Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Motorola's Legendary RAZR Flip Phone Is Making a Comeback (engadget.com)

Posted by msmash on from the flip-phones-are-back dept.

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.

7 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Might make a splash with those who've had enough. by jddj · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  2. I'll give you a use case by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:I'll give you a use case by Etcetera · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Strictly speaking, simply running Android doesn't mean it *has* to be the smartphone we all know and hate.

      Japan, for various reasons, caught on relatively late to the smartphone craze and has had a number of flip style phones that you'd swear are BREW, and look pretty close to the late-model LG feature phones (Voyager, etc) circa 2010, but actually use an Android OS -- simply without all the Google stuff actively on top of it.

      One example: http://www.kyoex.com/sharp-504sh-aquos-keitai-android-5-1-flip-phone-unlocked/

      --
      Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
  3. Re: Might make a splash with those who've had enou by sims+2 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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!
  4. I'd rather see ... by LuxuryYacht · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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
  5. Re:I preferred the RIZR myself by SeaFox · · Score: 2, Interesting

    One big advantage of a flip-phone is built-in screen protection for when you have it in your pocket with other objects potentially.
    I never used a flip-phone back in the day, because the audio quality was lower than candy bar handsets (because of the thinner speaker diaphragms needed to fit the thin earpiece area) and lower battery life (because the body didn't have to fold in half, a candy-bar could have a much longer battery cell on the back).

  6. Re:Old people by hey! · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well, yes, because battery life trumps everything for us.

    What I'd really like is a flip phone with a replaceable battery that can also serve as a mobile access point.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.