Tag: Motorola

Time to Text Our High School Girlfriends: The RAZR is Back!

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Yahoo! – Few phones were as iconic and as ubiquitous as the original Motorola RAZR. Celebs used them constantly, fashion houses cooked up designer mashups, and it wasn’t long before friends, family members and co-workers all started carrying them, too…..This new version, which will sell for $1,500 when it launches on Verizon next month, is Motorola’s first foldable smartphone, and unlike any other foldable we’ve played with this year. It doesn’t unfold into a small tablet. It doesn’t pack loads of cameras or flagship components. It is, by Motorola’s admission, a “design-first” kind of phone.

Be still my early-2000’s heart. What a headline for a slow, bleak late-fall week. The RAZR, the very phone you would text your girlfriend “7777-88-7 22-2-22-33?” on when you were 16 is making it’s triumphant return.

(Editor’s Note: We talked about this earlier in the year and the excitement has not waned.)

No phone had quite the following  of or was the subject of a craze such as that of the RAZR had. You can probably make a case for the Sidekick, the Nextel, and the first wave of Blackberries as well, but they weren’t RAZRs. The Motorola heavyweight champ was bought in droves and traded like currency. I had two over the course of my late-high school days and I bought neither straight from a T-Mobile (I paid for my own phone since day 1 shut the fuck up) store or otherwise reputed cell phone distributor. Both were lightly-used but in great condition and ready for me to install “Badfish” by Sublime as a kickass ringtone. My acquisition of one actually came within a hair of getting me kicked out of high school, true story (I truly did nothing wrong).

Smartphones ultimately doomed the RAZR as well as all the other cool flip phones of that era. I was actually one of the last adopters (2014-ish) and was sad to see the flips go. I guess I’m not too mad about it as I can do anything from play music (porn) to read (porn) to peruse IG (porn) on a smartphone. But thinking of the RAZR, it indeed bring me back to literally simpler times. You made a call or texted someone. That was it. Then, if you were cool enough, got berated by your parents for texting wayyyyyyyyyyy too much.

So I guess the question is what is the price of nostalgia? Because 15 hundo for a RAZR is a lotttt of cash for a phone I once traded a 20 bag for. But hey, the times are the times. Back then all I had was a 20 bag. Now I have an actual, full-time job – along with student debt, inflated housing costs, and questionable amounts of anxiety. Maybe the RAZR is all I need. Suddenly that price tag doesn’t sound so bad.

-Joey B.

The Razr is Making a Comeback as a Foldable Smartphone

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Techcrunch – Motorola has revived the Razr name a few times over the years, but the once-mighty brand has failed to regain the heights of its early days as an ultra-slim flip phone. But what better time for the phone maker’s parent Lenovo to bring back the brand in earnest as the mobile world is readying itself for a wave of foldable smartphones?

There was nothing more satisfying than snapping your Motorola Razr shut to end a call. Nothing. I remember getting the black one sophomore year of high school and it being the hottest thing in the streets since DVDs. You could use .mp3’s as ringtones, it had like a 1 pixel camera, and you could even use this wizardry called Bluetooth to send and receive files. Crazy.

It was also a simpler time because the only worry you had about your phone was your buddy texting you too much and your parents chewing you out because man those 5¢ text fees add up quick. No worries about smashing the screen or constantly checking your IG to see how many likes your last pic got, no incessant “always on” mentality. That was the biggest perk in my nostalgia book looking back.

So I am ALL for the Razr making a comeback, but do not bring it back as a smart phone. Just do what Nintendo does. Port it. Give me the same exact thing, except charge me the same price for technology thats over a decade old and I will buy it.

Get everyone off social media and in a state of constant contact. I will text you back on my flip phone when free nights and weekends kicks in and not a second sooner.