Motorola Announces RAZR Android Smartphone

Do you remember the phone landscape back in 2003? The smartphone was still an extremely niche product and the phone that everyone was talking about was the impossibly thin Motorola Razor. Well Motorola has revived the popular line under the new RAZR moniker, as an Android powered smartphone. What sets this one apart and how does it compare to the IPhone 4s? Read on to find out:

Display:

The touch screen heavy UI of modern smartphone operating systems (with the exception of RIM) require an advanced display. The new RAZR certainly doesn’t disappoint. The new RAZR features a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display, similar to those found on the Galaxy SII, but with qHD resolution. That means the RAZR offers the gorgeous colors of the Galaxy S line, with the higher resolution of Moto’s prior devices like the Atrix. The display also features a Gorilla Glass coating to protect against scratches and other accidental damage.

Design:

Like its Razor grandfather, the new RAZR is extremely thin, in fact Motorola touts it as the slimmest smartphone ever made. The RAZR’s profile is just 7.1mm, making most of its high end Android brethren look down right chunky in comparison. The body of the phone is designed to be able to take a beating and is constructed of Kevlar.

Specs:

Don’t let the slim design fool you, the RAZR is anything but a midrange smartphone. The RAZR has a 1.2GHz TIOMAP processor and a healthy gigabyte of RAM. When you add that to the blazing fast 4G LTE radio and you have a phone to be reckoned with. The RAZR also features a huge 1800mAH battery that promises 12 hours of talk time. The trade off, however, is that unlike most other Android phones, the battery isn’t removable.

How Does It Stack Up?

When compared to the IPhone 4S the RAZR trumps it spec for spec. For example, the 4S features a 1GHz dual core processor, and 512MBs of RAM. The RAZR on the other hand, features 1.2GHz dual core processor and twice the amount of RAM. You can’t overstate the importance of optimization, however, and the IPhone 4S’s hardware is 100% optimized for its software. Thanks to that I’d say performance would be about the same, if not a bit better on the 4S. The LTE radio is another advantage over the IPhone, but depending on your carrier that may not matter.

Price and Release Date:

In the US the phone is coming exclusively to Verizon wireless in November, for $299 on contract. The Phone will be coming to Rogers at around the same time for $199 on contract. A GSM version will be made available unlocked for $550 US by years end.