Is Making a Comeback (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader shares an Engadget article: The year was 2004, and Motorola had just announced what was then an insanely thin flip phone, the RAZR V3. It was -- and still is -- a head-turner, and eventually over 130 million units were sold in total. Such were the glorious days of Motorola. Twelve years later, the now Lenovo-owned brand appears to be prepping a relaunch of this legendary model, according to its teaser video of a nostalgic walkthrough at a high school.The teaser is available on YouTube. Nice of Motorola to try doing something different from most of its rivals. However, a flip phone -- with a tiny display and those buttons (assumption) -- may not have much of practical case in 2016.
I know the RAZR was far more popular but I thought the design of the RIZR was superior. With the RIZR I could always see all of the display, and the keypad slid out from underneath when I needed it. The biggest downside of it was that for some odd reason Motorola decided that the keys on the RIZR should literally be stickers, which would at times slip right off.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
those over 30, want a phone not a tease box iPhone.
I'm tired of being distracted every minute of the day, and tracked endlessly by everyone.
I'd think about one. And take the battery out when I don't want to be tracked at all.
I just switched back to using an old Nokia dumb phone, I have an ipad mini with 4g when I want data on the go. It's kind of a nice combo really
My mom wants a cell phone that has decent battery life, makes and receives phone calls, is thin and nothing else. She loved her old Razr. Take a guess what she'll want when she sees this?
It's just a normal android smartphone in a retro form factor, i.e. it will track you as much as any android powered device.
My Palm Pre was perfect, but I cannot buy a decent phone like it any more.
Why do manufacturers refuse to make capable "small" ( i.e. non-phablet, 4" or smaller screen ) phones ?
The Sony Z3 Compact is almost the only player in this area, I do not understand why.
Why not add a touchscreen? For that matter, make the keypad a touchscreen too. Now that would be a head-turner.
Better known as 318230.
There was a time when several generations of people lived with phones that had no screens at all. In fact, some of those people still walk among us, although they may move more slowly than they once did.
There are some people who prefer to use a phone just for talking (and, strange though it may seem, listening). Sure, they skew older, but you're kind of dumb to overlook the segment completely.
I have a samsung convoy 3 and an ipad 2. I need my phone to work as a phone more than anything else.
Verizon is planning on retiring their 2g and 3g networks in 2020-2021 yet its 2016 now and afaik they do not have a single dumb cellphone that works on their 4G network.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
I bet it's a full on re-imagining of the RAZR, which is sort of cool but mostly sad. The thing I miss most is the 10 day battery life, and I doubt a micro-thin Android rebake is gonna bring that back.
it was a quick and easy way to show folks (especially girls) that you could drop a ton of money on a phone. Basically a veblen good. Take that away and it's just outdated tech. Nostalgia maybe? I don't see that going very far.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Well that's disappointing.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
My old black Razr V3 still works fine but the main reason I don't use it anymore is the crappy, weird headset connection. Give me a new model with a 3.5mm headset jack, sell it to me unbranded & unlocked & I'll take it.
I still use my original RAZR flip phone. So original in fact that it was pre-GPS chip (and yes, they do exist). It amuses me when I pull it out and use it and other people see it. And then I point out al the advantages:
1. Its smaller and lighter than smart phones
2. I don't have to charge it every day
3. I can (and do) drop it onto hard surfaces with the only worry being trying to find where the #@$%# battery cover bounced off to
And sure I could have a computer in my pocket, by why do I need one when I have 5 computers in arms reach and sit in front of one most of the working day? I also have a dedicated GPS in my car.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
The RAZR was good, but for me the most iconic phone has been the Nokia 7110. The thrill of pressing the slide release button was simply unrivalled. The almost dangerous speed that the spring loaded slide came down at clearly said "I'm the boss" to everyone around. Never has answering a phone been so exhilarating.
While the slide was the main feature, lets not forget the two tone colouring that changed between green and magenta depending on the viewing angle. It was also the first phone with WAP, so you could read a few lines of a web page in low resolution text. This was aided by the wheel that let you easily scroll effortlessly through the text. As for the size of the phone...perfection!
Compared to the 7110 the RAZR had what? It was a bit thin and that was it. If one phone needs resurrecting it's the 7110. At least give us a phone with a slide so I can once again feel the pure exhilaration of pressing that slide release button. I need that in my life!
I hear phones are starting to have RFID strips and readers in them; If so that makes it possible for a connected/powered phone to record when it walks by a phone w/o battery in it; and I suppose relay the phone w/o batteries position/ID.
Best phone shape ever made, imo the motorola Droid3 xt862... slide out 4 row keyboard, USB, HDMI, removable battery and microSD slot.. The hardware was buggy forcing reboot every 24-96 hours but the perfect shape.. Would pay a fortune for the same "phone" with x86 processor that could run Linux/Win7 natively in that case.
a slider phone with:
Touchscreen, bigger than the n900
Full QWERTY
Unlocked bootloader
u-boot
Large removable battery
With all the usual sensors and IO
As open a firmware stack as possible for the RF.
FPGA for encryption/decryption
Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
All I want is a phone that doesn't track me, and I can take the battery out.
Why is this SO FUCKING DIFFICULT for phone makers to figure out?????????????
and that makes it good enough for me. LLAP
Well, everything here is just speculation. It *could* be a stylish 'feature' phone, it could be an android flip phone with number pad, it could be something more exotic and unique. It could be nothing more than a marketing video prodding Millennials to remember when Motorola was *the* hottest thing (to the point of being Apple's go-to-market strategy for mobile at one point).
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Flip phones are more popular in Japan, which seems counter intuitive to their high tech reputation. The only problem is they can't use common proprietary methods of communication. If it worked with whatsapp/etc, I would get.
I bet you the new Moto X will actually be called either the "Moto Razr" or "Moto X Razr"
Not after they 1) promised an update to ICS, 2) locked the bootloader, and then 3) promptly *abandoned* their *flagship* model--leaving it trapped forever on gingerbread--after only about 18 months on the market.
Only Nexus for me now--so I know I can always get updates.
Yessss... Tired of soap bar touch screen phones.
Down side is flip phones will kill the aftermarket repairs for cracked gorilla glass screens on soap touch screen phones :)
Razr had terrible battery life. The inexpensive Moto E and Lumia 640 can go two weeks between recharges. If they are too big, then the iPhone SE is thin and small. Disable wifi and data and it's a simple phone.
Motorola phones are crap. I had to use them because my provider only carried them. Then when they got LGs I grabbed one and I learned what a quality design was.
I have a laptop, a camera, and a GPS, all of which are better stat wise than any smart phone. When I leave the house you can get a hold of me still, but I'm not distracted by my addiction to trolling Facebook political pages. Having the internet at every waking moment is often more of an inconvenience than it's worth, and if I REALLY have to look something up it can usually wait until I get home. The only thing I don't like about it is that everyone just assumes I'm poor, but with a hipster marketing campaign like this I can keep my flipphone and not be a social outcast, I call that a big win for Motorola, it's a smart move.
I wouldn't be disappointed yet. Considering Lenovo has produced nothing but a teaser I would have to say [citation needed] before declaring this to be a flip android smartphone.
I owned one of these and it was great a great phone for its time. I still have it in a box somewhere.
It had a slick marketing feature in the box design- you pulled a tab on the box and it unfolded up and back, popping the phone up like it was the Hope diamond. The box design probably sold a bunch of them all by itself. You'd pull the tab, the phone would pop up, and people would go, "Ooooh!"
It was a good phone too, slim, durable, and worked great.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
If it supports 3G/4G global standards. I'll be losing my (original) RAZR when AT&T drops 2G equipment later this year. I don't need all the garbage that iPhone/Androids have. Particularly with that 'must have data plan' bullshit that carriers pull with 'smartphones'.
Have gnu, will travel.
Submitters can't write, and the editors can't read.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If you make a Razr that can run facebook messenger, instagram, twitter, and costs $40, that will sell.
Texting and messaging on a flip phone is like trying to wade through deep mud -- grossly inconvenient. For this reason alone, flip phones with 12 button keypads will never make a comeback.
I'm with you. Still use my V750 that has MIL SPEC dust proofing. Charge it approx once a week unless I use it a fair amount. Have a protective case with a clip and drops are almost a non issue. I will be sad when I have to replace this. Hopefully the phone manufacturers AND carriers wise up that there are those of us out there who use their phones as a phone, strange as that may sound, and don't need a battery and data sucking appliance.
(doesn't anyone speak english anymore?)
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
Forget the camera. keyboard. smart everything.
just give me a phone that makes phone calls and lasts for a month on a charge.
otherwise... forget it.
Ok, Stallman. You can use an Android phone without being distracted in the same way you can own a television without becoming a couch potato. It's called self-control. How you configure and use the phone is up to you. You can shut off the data connection and just use SMS and Phone calls if you want. By the way, if the government wants to track you they can do it without a phone.
This is great. My dad still uses his V3 and loves it. If it's still as simple to use but with more battery it would be a great "upgrade". I imagine it'll be some form of android, as long as it mimics the original OS it'll be perfect.
Razr v3 was the best phone I've ever had - great form and function.
Light, durable, easy to carry, a nice feel in your hand. Just a nice piece of engineering.
I haven't used it in years but its still sitting here ready to go - it makes me question my move to other devices, and makes me a bit sad, every time I catch sight of it.
"By the way, if the government wants to track you they can do it without a phone."
Sure, but why not force them to do it the "hard way" via boots on the ground and with a valid *specific* court order?
It's a little bit like having an "expensive" computation as part of an encryption routine: if tracking an individual is "expensive" then it will only be used when absolutely necessary, which in my opinion is a good thing.
Yes. The kind of people who are still in highschool mentally or physically. It's a great two way filter.
Having an open RF stack is illegal for a licensed transmitter. The FCC does not allow any changes at all to the conditions to which the device was approved. Small changes can be made via a class 2 permissive change, but allowing you, the user access to change the RF properties is very illegal.
And with good reason too. You would be surprised to know how much damage to a network just one fucked up phone can cause.
Why don't I believe you? Your carrier would have forced you to upgrade to a GPS phone; at least they would if they were like my carrier.
...would love to have just a phone. It would be nice with a simple GPS (just displaying the coordinates, elevation and speed) but it should only be running when activated.
I've had my 1st Gen Moto X since its' release date, and have never used it to its' full functionality. I make calls, sms, mms, browsing and email. l miss my old slider flip phone, the battery lasted 3 days and my screen was never in danger.
I took it out and charged it a few weeks ago - I was considering dropping my iPhone 6 plan and just going prepay (AT&T GoPhone $100/year) on the RAZR. It's hard to find a cheap, low data plan these days. But the iPhone 6 on Verizon is a very handy device. I just don't use much data (typically less than 10 mb/month).
... and has a removeable battery. I had flip-phone for many years, and I'm so tired of these oversized "touch-display" bar-phones that are so much less ergonomic to handle.
Will these morons who write articles like this stop using words that they don't understand? Legendary? Really? It's a fucking phone and one that wasn't even all that well known like the StarTac.
Regardless of what phone it is, it is not legendary unless it was a bit of mythology or folklore and never existed or it was somehow a heroic or superhuman person. But we all know that phones aren't people.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I did a brief stint doing software development for Motorola back when the original RAZR was considered "state of the art" and without revealing any company secrets, I can tell you the software stack that ran on those things was garbage and a pain in the ass to work with.
Lets hope any new RAZR runs on a sane software stack.
Open RF Stack ! = Changes to the conditions to which the device was approved.
Open means that you can see the source.
Changes means modifying the binary installed in the device after approval.
Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
What I liked most of mine (Palm Pre and HP Pre3) wasn't as mush the size as the physical keyboard and the wonderful card-based/touch-based UI.
(apparently so good that even iOS and Android are currently attempting pale copies of it).
I dont appreciate the Android UI, it mostly reminds me of a cluttered windows desktop (with dozens of icon).
Jolla's SailfishOS (different kind of cards, and another way to do touch-based UI) is the closest thing to come nearly webOS's UI's usability.
(My main gripe is that it still lacks the "tabs as separate cards" metaphor that webOS had. In sailfishOS, each application either introduce its own different logic for tabs (like browsers) or can't open multiple windows (like e-mail). In webOS, tabs are opened as extra cards that get automatically grouped together in "hands")
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
"However, a flip phone -- with a tiny display and those buttons (assumption) -- may not have much of practical case in 2016."
What? You think everyone wants to lug around a smartphone with a shitty touchscreen?
I carry a Samsung Gusto flip phone, and have for several years now. It does what I need it to do quietly and efficiently. I have to take a laptop and hot spot with me everywhere to cover for work so I don't need, or want a smart phone. I have an in car GPS system, and work pays for the laptop and hotspot so I do quite well with a small well protected flip phone in my pocket.
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobi...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Yet another completely untrustworthy consumer electronic device from the Communist Chinese army.
Yup. "Lenovo" is not some typical private or publicly-traded western corporation. A bunch of western companies sold-off the product lines they were failing with to China, a totalitarian one-party-rule communist nation. Thinkpads were an early product to transfer to "Lenovo", and now it's the RAZR. It will have little in common with the original, the current owners of the Motorola IP are just squeezing a little more cash out of that corporate corpse by selling to probably the only bidder willing to pay - the Chinese army looking to camouflage more untrustworthy junk to make it easier to sell in the west. "Lenovo" is just the New York Mad Men style group-tested marketing happy face name slapped onto this communist government affiliated quasi-business entity.
I had the KRAZR, and it was my favorite phone before I got my first WinPhone.
Why do you need a dumb phone when you need a phone to work as a phone?
What's important to you, calls and battery life? Most modern android handsets come with ultra low power mode that give you all the features of your dumbphone including the multiple week battery life, and best of all if you get in a pickle where only the mighty internet can help you then you have access to that again at the push of a button.
Heh, you and me both, friend.
In all seriousness, I'm still using the RAZR V9 I bought years ago. The outside display has a dead spot in it just over one of the touchscreen buttons (this damage is recent), and the outside glass is cracked, and the rubber coating recently peeled off the battery cover, but it still works fine as a phone, and that's all I need. I still can't justify the expense to purchase or operate a smartphone, especially with what a swisscheese they are so far as security goes. I'd welcome an updated version of what I have. The only real improvement I'd like is a better music player built into it.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
No sliding or bending parts to wear, fatigue and break...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Slvr
I still continue to use my RAZR v3 that I got in 2007. It's a phone, and a damn good one, with long battery life, that never pocket dials anyone and can take beating and just works. I don't need it to play movies, I don't need it to play games, I don't need it to read or send emails and I sure as hell don't need to pay more per month for a 'data' plan, if I want to do those things I use my Surface or desktop or laptop. All I need\want it to be is a very reliable PHONE and occasionally send a text and maybe send or receive a simple photo a few times a year. It presently continues to do those things flawlessly.
I'd very much be interested in an updated version that maybe adds a basic gps\map app feature so long as battery life isn't significantly impacted and is updated for newer carrier technologies as I have to imagine at some point eventually by old one will be EOL in terms of them providing service. It's nice to have gotten what will be next year 10 years out of a cell phone... I've not even had to replace the battery, though I will say it used to last for 3-5 days on a charge (with little use) now it's maybe 2-3, but that's to be expected.
I have and use the same one... a v3 that doesn't have gps or mapping.
Still works for what I use it for.... a very reliable phone!
As for dropping it and the battery thing.. solved that the week I got it with a 9.95$ hard case that snaps on to it, never been a problem since... 9 years and still ticking fine on the original battery.
I could use an updated version that does have GPS\basic mapping function that could be enabled... it's about the only thing I've ever wished it had over the year, and even that was sporadic, but it would come in handy. If they can add that I'll buy one for sure, it's been nice to be able to get ~10 years out of cell phone purchase.
What's important to me is that the hardware is small enough to not be distracting in a pocket, and that it's not vulnerable to the dings and dust of outdoor work. Hence I use a $12 flip phone. It has decent battery life and does the job, and if it does get busted it's cheap to replace.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
The RAZR had a terrible habit of crashing the radio software stack while otherwise appearing to be working fine. If you hadn't received any calls or messages for a day or so restarting the phone would bring in a flood of messages and missed call notifications. My RAZR went through the crusher after missing too many important calls, then I bought a Palm Trëo 650 which was probably the best phone I've ever owned.
That would get shot down by an FCC lawyer quicker than you can type "RAZR" and their argument will be that it's like leaving the keys in the ignition. Everyone will have the tools they need to modify the radios and destroy cell networks with just a "do not touch" sticky note attached to it.