NEW YORK-Motorola Mobility has decided its best option in the long-running fight against Apple’s iPhone was to mate two famous mobility brands, Droid and Razr, into the Droid Razr.
The new smartphone hews to the aesthetic styling of Motorola Mobility’s Droid franchise, with the large 4.3-inch super AMOLED screen (with qHD resolution) and an aggressively blocky design. Like those other Droid phones, the Droid Razr runs Android (specifically Android 2.3.5, also known as “Gingerbread,” with the latest under-the-hood tweaks). At the same time, its 7.1-millimeter-thin body harkens to the Razr, a line of ultra-slim feature phones that proved a hit in the technological Dark Ages of the mid-2000s.
Under the Gorilla Glass screen, the Droid Razr features a dual-core 1.2GHz processor and a battery apparently capable of 12.5 hours of 3G talk time. A steel core and Kevlar integrated into the body apparently help with the smartphone’s sturdiness, preventing it from warping or cracking despite the thinness of the body and its relatively light weight. It also boasts a dual-camera configuration, with an 8-megapixel rear aperture paired with a front-facing HD camera (the rear camera can capture 1080p video).
Motorola Mobility hopes the smartphone’s support for Verizon’s 4G LTE network will give it another selling point over the iPhone 4S, which is exerting considerable gravity on the mobility market after selling 4 million units in its first weekend on the market.
Motorola Mobility Chairman and CEO Sanjay Jha took to a stage here Oct. 18 to introduce the Droid Razr, arguing that it will serve equally well as a consumer and enterprise device. “We believe enterprise is important because it is becoming consumerized,” he told the audience. “They’re not being driven by CIOs anymore.”
The Droid Razr’s more business-centric features include remote data-wipe and robust encryption, in addition to the ability to pull down and edit documents via the cloud. In fact, the cloud is a major component of Motorola Mobility’s value argument, with Jha demonstrating how data stored in a “personal cloud” (such as music) could be seamlessly accessed and activated on the device.
Motorola Mobility intends to place the Droid Razr on the market in early November, at a $299 price point. That means this newest smartphone will follow close on the heels of the Droid Bionic, which released in September and also features a dual-core 1.2GHz processor and 4G LTE support. Whether consumers find that rapid product cycle agreeable remains to be seen.