Motorola Resurrects the Razr As a Foldable Android Smartphone (theverge.com) 77
After teasing it last month, Motorola has officially announced the successor to the Motorola Razr. The "razr," as it is called, "keeps the same general form factor but replaces the T9 keypad and small LCD with a 6.2-inch foldable plastic OLED panel and Android 9 Pie," reports The Verge. "It'll cost $1,499 when it arrives in January 2020." From the report: The new Razr is a fundamentally different take on the foldable phones that we've seen so far: instead of turning a modern-sized phone into a smaller tablet, it turns a conventional-sized smartphone into something much smaller and more pocketable. [...] The core of the phone is, of course, the display. It's a 6.2-inch 21:9 plastic OLED panel that folds in half along the horizontal axis. Unfolded, it's not dramatically bigger than any other modern phone, and the extra height is something that the Android interface and apps adapt to far better than a tablet-size screen. The screen does have a notch on top for a speaker and camera and a curved edge on the bottom, which takes a bit of getting used to, but after a minute or two, you barely notice it.
There's also a second, 2.7-inch glass-covered OLED display on the outside that Motorola calls the Quick View display. It can show notifications, music controls, and even a selfie camera mode to take advantage of the better main camera. Motorola is also working with Google to let apps seamlessly transition from the front display to the main one. There are some concerns about durability for the folding display, especially after Samsung's Galaxy Fold issues. But Motorola says that it has "full confidence in the durability of the Flex View display," claiming that its research shows that "it will last for the average lifespan of a smartphone." There's a proprietary coating to make the panel "scuff resistant," and it also has an internal nano-coating for splash resistance. (Don't take it swimming, though.) Motorola says that the entire display is made with a single cut, with the edges entirely enclosed by the stainless steel frame to prevent debris from getting in. Aside from the mid-range specs, like the Snapdragon 710 processor and "lackluster" 16-megapixel camera, seasoned reviewers appear to really like the nostalgic look and feel of the device. Did you own a Razr phone from the mid-2000s? How do you think the new model compares?
There's also a second, 2.7-inch glass-covered OLED display on the outside that Motorola calls the Quick View display. It can show notifications, music controls, and even a selfie camera mode to take advantage of the better main camera. Motorola is also working with Google to let apps seamlessly transition from the front display to the main one. There are some concerns about durability for the folding display, especially after Samsung's Galaxy Fold issues. But Motorola says that it has "full confidence in the durability of the Flex View display," claiming that its research shows that "it will last for the average lifespan of a smartphone." There's a proprietary coating to make the panel "scuff resistant," and it also has an internal nano-coating for splash resistance. (Don't take it swimming, though.) Motorola says that the entire display is made with a single cut, with the edges entirely enclosed by the stainless steel frame to prevent debris from getting in. Aside from the mid-range specs, like the Snapdragon 710 processor and "lackluster" 16-megapixel camera, seasoned reviewers appear to really like the nostalgic look and feel of the device. Did you own a Razr phone from the mid-2000s? How do you think the new model compares?
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Commenting to undo moderation.
$1,499 WTF people (Score:5, Insightful)
$1,499. That's more than a used car. WTF is wrong with us? We've allowed our perspectives on value to be controlled by industries that view humans as resources to be farmed and managed like cattle.
Don't buy this overpriced shit. It won't do anything a smartphone from a gen or two ago doesn't.
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Oh yea this nugget is just pure gold:
"it will last for the average lifespan of a smartphone". In other words, about 6 months if they get their way.
Re:$1,499 WTF people (Score:5, Funny)
It already comes with an old version of Android, so you can get the full experience of owning a two years old Android smartphone!
Yup "average lifespan of a smartphone" (Score:2)
"it will last for the average lifespan of a smartphone". In other words, about 6 months if they get their way.
Yup. Exactly my reaction. "Average according to whom ?"
- According to the guys that still have 5+ years old battered smartphone with a bunch of swapped components (including the battery) instead of the original ?
- Or the manufacturers who seem to think that everyone ABSOLUTELY HAS TO re-buy the latest shiniest model every 6 months ?
Couple of funny things:
- On one hand this whole "buy new phones on regular basis just like fashion clothes" is gotten so out of control, that I've seen service providers who have
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Well, the Razr was a high end phone at the time so this is not new. There will be takers. If you value in a Motorola phone then get the G7, it's an amazing value a solid, modern handset. I can heartily recommend it.
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WTF is wrong with us?
You're poor. That's what's "wrong" with you. This is still cheap. Try getting a gold plated iPhone, or a diamond encrusted one.
The Razr was one of the most expensive phones of its day.
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You say "poor". I say "not a fucking idiot".
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It's quite badly designed too. The chin at the bottom is right in the way of your fingers for the normal way people hold a smartphone.
You have to awkwardly reach over it and down to the screen. Their promo photos carefully avoid showing anyone actually doing that.
Still, they do seem to have make the screen curve radius smaller than Samsung. Hopefully in a year or two when the tech gets cheaper we will see some decent foldable phones. Having seen a Galaxy Fold in real life it looks cheap because the screen s
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Foldable glass, that would be something. Probably even gorilla glass, or we go straight to foldable transparent aluminium. Hey, one can dream, or not?
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Sapphire *IS* transparent AL.
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Hm, nitpicking very much?
No, it is not ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:$1,499 WTF people (Score:5, Insightful)
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$1,499. That's more than a used car...
Yeah, but try folding up a used car and putting it in your pocket.
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$1,499. That's more than a used car. WTF is wrong with us? We've allowed our perspectives on value to be controlled by industries that view humans as resources to be farmed and managed like cattle.
Bah
I don't know about you, but I spend a lot more time using my phone than I do my car. It's like my home office chair... for years I spent 40-45 hours per week sitting on $40 bargain bin office chairs. Then I bought a slightly better, $200 chair. The difference was phenomenal... but when that one died I thought about it and realized that given the amount of time I spend in the thing, even small improvements become large. So I spent $800 on an Aeron clone, and I will never, ever use a cheap work chair
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For $800 you could have bought an actual Aeron (or other Herman Miller chair) and had change left over.
Only a total idiot would pay over $500 for a fucking phone.
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For $800 you could have bought an actual Aeron (or other Herman Miller chair) and had change left over.
You can get a refurbished one for under $800. I spent a lot of time reading reviews before deciding against that route.
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I've got no particular love for Motorola or flip phones, honestly. I had a Samsung slider in the days of dumb phones, and I liked it a lot better than the Razers with their terrible screens and cameras.
But this is a proof of concept that you can buy. It works, and it's legitimately interesting on the engineering merits. Folding a screen a zillion times is hard. How thin can you make it? How durable?
Normal people should 100% not buy this, obviously. If you're buying this—much like the people that bough
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I've got no particular love for Motorola or flip phones, honestly.
I once had a Motorola Star Tac (was that the name?)
I liked it. A simple intuitive menu to reach all features and settings.
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> Don't buy this overpriced shit. It won't do anything a smartphone from a gen or two ago doesn't.
Except you know, fold in half without breaking. You're paying for new tech here. In 5 years everyone will have folding phones that cost a couple hundred bucks.
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$1,499. That's more than a used car. WTF is wrong with us?
What is wrong with us? Perhaps we look at history:
The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X commercial portable cellular phone came out in 1983. A full charge took roughly 10 hours, and it offered 30 minutes of talk time. It was priced at $3,995 in 1984, its commercial release year, equivalent to $9,634 in 2018.
To answer your question, we've always done this stupid shit. Sometimes even worse.
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"$1,499. That's more than a used car"
And a display that folds and *will* fail at that point. Great.
I don't care how much they refined the tech, I'll be fearing a screen with big dead spots every time I open the phone.
Android 9? (Score:4, Insightful)
There must be a good reason for releasing a $1499 flagship smartphone with an old Android version. I can't think any but I guess it must exist.
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Time to market, they get a lot more QA time on a more mature release. Motorola will follow up with OTA updates as they always do. My G6 is on 9 now and I'm not whining at all, I've had this phone for a few years now.
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Ah, correction, I've had my G6 for about 18 months. Seems like years in tech time. Still not complaining about the pace and currency of OTA updates, including security updates.
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There must be a good reason for releasing a $1499 flagship smartphone with an old Android version. I can't think any but I guess it must exist.
For most OEMs Android 9 is the current version. They typically don't start launching a new release until about a year after it launches.
Get off my lawn! (Score:3)
I seriously am not missing the T9 keypad but I notice that my frustration with nobody including a keyboard is so damn high, that I even want to start ranting at this.
More and more of that thrice-cursed touch interface gets my blood boiling :D.
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At the risk of getting you blood boiling even more, don't forget about the crappy cut and paste interface and the lack of overlapping, movable, resizeable windows.
Keyboard smartphones (Score:3)
For the more giant Psion-style / Nokia communicator style of keyboad experience :
Planet computers
and their upcoming Cosmo [planetcom.co.uk] and older Gemini [planetcom.co.uk] device.
For slightly smaller:
FxTec and their Pro1 [fxtec.com]
Best part: most of the above aren't confined to Android OSes, it's possible to also install full-blown GNU/Linux if that's what floats your boat. (Planet Computers is collaborating with Jolla).
There are probably a bunch of others. But I haven't been following the smaller form-factors.
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Just imagine they made this phone, but the bottom half of the bottom screen was a QUERTY keyboard. Now THAT would have been brilliant. The width works out (72mm wide vs a Blackberry KeyOne at 72.4mm wide), and that pushes the looooong screen back to something like 16x9 or 16x10.
Heck, while I'm at it, maybe they could have put an SD card slot, SIM slot, and a headphone jack in that lump at the bottom of the phone. I don't know where in the form factor of this thing you could put a removable battery, though.
a grand and a half ? (Score:4, Insightful)
for a device that will inevitably fail within a year or two?
my 1998-built honda hornet is 21 years old now and is still perfectly functional. It cost me a grand and a half.
also it's running android. That's half the battery capacity gone up in smoke already.
get it through your thick skulls: android is not an appropriate OS for embedded, battery-powered devices.
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If you don't want it, don't buy it, nobody wants to hear you whine about it. Lots of people bought the original Razr, which was a high end phone at the time, also with an unusual form factor.
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The form factor was a clamshell phone which was hardly unusual in any way shape or form at the time. The only thing unique about it was styling of buttons which don't seem to exist in this new version.
External color screen was unique. It was significantly thinner than anything else out there at the time. I had the original Verizon V3C version, still my favorite phone. The thing was tough as nails and just wouldn't die.
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If you don't want it, don't buy it, nobody wants to hear you whine about it. Lots of people bought the original Razr, which was a high end phone at the time, also with an unusual form factor.
I didn't buy the original RAZR, but I did sell a fair few of them.
First, it wasn't a "high-end" phone, it was a fashion item; people bought them for the size/looks, not their capabilities.
Second, it wasn't unusual in the slightest. It was merely a thin clamshell phone. Nokia miniaturised the brick in the form of the 8210/8310 and Ericsson had some success with svelte flip phones thanks to their pioneering use of LiPo batteries.
Finally, and most importantly, they suffered the same reliability problems that m
I like the idea (Score:5, Insightful)
But that price is absurd. Why use a folding display at all? Instead, take two separate 3-inch displays and hinge them so they're butted up against each other along one edge when the phone is opened. It would work better and be more in keeping with the original Razr form.
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But that price is absurd.
I remember saying that about the Razr when it came out the first time. Didn't stop people buying it though.
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Not that I care much about this phone but using 2 screens will always result in having a bezel, however small, between them
Yes, and I’m betting for this particular form-factor it wouldn’t really matter.
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You would have a seam in the display, which sounds like it would be a lot worse.
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But that price is absurd. Why use a folding display at all? Instead, take two separate 3-inch displays and hinge them so they're butted up against each other along one edge when the phone is opened. It would work better and be more in keeping with the original Razr form.
The Motorola DynaTAC portable cellular phone came out in 1994 and cost over $9600 (adjusted for inflation). Absurdity is part of the proven marketing strategy at Motorola.
And if you're still wondering about the price tag, I wouldn't bother asking the stupid people buying this shit who can't afford it. You're not likely going to get a logical answer out of that crowd.
Is the concept of new ideas really THAT dead? (Score:3)
This entire generation does nothing but shitty re-hashs of what my generation did.
I get it: We were the greatest. Hooray. --.--
Could you please have your own ideas now, and stop being such pussies?
Re: Is the concept of new ideas really THAT dead? (Score:2)
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This entire generation does nothing but shitty re-hashs of what my generation did
Are you kidding me? This is total nostalgia pull, the target demographic for this isn't the young, it's the people who remember their Razr so fondly. Head over to Reddit and you'll see that the vast majority of folks waxing poetic about it are those who would have been late 20s to middle 30s in the late 1990s.
I get it: We were the greatest. Hooray.
Good grief, I'm about to enter my 60s and all I can say what a shit mentality you have.
Could you please have your own ideas now, and stop being such pussies?
Wow, you must be a "fun" person to hang out with. I see someone else attempted a conversation to debate your po
$1500 (Score:2)
Costs too much, but I want it. (Score:1)
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I am with you on this. The form factor seems about right, and the ability to interact with some functions with the phone closed is also neat. The cost is way out in left field though, especially given the performance. I understand the trade-offs though and respect what they are trying to do. I might be a buyer if it were sub-$1000, but at this price I'll wait and see what direction this goes in.
Sadly... (Score:2)
Don't want (Score:2)
The original Razr was a piece of shit, I'd never own another one. The radio software stack kept crashing silently and couldn't be reset without turning the phone off and on again. Of course you wouldn't know it had crashed until you tried to make a call or send a message. Then you restart the phone and get inundated with a bunch of queued messages and missed calls in your voicemail.
Motorola hasn't made anything good since the M68k.
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Motorola hasn't made anything good since the M68k.
You are a few years off, as they used to make the PowerPc processor as well.
Marketing; The Sequel (Score:4, Funny)
"...it turns a conventional-sized smartphone into something much smaller and more pocketable."
Also known in the industry as Pulling a 1989.
And only one cheap model at $1499? Where's the $3000 Vintage Flashback Special Edition with the T9 keypad? If you're gonna go fuck, might as well go full clusterfuck.
Pink Razr incoming! (Score:1)
Each year, they will put the exact same product out, only in different colors, until finally....the new pink Razr!
Nothing wrong with expensive flagships (Score:2)
âoeFlagshipâ is another word for âoetop of the line.â Top of the line cars are way out of range for most people, but they have their buyers, and nobody's angry that they exist.
The real problem, if you can call it that, is that Apple (followed quickly by others) primed the smartphone market with a single, affordable model, and âoeregularâ people got used to thinking they could own, literally, the best smartphone in the world. Now that the market is maturing the high-end to low
better then samsung (Score:2)
i like this implementation better than what samsung has with their foldable phone.
it also solved the problem that phones are getting so big you can't put them anywhere anymore, this one should fit easily in any pocket.
but,
the price is way too high
and 'Motorola says that it has "full confidence in the durability of the Flex View display," claiming that its research shows that "it will last for the average lifespan of a smartphone."', whatever that means, probably a year or so.
Cinema/TV (Score:2)
Where's the Market? (Score:1)
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Yeah... I would like my phone much more if I could fold it and put it in my pocket.
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Prestige. They want to feel like they are on top of the world.
People who buy this will flaunt it to people they want to impress, i.e. have under them.
If you see a person with this, it is a warning sign. The person will likely not treat you as an equal, but constantly judge you to asses whether you are above or beneath him by his standards.
Maybe I'm just dumb (Score:2)
...but what's the deal with folding displays?
How does anyone NOT expect that to break?
I was laughing about the Roku shutdown of older devices coming on Dec 1 with a friend and he said "yeah, I've come to expect that pretty much any electronic gadget is going to fail in 3-5 years..." fortunately in our early 50s, he opined that we only have to suffer this stupid shit maybe 3-5 more cycles anyway.
Not $600? (Score:1)
It's got a notch! (Score:2)
I'm in! I love the notch! All the best phones have a notch. A notch plus a folding screen? That's the best of all possible screens which makes the razr the best of all possible phones.
So they want $1500 for a Snapdragon 710? (Score:2)
This is gonna flop hard.
I'm saying this as someone who has some nostalgia for the old Nokia and Motorola phones. Hell, I grabbed one of Nokia's first Android phones after their resurrection---partly because it was affordable and well-made.
This is not affordable, and the history of foldable screens suggests we may need a few years before they can be considered "well-made".
And all of this is on top of the fact that I'm offended by a mid-range SoC in a premium-priced phone.
My PI will have to buy one (Score:2)
When the price drops to $99, my PI will buy one of these to replace her current flip phone.
RAZR was a cool phone, but not a good phone. (Score:2)
Back in the day, the RAZR was stylish and impossibly thin. One could even say impractically thin. The thinness made it hard to use as an actual phone, and the extremely flat buttons were difficult to use, and the battery life was mediocre. It was so small and light that you could slip it in your pocket and forget it's there. It's almost as if they optimized the experience for when you weren't using it.
This new iteration looks much the same. It has mediocre specs, and unimpressive battery capacity, and it co