Motorola have taken a somewhat brave decision to re-use the name from the classic Motorola RAZR V3 and its many descendants. The original RAZR V3 looked really cool, but was pretty awful to use, and Motorola's addiction to the RAZR line nearly killed the company. Obviously, this new RAZR is nothing at all like its namesakes, but Motorola must surely be hoping that customers remember how cool the original V3 looked rather than how bad it was underneath.
The striking physical design sets the new RAZR apart from other phones. At its thinnest point, the RAZR is just 7.1mm thick. The back of the phone is covered in laser-cut Kevlar - the sort of stuff they use for body armour - and the screen has Gorilla Glass on the front to protect it. The RAZR has a nanoparticle-based water repellant system called Splashguard that covers the case and even the electronics inside.
When you get past the remarkable external characteristics, the RAZR is a pretty powerful beast underneath as well. Inside is a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor coupled with 1GHz of RAM. On the front is a 4.3" 540 x 960 pixel super AMOLED touchscreen. On the back is an 8 megapixel camera with 1080p HD video recording, plus there is a secondary 1.3 megapixel camera for video calling. A 16GB microSD card comes preinstalled in the handset.
Motorola RAZR This specification might sound eerily familiar.. and that's because it is almost the same as in the upcoming Motorola ATRIX 2. Although the two handsets look very different, perhaps the most important difference is that the RAZR is heading to Europe while the ATRIX 2 isn't.
The Motorola RAZR is an Android 2.3.5 device, the latest revision of Google's "Gingerbread" operating system. Coincidentally, the RAZR's launch almost coincides with the anticipated announcement of the first Android 4.0 smartphone, and it remains to be seen just how that operating system will compare with this.
Motorola have enhanced the OS with some of their own applications such as Smart Actions which allows for all sorts of clever actions depending on location, time or who is calling you. As the iPhone 4S shows, sometimes these advanced software applications really do make the difference.
Motorola RAZR Of course, the RAZR does everything that any other Android phone does, so it has WiFi, GPS and access to a massive collection of applications plus useful things like a web browser and turn-by-turn navigation pre-installed. One thing missing is an FM radio and of course there's no physical keyboard either in a device this thin.
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