What was so great about the razr?

[BlahBlahYouToo]

Other than the form factor, which honestly wasn't super special...
It seemed very mediocre to me but was all the rage back in the day.

 

[Deeko]

1) Form factor. Nothing looked as slick as the Razr at the time, and with cell phones for the general public, its ALL about looks
2) They advertized the HELL out of it while it was still expensive (it was very expensive on release), so it because an "exclusive" device. Then when it dropped in price, the masses went wild.

 

[JaYp146]

My V3m still works very well, 3.5 year life span.

 

[QueBert]

It was all about it's looks, Motorola use to be king of that. Hell about a decade ago they had my Grandma dying to get a StarTac, and she hated cell phones.

StarTac -> Razz -> ran out of new looks lol.

I'll admit I did kind of want a Razr, and I REALLY wanted a StacTac, I never had either though. And from what Razr owners told me, it had really good reception and voice quality.

 

[Deeko]

It was all about it's looks, Motorola use to be king of that. Hell about a decade ago they had my Grandma dying to get a StarTac, and she hated cell phones.

StarTac -> Razz -> ran out of new looks lol.

I'll admit I did kind of want a Razr, and I REALLY wanted a StacTac, I never had either though. And from what Razr owners told me, it had really good reception and voice quality.

Reception/voice quality has been a Motorola staple for a long time.

 

[destrekor]

Reception/voice quality has been a Motorola staple for a long time.

My V710 (which I like to view as a Razr minus the crazy thin body) was simply awesome. My Droid's shaping up to be quite the phone too.

 

[foghorn67]

I had the V3c. Besides VZW's awful UI, it was a great phone.

Pros:
1)Form factor was great. In era when flip phones got huge, this was refreshing.
2)Great reception, great call quality, speakerphone was decent enough.
3)OBEX. Wasn't by design, VZW intended to squash it, but it worked.
4)First phone with BT I had. This phone helped the BT trend get started for better and for worse.

Cons:
1)Horrible VZW UI
2)Battery life without warning went to lasting half a day. A long wait after a fleabay battery to ship from HK fixed that for about 10 bucks.

 

[Metron]

I have both an old RAZR and the old StarTAC (which was an early digital phone, still works and would be functional other than the fact that it doesn't have any E911 location ability)...

As far as the RAZR, I had quite a bit of music ripped to the storage on it, so I never bought into the iPod mentality. I had VZ Navigator on it as well, so I had one device that for phone, messaging, music, and navigation.

 

[pm]

I liked the form factor, I liked the battery life (I got about 5 days out of mine for most of the years that I had it), I liked that the GSM version supported most of the world, and I particularly liked the signal strength and call quality. It got "more bars in more places" and it sounded crisp.

 

[aceO07]

I had the StarTac and the Razr. I loved both for their clamshell and size. It did what it was supposed to do, be a phone and let me make calls.

If the battery on the StarTac was still good and it supported GSM, I'd still use it today. Bluetooth would have been nice to have on it. All the other new developments I don't really need.

 

[Rottie]

never own razr and you expect everyone to answer? For me I never own razr and i looked and felt razr phone few times the form factor is very slick.

 

[hanoverphist]

1) Form factor. Nothing looked as slick as the Razr at the time, and with cell phones for the general public, its ALL about looks
2) They advertized the HELL out of it while it was still expensive (it was very expensive on release), so it because an "exclusive" device. Then when it dropped in price, the masses went wild.

i got one for free when they came out hehe. the style was the reason i looked at it, but it really was a decent phone. good signal, pretty durable as well.

My V3m still works very well, 3.5 year life span.

my v3c is still sitting at my house, it becomes the back up if my kids bust theirs.

I had the V3c. Besides VZW's awful UI, it was a great phone.

Cons:
1)Horrible VZW UI
2)Battery life without warning went to lasting half a day. A long wait after a fleabay battery to ship from HK fixed that for about 10 bucks.

i didnt have too much trouble with my battery, and the UI wasnt that big a deal to me. i went into the settings and used the original UI built into the phone and changed the theme to one i liked.

 

[Gooberlx2]

I never had one. My wife did and she loved it at the time. It was sleek, fit in her tiny pants pockets, and was actually reliable in functionality and signal (compared to a lot of other Tmobile phones we'd gone through). It was even better after I changed it to a customized ROM.

I had a Moto v360 which, imo, remains one of the best phones I've ever had.

 

[Demo24]

I remember it as being 'the' phone to have, at least at first. Mostly because it was thin and futuristic looking. After that phones started to get noticeably less thick. Even today its still respectably thin, although the hardware no longer is. Problem was moto kind of rested on its laurels after that phone, until the Droid.

I had a basic flip phone from them for a number of years and always liked it. Now I'm back with the droid and very happy with it! Nice to be back in the moto camp.

 

[JDub02]

i had the v3c (verizon razr). it was a fantastic phone. i loved the design. call quality was great. battery life was good until the battery started to go. lots of cheap replacements out there. easy to mod the software.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

lol nothing?

The phone was based off the Motorola V600 from April 2004. I remember because I picked up a V600 in July 2004. The Razr put it in a smaller form factor. Definitely was sexy to me. The hype wore off by the end of the year when you could get the phone for free at most Asian stores.

Unfortunately, this phone was all the rage in the US. I still do not understand, but I suppose it's like the Vizio and Sceptre LCDs that run for $399 these days. By mid 2005, there were way better phones. 2 megapixel cameraphones WITH LED flash that I was after. Yet in 2005 the RaZr was just starting to take the US by storm.

All around the world Moto was viewed as a fail at that point, but I think they made a good chunk of change in the US and kept its #2 spot there. It's funny because by like 2007, Motorola had like 1/3rd of the US market but something like 10% of the global market.

Anyway, if you liked the Motorola UI, then that's pretty bad. Their OS was just beyond fail. Maybe for 2004 it was decent, but it's not only slow and laggy, but just buggy overall. I played around with my V600 and my friend's V300 a lot. We even flashed the V300 for fun to see if it'd improve, but ugh... The RaZr was pretty much the same.

But in the end I think it did a lot in getting free phones out to consumers and bringing in people into the mobile market. I think the US mobile market needed a huge boost back in the day with our low penetration rates.

 

[ultimatebob]

It was thin and sexy looking, and that was good enough for most people. I had an E815 at the time, which was actually a better phone due it's bigger battery and MicroSD slot... but it didn't have the same "cool" factor.

 

[rudeguy]

oh dear God...not this phone again.

I sold hundreds...thousands? of this phone. The attraction was that it was advertised like hell. Moto is the Apple of cell phones. Decent quality mixed in with lots of polish and TONS of advertising.

 

[Throckmorton]

oh dear God...not this phone again.

I sold hundreds...thousands? of this phone. The attraction was that it was advertised like hell. Moto is the Apple of cell phones. Decent quality mixed in with lots of polish and TONS of advertising.

I thought Apple was the Apple of cell phones

 

[zylander]

Everyone is saying that its best quality was how thin it was, I actually thought that it was too thin and I did not like it. I felt the phone was a piece of shit; the build quality seemed decent but I didnt like the key pad and I felt the interface was extremely sluggish, mush worse than other phones of a similar design. The razr was advertised into oblivion and thats why so many were sold.

 

[Zenmervolt]

lol nothing?

The phone was based off the Motorola V600 from April 2004. I remember because I picked up a V600 in July 2004. The Razr put it in a smaller form factor. Definitely was sexy to me. The hype wore off by the end of the year when you could get the phone for free at most Asian stores.

Unfortunately, this phone was all the rage in the US. I still do not understand, but I suppose it's like the Vizio and Sceptre LCDs that run for $399 these days. By mid 2005, there were way better phones. 2 megapixel cameraphones WITH LED flash that I was after. Yet in 2005 the RaZr was just starting to take the US by storm.

All around the world Moto was viewed as a fail at that point, but I think they made a good chunk of change in the US and kept its #2 spot there. It's funny because by like 2007, Motorola had like 1/3rd of the US market but something like 10% of the global market.

Anyway, if you liked the Motorola UI, then that's pretty bad. Their OS was just beyond fail. Maybe for 2004 it was decent, but it's not only slow and laggy, but just buggy overall. I played around with my V600 and my friend's V300 a lot. We even flashed the V300 for fun to see if it'd improve, but ugh... The RaZr was pretty much the same.

But in the end I think it did a lot in getting free phones out to consumers and bringing in people into the mobile market. I think the US mobile market needed a huge boost back in the day with our low penetration rates.

Yes, it did lag in all the areas you mention. What you neglect to mention at all, however are the following two items:

- The RAZR had ridiculously good audio quality for both the user and the caller.
- The RAZR had an exceptionally good transceiver which allowed it to maintain excellent signal strength.

You're absolutely right that the RAZR was not a very good technology toy. However, it was (and actually remains to this day) one of the very best phones. There are only two other phones I've ever used that can match the voice quality of the RAZRs I've used, my v60c and my Droid, both Motorola phones.

Say what you want about interface or camera megapixels, but in my experience Motorola makes hands-down the best radios. If you want something that will function well as a phone then Motorola is difficult to beat. If you're just looking for the latest geek e-peen++ status symbol and don't give a crap about call quality, then by all means find something else.

ZV