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As promised, Verizon has gone live with its pre-order for the Motorola Droid RAZR. The 7.1mm thin handset is available for a thick stack of dough measuring in at $299.99 on a two-year contract. For the price you get a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 4.3-inch Super AMOLED qHD display, and support for 4G LTE. We had pretty high praises for the device and its sleek design in our initial hands-on report, and are looking forward to our chance to get to know the new RAZR a bit better. How about you? Who is doling out the cash now to get their hands on the RAZR later? The handset is expected to ship on or around November 10th.
[polldaddy poll=5618698]
waiting for the G nex!
Sounds like a gonorrhea medication. “GNex. Try it today.”
You can pre-order at Best Buy also!
I loved my Droid X, but something about that big hump on these Motorola phones that makes me feel lopsided, you know?
Who doesn’t like a good hump? There;s something the matter with you….
In seriousness, I like the hump, it act kind of as an artificial kickstand when laying on a desk, and keeps the camera from contacting the desk surface.
That being said, the battery is the deal breaker for me with this phone, I’m waiting to see the officials on the Vigor, but will most likely go with the nexus. The Razr is one sexy phone though, one of the few droids with some personality in the hardware.
nexus.
I’m waiting on the SGN, but just for yuks, I went into my account and did “upgrade my device”, only to see the RAZR listed at $249.99. I’m only 13 months into my contract, but have my final “annual upgrade”. And what’s really strange is that none of the other phones appear to have been discounted. Hope the same thing happens when the SGN is available!
The Bionic’s price was one of a few phones that was actually affected to employer discounts. Chances are the RAZR is the same way.
Im probably jumping to big red for the nexus (and LTE, Sprints WiMax is embarassing). This phone looks great but I wanted a ICS bespoke phone and the non-replaceable battery kills it.
Nexus
What does the RAZR have to do with the Galaxy Nexus?
Seriously? Are you going post same shit every website you go on?
I guess that it’s directly competing against it since they’re launching at about the same time and that they’re almost identical in terms of internal specs..?
I’m not sure where this question came from though since the Nexus wasn’t mentioned in the article.
Everything. And Nothing. It’s a direct competitor. A lot of hype has been made over this epic battle. Just wait for the HTC Rezound to join the fun. And well to be honest, the Nexus has no real competitor because it’s a special phone unto it self – regardless of specs.
They’re the same damn price. I can “deal” with either of them for 2 more years. They’re awesome. Galaxy Nexus has gorilla glass. Less fragile than the iPhone or the Nexus S, at least. Hell of a lot better than my current one either way. Just stop arguing. It is over-hyped. They both kill, and so will the Rezound (ICS, please?).
Waiting for it to drop on Rogers so I can buy the GSM version and use it on AT&T.
Nice phone for a select group… A very select group
How so? Pretty sure this phone will be heavily advertised by VZW and Moto vs. the Nexus that will probably get little or no advertising space.
there should be two options for “No” :
“No, I’m either stuck in a contract or want a different VZW phone”
“No, I’m with a different cellular provider”
True. There’s a lot of reasons to say no rather than yes. Artificially makes the RAZR look like a bad choice… Well no one said it was a scientific poll.
Boughten
I am still waiting to see what moto puts out next on big red.
Dinara….
BTW, the non-removable battery seals the deal for me!
I’m waiting for the Sexy Nex!
Waiting on HTC Rezound (Vigor)
Really…why?
Bigger screen, ICS & better camera on Nexus seals the deal for me.
Bigger screen, true – but RAZR is samoled+ and qHD, so you’ve got a quality vs quantity balance there. ICS will come to RAZR soon and the ‘better camera’ balance on RAZR is that it’s 8mp.
It’s actually a tough one – but i think the buttonless features and the docking charge thing win over for me.
ICS might come soon(-ish) to the RARZ in the US, but in the rest of the world, I expect Moto to treat its customers the same neglecting way as ever.
Looks like a great phone, but I’ll be moving away from Motorola.
Motorola “promises” that the RAZR will get ICS “soon,” but ask any Xoom owner about Motorola’s promises. When the Xoom first came out, Moto promised an LTE upgrade “soon” but the actual upgrade didn’t happen until over 6 months after the Xoom was released. I’m just sayin’. Don’t get me wrong, the RAZR looks like an awesome device. And I realize that software upgrades are probably easier than hardware upgrades, but I can’t quite get myself to trust Moto when they release something and “promise” upgrades later.
ICS to the RAZR is different. Looking the dev kit for ICS, and the differences are really not HUGE between GB & ICS, outside of skins, and new components. The basics are not a heavy upgrade like Froyo to GB was. So the promise of ICS soon on RAZR actually should hold. Also, now that Moto is going to be owned by Google, you SHOULD see updates improve.
The RAZR does not have SAMOLED Plus. The plus is not PenTile, the RAZR is. The RAZR has a SAMOLED “Advanced” Screen. The Nexus’ screen is much, much better especially since it’s HD 720p. The fact that it’s a smidge bigger makes it a clear winner.
Just because the RAZR has an 8mp camera does not make it better. Samsung’s sensors are WAY better and the Nexus’s camera has been designed with zero lag.
The samsung display is SAMOLED+ and it’s still pentile. Just FYI.
Like i said – the features balance off. If you want a zero lag camera at 5mp then you have the GN, if you want higher res pictures then you have the RAZR. Also some people may not want a bigger screen and therefore may find the smaller one a ‘clear winner’. Like i said, the balance is there – either have the larger screen with buttons or the smaller screen that may appear sharper.
Since nobody has reviewed the phones and there’s no consensus to be had i cannot say that one is ‘better’ than the other. You have to have empirical evidence to make a judgement.
I pre-ordered. First time ever to actually “pre-order” a phone. Normally I would wait for a better price, but this time my job is paying…..SO I DON’T CARE!!! Seriously, though, I’m all about the Kevlar & Gorilla glass, I am hard on my phones, so I can’t buy a samsung, I would destroy the thing.
i love the thinner footprint and the waterproof feature (cause i like to use my phone in the shower and pool). having kevlar on the phone is a cool feature. can’t wait to go back home to detroit now. it’s too bad the nexus isn’t thin, waterproof, bullet proof and built with Sony’s old walkman sport casing. guess the google acquisition of moto was just too late. still will probably wait to see how the nexus performs and get it instead of the razr. of course CES 2012 is around the corner now.
I’ll be waiting for the Nexus. Anyone interested in buying a Thunderbolt?
I have one for sale too and it’s in better shape and i’ll sell it for cheaper. :-)
All in all, I like this phone better than the new Galaxy Nexus. Though, the thing keeping me from buying it is the fact that it has Motoblur and no removable battery. I will get the Galaxy Nexus instead for those reasons =(
What Motoblur?? The old motoblur gives this new OS a bad name.. I had my douts out it till I played with it.. Its real smooth and fast..
I enjoy Google’s default user interfaces over these manufacturers concoctions. Plus, having default Android OS allows for faster upgrades.
God this phone is awesome. I cant wait to take my awesome gorilla glass’d, stainless-steel core’d, nano-coat’d, kevlar back’d, diamond cut, super thin, RAZR phone and use it to smash and bash the hell out of my buddies google nexus when he gets it, like when I was young and played with plastic WWF figurines, scratching the cheap samsung glass and denting the flimsy samsung aluminum.
As I do this ill proclaim “THIS is why they didnt put NFC in my phone brah!! Because if it gets too close to your POS you POS will crumble and turn to dust like that allspark key thing did in transformers 2 to poor sam wittwikki.”
“Nooooo.. Dusttttt.. I’m meltingggggg” – friend
“Nooooo. Puh puh puh pllllllleaseeeeeee! not the DIP!” – roger rabbit
“Ruuuuuun for your livessssss” – various spectators
DROID Does.
hahaha wtf?
too long of a comment. You had me at God this phone…
you, sir, win the internets
Maybe it’s too early in the morning for me to laugh… WTF? :-)
O_o
LOVE IT
I just got the Droid Bionic on Friday (couldn’t pass up the 1 cent deal thru Amazon) but I hate it (toooo many bugs) so now I either want this or the SGN. Only problem is my 15 day window will be over before they are released. What am I gonna do??? Suggestions??
I dont no who is worse Moto or Sammy. Moto witb no removeable battery. Sammy with the 16/32 on board and no sd card slot. Put the 2 together you have the perfect iph*ne 5 just w8t there will be a razr+ released in the next cpl of months with no buttons for ics then they will add a battery door. Then maybe Sammy will come out with was gnex. With a sd. Card slot and the better samoled screen.
I hope you are speaking English as a second language. Your improper use of periods, terrible grammer, and silly abbreviations are almost unbearable. “w8t”? Really? Is this 2001 and you are typing in an AIM chat room or using T9?
grammar*
Lol ikr… At leest hez nott sp3lliing lykee thiis like those dumb girls on Facebook
F you Tom! :) haha
I just got the Droid Bionic on Friday (couldn’t pass up the 1 cent deal thru Amazon) but I hate it (toooo many bugs) so now I either want this or the SGN. Only problem is my 15 day window will be over before they are released. What am I gonna do??? Suggestions??
Cancel your service and just revert back to a cheap phone for a few weeks. Either go back to your old phone or buy a cheapo on craigslist and activate it.
Can’t go back to my old phone. I had Sprint. I had no service where I work so they gave me the option to switch to another company. I chose Verizon. Also, I don’t wanna lose my number… had it for 11 yrs.
Ooops. There’s a reason it’s worth a penny. I’d wait for the RAZR or the GN to come down in price to make it worth it to switch.
Stick with bionic root and install latest leaked update.
I will never buy another Motorola phone, I’ve owned the Razr, Droid, Droid X, and now the Bionic and have been perfectly happy. However, I will no longer support a company who releases the “top of the line” phone only to out do ITSELF 6 weeks later. Motorola clearly does not care about its customers and combine that with the ridiculous locked bootloader policy (yeah i know they blame Verizon but i don’t buy it) I’m going with Samsung from now on until Google owns Motorola and gets rid of the entire management team.
Agreed! The bionic which was the pinnacle of Moto phones is now forgotten. Its not 6 months old!! I own a Bionic which I might have thought twice if I’d known a better one was six weeks out. :/
In fairness to Motorola, the Bionic was supposed to be their top-of-the-line phone for the Spring. Only, it was delayed. I suppose they could have scrapped it entirely.
But this is life in the Android world anyway.. one superphone will be trumped by another, and soon. That’s a guarantee. If you want to be relatively happy that you have the best phone in your smartphone ecosystem for a year, buy an iPhone.
Also, you actually are following this on-line, so you KNOW months in advance that cooler stuff is coming. I’m in much the same boat; I could have upgraded my O. G. Droid to a Bionic. And honestly, the Bionic was tempting, the first one I’d have considered. But I knew other things were coming, soon.
And why this a problem for you, anyway. If you’ve had three different Motorola smartphones in less than two years, why not buy a fourth?
1) I don’t buy the phones outright, I’m on a family plan and lucky that no one but me cares about being on the latest and greatest.
2) I am fully aware that phones are outdone all the time HOWEVER Motorola did this, not Samsung, HTC or anyone else but MOTOROLA. As far as I’m concerned that’s a horrible business practice. They could have eaten the Bionic and released the RAZR or introduced the Bionic at a cheaper price and said there’s a better phone on the way but it’ll cost “x” amount more.
3) In terms of “leaks” they’re just that: “leaks” How many perspective dates was the Bionic set for? When the leak for the RAZR came out who the hell knows when it would have actually gotten released. I wouldn’t even be bitching if it was like 6 months from the Bionic, but 6 weeks is ridiculous.
So did your bionic all the sudden stop working when the razr was announced? Didn’t think so quit your bitching the bionic has very similar specs to this. Smh
Locked bootloader = epic fail. I don’t care if it was Moto’s choice or Verizons. I am stuck with a DX right now that is CRYING for a fresh install of Android to clean off all the cruft of using it for a year+ right now. And I can’t install Cyanogen because…? Never moto again… and if there was a decent alternative to Verizon in the NYC meto area I’d dump them in a heartbeat.
You can install cyanogen… get back into the dev forums. CM4DX. I’m running nightlies from CM7 right now on my DX and it is fantastic. Not saying I’m loving having to bypass all of the locked bootloaders and it is a pain for the devs, but you can have CM7 if you want it. It has helped me enjoy my DX for at least a while longer.
Totally off on the boatloader and CM7. You can load it, I have it on a locked boatloader D2G…..locked boatloaders are really not a big deal at all.
it’s from moto so it’s going to have problems right off the bat. Plus they can’t keep a promise if thier company depended on it…look at the xoom/bionic debacle!
I’m with AT&T anyway, buy even if my carrier did offer it, I wouldn’t wan it. I don’t mess with Motorola and it doesn’t look too impressive to me.
Dude, you know everyone is waiting on the Nexus
Several nice features, but stuck-in battery and just plain pug-ugly looks make it a non-starter. Not crazy about the Galaxy Nexus either, but I seem always to dislike Samsung products. HTC phones are usually the best looking (my Nexus One, though aging is still the nicest-looking phone I’ve ever seen), so I’m hoping the Vigor/Whatever is a good technical competitor to the GSII.
From what I’ve read so far the battery on the Vigor/Rezound is gonna suck… but that’s typical of HTC.
Nexus battery is supposedly pretty shitty too.
I WOULD have bought it… if I hadn’t bought the Bionic just a few weeks ago. That was a cold move, announcing the RAZR right after the Bionic goes “unreturnable.”
This looks like a gorgeous phone, it’s suddenly become a very hard decision between this or the Galaxy Nexus:
RAZR Pro: Droid branding, Gorilla Glass/Kevlar, MotoCast, battery reported at 1780-1800 mAh, not sure I’m ready to let go of hardware buttons, MotoBlur supposedly less invasive than usual
RAZR Con: no removable battery, ICS not available for several months, worries over audio malfunctions from Bionic, 16 GB internal storage
Nexus Pro: vanilla no-skin ICS, screen likely slightly better (even if PenTile), larger screen, better camera, 32 GB internal storage
Nexus Con: no Droid branding, no SD card slot, 1750 mAh battery, no HDMI-out
Have there been any more reports on what processor the RAZR is running? If it’s running the 4430 instead of the 4460, that might make the difference. I’ve seen both numbers reported in various places.
Who decided having Droid branding was a pro or a con? It’s just a name. The tiny difference in battery is almost negligable. Doesn’t the Razr come with 16gb internal and 16gb SD? So that’s basically negligable as well. I don’t see hardware buttons as a positive. So, a decent portion of your list is either negligable or personal preference.
I never stated that it was anything besides personal preference. I happen to like the Droid branding and hardware buttons and thus included them in this list. I don’t recall ever saying otherwise.
It’s a testament to the similarity of these two phones and how tough this decision is that it comes down to whether the phone has a certain name or an HDMI-out plug or not. I think that’s a good thing. It’s getting tougher to make a “bad” decision on a phone; as more and more top-tier options become available, the only thing you have to pick between are small features and form factors. No longer do you have to be a tech “enthusiast” and do extensive research before choosing.
RAZR: Who cares about Droid branding? The Nexus brand is just as special. Hardware buttons are a personal preference, but I think virtual buttons are the future. MotoBlur might be better – or maybe not. Most people don’t like it over vanilla Android. The non-removable is almost a deal breaker to me. The Gorilla Glass is nice as is the SD card slot. The build quality seems to be nicer, but who knows how it will hold up in the real world. The processor is worse than the Nexus – it is indeed running the 4430 not the 4460. The camera has more megapixels than the Nexus, but Moto makes terrible cameras. The Nexus wil likely take better pics and video. Moto makes promises, but they haven’t proven that they can roll out updates quickly. Some people have written off the RAZR due to its locked bootloader alone. That’s not such a huge deal to me, but it’s worth noting.
Galaxy Nexus: Better processor that was hand picked and optimized by Google for ICS. The screen is definitely better than the RAZR. It’s full 720p HD rather than qHD and it’s larger at 4.65″. It uses the same PenTile arrangement that the RAZR uses but at full HD, the pixels are even less noticeable. Personally the screen is what sells the Nexus for me… it’s what you stare at all day. We’re still not sure of the storage capacity in the Nexus. Hopefully the 32GB version will be at a decent price. The lack of an SD card slot is a major downfall for some people. The Nexus will receive software updates directly from Google and so your updates wll be much quicker than any other phone out there. The Nexus DOES have HDMI out via the USB/MHL port and also DLNA. You seriously won’t notice a difference of 30-50maH in the battery. That’s a measly 2% difference. The openess of the phone with an unlocked bootloader makes this an easy choice for some people. The Nexus has NFC which isn’t a big deal now, but it will be in the next year or so. The lack of Gorilla Glass is also a concern, but Samsung confirmed it will have the same type of glass, just not that brand. Corning (Gorilla Glass) and Samsung own a similar glass company together so I’m pretty sure they know what they’re doing.
So… you gotta ask yourself what is more important. Screen? SD card slot? Bootloader? Build materials? Removable battery? Software? Camera? Personally the Nexus is practically a no-brainer. The RAZR is a couple months too late, much like the Bionic. Don’t forget to check out the Rezound coming out soon as well.
No NFC = no purchase. NFC is the big deal of the near future (no pun intended), and any phone without it will be prematurely obsolete.
You’re probably right. I think Samsung knows it’s going to be a necessity in the next year or two and they want all their top phones to have it.
If only we could get the Nexus Prime’s face with the Droid Razr’s body…
Seriously though, I love the gorilla glass and kevlar back and how thin it is, but software-wise I want the vanilla android ICS experience, its one of the reasons I’ve still held onto my original Moto Droid even though I’ve received early upgrade offers from Verizon.
I’ll probably end up going with the Prime.
I wonder why they keep improving the hardware on Android phones when NO DEVELOPERS take advantage of it. Ive had 5 android phones so far, Just had the Bionic and it was sluggish and boring. 4G is still wobbly. I feel bad to say it but im leaning toward an iphone…..
Don’t let the Bionic represent what Android can do. Stick with it. ICS is going to be great. 2012 will be the year of the Android.
Id like to point out that my sister has the Pantech Breakout…..and against my Droid Bionic …….they are the same in performance. I notice no difference at all.. not in web bbrowsing, games, anything.
so what happens if you get a boot loop on this phone you cant just pull the battery?
adb reboot recovery <– simple fix. :p
Hold power and volume button.
ANOTHER new smartphone, already? I’m an avid follower of tech in general, including the cell phone industry. However, this production process of smartphones in general is overkill! I own an HTC Thunderbolt (of which yes, the battery life is truly something horrendous), however it is a powerful phone in it’s capabilities & feature-set & i’m content with it. As for Motorola. I’d like to know what they are trying to truly accomplish, other than the obvious dollar they are sucking from unaware consumers that they are purchasing a product with an expiration date of sorts. So Motorola launches ANOTHER phone, with more features richer than the previous, that of which you did not buy last year at this time, but rather 4 weeks ago. Oh, so you’d like to take advantage of such richer features that Motorola could’ve waited to put into one compelling product? Sorry, you gotta wait out that contract now. Thank goodness for sites like Phandroid & alike to keep the technically-inclined up-to-date on the industry! As for everyone else, they’ll just remain victims of the system. Sad.
Those that don’t keep up on tech news aren’t likely to have a clue that they’ve been bamboozled. All they know is that they have a pretty sweet phone that’s better than a lot of phones out there. And you know what? They’d be right. Let’s just hope Moto stands by the Bionic and updated it to ICS quickly.
Not nearly a big enough jump for me to even think about dropping my Bionic.. And throw in the iphone like fact that i cant remove the battery and you can keep the razr..
This will sell better than the nexus simply because Verizon will market this like crazy. Plus for once it is actually a really good phone.
Maybe to people that are new to Android. But I’m tired of playing with Moto. The quality of the hardware is great but the release of a new model every 2 months is driving me crazy. At least I know that only 1 nexus is being released and the upgrades will last a year before I replace it.
I can bet you a million dollars that Motorola will have a another model within 6 months that will have a 1280x720p display and will ship with ice cream sandwich. I would actually pick the HTC Rezound over the Razr just because the display will be 1280x720p.
Motorola has to do a better job at anticipating hardware and software features. I’m more confident that HTC will not release another super phone until late summer next year to battle iphone 5. I also see the nexus going for the same time. The Razr will be yesterdays news tomorrow.
They released the bionic and razr was the first one and that was more because the bionic kept getting delayed. I mean and atleast moto is pretty good with updates. HTC is terrible with battery life and the rezound could be plagued with as many issues that the thunderbolt had since this would be their 1st dual core lte phone.
Not interested. happy with HTC