DROID RAZR: Verizon Announces 'World's Thinnest Smartphone' By Motorola

Guess who's back? Verizon has announced the Motorola DROID RAZR, reviving a brand name once given to the fourth best-selling cell phone of all time.

Motorola claims that the new RAZR is the thinnest smartphone in the world at 7.1 mm thick, but the Droid RAZR also packs some pretty impressive specs inside its slim frame. Running Android Gingerbread, the newest Motorola Droid phone has a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, an 8 megapixel rear-facing camera that takes 1,080HD video, a front-facing HD camera, 32GB of memory and 1GB of RAM. And, oh yeah, it's 4G LTE capable, running exclusively on the well-rated Verizon network.

With the RAZR, though, its all about the body (remember the commercials?): Besides being super thin (with a camel hump at the top, as on the Droid X), the RAZR is "made with Kevlar fiber for strength and Corning Gorilla Glass for scratch resistance." It's also got a "water repellent nanocoating," which Motorola claims will "protect the phone against every day spills." The display screen, meanwhile, is 4.3-inches of super AMOLED. In an interesting note, the RAZR will also be the first smartphone able to stream Netflix movies in HD resolution.

At the RAZR's official unveiling, Gizmodo reported that Motorola claimed the RAZR would get 12.5 hours of talk time and almost 9 hours of video playback, which would be quite the impressive battery.

The Motorola DROID RAZR will go on sale some time in early November for $299.99 with a two-year contract with Verizon. Though some thought Motorola might get the newest Nexus phone after being bought by Google, it appears that the DROID RAZR will be their flagship phone of 2011 and going forward. The RAZR is back, baby, and it's the slimmest smartphone on the market.

The DROID RAZR will be available for pre-sale at the Droid website on October 27, with a release date some time in early November.

Comments

[edenooch]

11:19 AM on 10/19/2011

will there be an unlocked version for any gsm carrier. Verizon Iicks sacks

[rabit818]

10:18 AM on 10/19/2011

It is so thin all we see is a sliver.

[glow-in-the-dark]

07:19 AM on 10/19/2011

I'm totally confused now. AFAIK, the RAZR was a foldable phone - especially the v3i had a great form factor. It also had world's worst keyboard as it was reflective - in sunlight it was unusable, but boy, did the form factor compensate for that. It even compensated for the terrible address book software.

So, could we please have a foldable phone in those exact dimensions, but with a better OS? Granted, Android isn't that much better (and a huge privacy risk - remember who makes it) but it beats what was originally in the RAZR. The form factor is IMHO so important I'd buy it in a flash, I have yet to see any phone like it. I still have 2..

[ElCojonuo]

06:06 AM on 10/19/2011

I've been waiting for battery life improvement and less volume and weight before looking into a Smart Phone and this sounds more like it.
Since I already have 4G with Verizon, this might be it.
Motorola has never let me down ( going back to the original flip phone ).

[ElCojonuo]

05:58 AM on 10/19/2011

Steve hasn't been gone a month and it's already started.

[jabreal00]

05:47 AM on 10/19/2011

I hope it's a better build quality than the original RAZR. I had that phone when it first came out a cost $200. That thing was a piece of junk. I had to send it in repeatedly to get fixed.

[rekky]

05:14 AM on 10/19/2011

"The RAZR is back, baby"

Is this a news article or an advertisement?

[nishioka]

01:55 AM on 10/19/2011

Interesting memories of the old RAZR. Had one on Alltel five or six years ago, and life was great. Then I got one on Sprint after moving, same exact model, and it was complete ass. Sprint had such lousy firmware loaded on their V3M that the Alltel phone would run circles around it.

I'm glad that the business of operating systems on phones has been turned over to software developers who actually know how to make a decent OS, be it iOS or Android, and away from engineers who think their dog food is fit for consumption by the general public.

[nowpolitics]

09:00 PM on 10/18/2011

Unless this phone will have a dual CDMA-GSM radios, it will not sell very well.

[imayes]

08:08 PM on 10/18/2011

It's so thin you can't even take pictures of it! Awesome!

[SGMD1]

08:06 PM on 10/18/2011

Pros: super thin, excellent tensile strength/build quality, gorilla glass, blazing fast hardware
Cons: locked bootloader, non-removable battery, high price point, no Android 4.0

I'm on the fence on this one.

[scoobydubious]

07:44 PM on 10/18/2011

They had me at "nanocoating".
/sarcasm

photos or it didn't happen...

[Silverwolf72]

06:54 PM on 10/18/2011

Why do you need HD movies on a 4.3" screen?

[F4G Phantom]

08:11 PM on 10/18/2011

You, 'Wolfie', go to the head of the class.

[Bluesman2008]

09:07 PM on 10/18/2011

Why? You can play them on your HD TV.

[JasonMcl]

06:22 PM on 10/18/2011

The RAZR has a reputation as being a tough and reliable phone with an excellent battery life.
From what has been seen so far it looks like this phone will shape up to do the same thing.

Here is my take so far:

Thinness: I actually like my phones to have a little heft on them. (I have an extended battery on my phone and happily trade the extra weight and thickness for a 20 hour battery life) but others will probably appreciate the thinness and lightness which have apparently set records.

Screen: SAMOLED is always a very good choice for phones because of the extreme levels of brightness they are capable of. Most super AMOLED phones can be seen easily in broad daylight and have amazing levels of color saturation. This screen is likely made by Samsung and should be identical to the SGS2 which is a very good thing.

Software: Even though ICS (Ice Cream Sandwitch) is being announced like now... Android 2.3 is still the most stable and supported release. ICS will have some things that it does amazingly well, but there may very well be some App compatibility issues from poorly written apps. So basically, don't overlook this phone simply because it doesn't have the latest and greatest Android 4.0.

Continued.....

[JasonMcl]

06:23 PM on 10/18/2011

The Netflix HD stream is just a gimmick. Its better to watch Netflix on a tablet or a TV while at home and when you are mobile you certainly don't want to eat up all of your 4G bandwidth unless you are on a true unlimited plan.

Durability: The light build, the kevlar fiber and the waterproof coating are smart editions to this phone, because if you really appreciate thinness you aren't going to want to strap an otterbox to this thing. And if this phone really ends up being durable enough to laugh off a 6 foot drop onto concrete then it may actually be used without a case...

I would like to see the actual reviews but I think so far that Moto really hit a homerun with this. It is almost enough to tempt me away from the Nexus Prime (Almost....).

[Boognish represent]

07:12 PM on 10/18/2011

It might end up with ICS on it though, no?

[jsgaetano]

06:12 PM on 10/18/2011

Looks like Apple's going to have another product where they try to win in the courts rather than the marketplace.

[helioszephyr]

10:29 AM on 10/20/2011

Hmmm... you mean like the Xoom?

Is that why Moto is in talks of selling off their mobile phone division?
http://www.mobiledia.com/news/64790.html

[jsgaetano]

12:07 PM on 10/20/2011

Motorola Mobile has been a separate entity since before the Xoom was released. But hey, don't let reality get in the way of some good Apple Cultism.