Motorola Reinvents the RAZR 208
zacharye writes with news that Motorola has reinvented their popular RAZR clam-shell phone as an Android smartphone. The new device is 4G LTE-capable and 7.1mm thick, and it contains "a 1.2GHz dual-core TI OMAP processor, a 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED display, 1GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel camera with 1080p HD video capture, an LED flash, an HDMI-out port, noise cancellation capabilities, 16GB of built-in storage and a 16GB microSD card pre-installed." iFixit did a teardown of the phone, finding that the construction necessary for such thinness will make repairs problematic.
One simple question... (Score:4, Insightful)
How many people actually try to fix their own phones? Even on /. I have to imagine that the number is low.
Re:One simple question... (Score:4, Interesting)
I know a few people who have done LCD/glass swaps, that's really the biggest thing you can easily do. And it certainly beats buying a new phone...
Re:One simple question... (Score:5, Insightful)
Like putting in a new battery?
Call me when they make it as simple as it is with my old school RAZR.
Re:One simple question... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:One simple question... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd be more worried about heat generation than how to actually repair the thing. Sounds like it's very densely packed electronics, coupled with one of the fastest processors ever put into a phone. Even if the thing is 99% idle 99% of the time, that still runs the risk of the thing overheating at some point in its usable life.
Re:One simple question... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not as thin as the summary (or article) would imply - there is a big-ass bulge at the top of the device that apparently holds the speakers and camera. I don't know how they get away with selling as 7.1mm thick. They also made the unit wider than other phones with the same size screen, presumably because they needed the space. I haven't used one, but unless you have large hands, one-handed operation is supposedly difficult because of the width.
Re:One simple question... (Score:4, Funny)
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Depends which TFA we're talking about. The first link does not mention the "bulge", nor does the summary. The second link mentions the strange width of the phone, but again, no mention from the first link. You have to go to the iFixit teardown to see the dimensions of the bulge.
I think the company, link, and first article are misleading.
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It's known as "Systems-On-A-Chip". If you were to make the system out of standalone ASIC's it would be the size of a laptop or netbook. Put all the transistor logic like CPU cores microcontrollers, codecs, and hardware interface logic onto a single chip, add a small screen, you get a smartphone.
Unlike a PC, specific parts of the chip only get power when they are used. Less power is needed because there aren't any long distance interconnects between ASIC chips. All of those help to keep things cool.
On my old
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Repair a smartphone?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Aren't they meant to be disposable? I thought you just threw them away when they became obsolete after six months.
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I've never known anybody to just throw away a smartphone that works. They pack them away in a drawer, sell them or hand them down, but never throw away.
My sister is still using a 2g iPhone with no intention of upgrading as long as it works.
Re:Repair a smartphone?? (Score:4, Interesting)
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if you want inexpensive and reliable, i loved the Kyocera Zio - you can probably find it without cell service, and with cricket its 60/mo unlimited everything. Bottom line, the device is slower, but has a BEAUTIFUL 800x480 screen that fits in your hand, and that, and price, make it my fav. phone and most recommended, by me.
Re:Repair a smartphone?? (Score:5, Insightful)
The RAZR was not even remotely a smart phone. In fact, if anything is deserving of the term dumb phone, it does. The original Razr was essentially one of the lowest quality cell phones you can imagine, with out-of-date technology and terrible software design, combined with a gargantuan marketing blitz (take a look at some movies and television shows, and even celebrity news articles, for the two years following its release).
I actually owned one because, if nothing else, it was the nicest looking phone for the price. Using it was painful, though.
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the thing was as slow as molasses! oh my god, just flipping through numbers was a royal pain. Looks were all it had - and we. the public loved it. Says more about us then the phone ;(
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I'd go a step further to say that there were many different models of the RAZR. I have one of the higher end ones (second hand) and it easily keeps up with moden phones.
And functionality wise it does pretty well too. It's easy to teather, browse (I use opera) and run Java applications.
The OP may not like their phone, but if you read the wikipedia page [wikipedia.org], you can see the original RAZR easily makes it into the definition of a smart phone.
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Wait you guys have 6 monthly phone contracts?
We keep ours for 2 years before we get given a choice of new phone for "free" from the phone company.
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It's not really locked in. We can buy out any phone contract. We just need to pay off the remainder of the phone in the progress.
I pitty people who actually pay for their phones. Where I live pre-paid phone contracts are overpriced. I used to pay $30/month for $30 worth of calls, and 60 free txt messages. Now I pay $30/month, I got a free smartphone, and $180 worth of calls at the same rate as previously.
If my phone were to drop into the toilet today I would have to pay about $200 to buy out the remainder o
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Same thing for me, but it's about assholes with 50 megawatts subwoofers in their fucking cars that can be heard 5 miles around.
Target practice. Gives you plenty of time to set up.
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Are you really using China as an example in what seems to be a personal vendetta against the free market?
Why not? in many ways china is much closer to raw capitalism than Western Countries. The idea that China is some sort of communist society is laughable.
Went on sale Nov. 11th at 11:11? Really? (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't know whether to be impressed by their gall or appalled at their ignorance. More likely the latter; to the marketing types who come up with this kind of gimmick, anything that happened more than five minutes ago is one with Ninevah and Tyre.
(And yes, I know it was 11:00 in 1918. Somehow that makes this worse, not better.)
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Maybe not, but we get a shot at 12-12-12 next year ....
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2012-12-12 is not binary-compliant.
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I'm not excited about that one. Lousy Smarch weather.
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11/11/1918 was Armistice Day, and it occurred at 11:00. "Eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" and all that. But I'm not sure why that makes this objectionable. It's celebrating the end of the war if it's celebrating anything, which--last I knew--was a good thing.
Re:Went on sale Nov. 11th at 11:11? Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Remembrance(TM) of your departed loved ones, brought to you by Mc Donalds. Coca-Cola with the United Fruit, Inc. presents Peace(TM) and Happiness(TM). Have a nice(TM) day, in association with Nike.
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Yes, that's it exactly. Thank you.
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Not quite, he forgot the appropriate Hallmark(TM) card.
HDMI? (Score:2)
Why would anyone want HDMI on their phones? Are the phones really powerful enough to output an HD signal to TVs that people would want to watch?
Re:HDMI? (Score:4, Informative)
My HTC Desire Z plays the 720p videos it records beautifully on a big TV. No reason why similar things can't be achieved with 1080p.
Re:HDMI? (Score:5, Informative)
With "a 1.2GHz dual-core TI OMAP processor, 1GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel camera with 1080p HD video capture, 16GB of built-in storage and a 16GB microSD card pre-installed", off the top of my head I'd say "Dern tootin' it is powerful enough!"
It hasn't been that many years since that would have been a supercomputer filling a large room, doing really nice ray-traced imagery. It is a fairly respectable desktop machine even today, except for the small disk drive. (And multi-gigabyte disk drives haven't been around THAT long.)
A cluster of those puppies, with a big disk server attached, would probably be really nice for doing, uhhh, "stellar lifecycle modeling" on the cheap.
Re:HDMI? (Score:5, Funny)
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Still might fit in your pocket (or purse/backpack). Might make for nice bar chatter...
"Say... Is that a Beowulf Cluster in your pants or are you just happy to see me?"
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"Say... Is that a Beowulf Cluster in your pants or are you just happy to see me?"
"I don't know, but it's making me hot - in fact I think I'm on fire!"
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I can. Looks a lot like the 20 cars in front of me on the drive home.
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I hope you do realize that you cannot compare it to a desktop computer just by looking at the specs. A desktop computer with the same performance as this phone would be pretty awful.
As for the hard drives, the first multi-gigabyte hard drives came somewhere before the mid nineties but it took a few years before they reached the consumer market. I bought my first multi-gig hard drive 1997 and that particular model had been around for at least a year
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Even WITH all the extensive DSP functions added into these ARM chips, I'll still put an Intel / AMD processor up against a similarly clocked ARM chip absolutely any day. That leaves the phone you're describing perhaps faster than my laptop from close to a decade ago, but that's about it... I'd put my money on a P4 to run circles around it (assuming a decent video card). Phones only FEEL fast because the software is so
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I will say that I run a Motorola Atrix, and yes I have the laptop dock. Yes, mine is overclocked to 1.3Ghz rather than the stock 1.0Ghz, but I will say as a desktop machine it's pretty damned awesome. It runs the basics I need on a daily basis, and with some hacks in place I have terminal sessions and apt-get that I can use to install arbitrary software. I'm also running the "WebTop" environment from my SD card so I have more space.
I can do about 90% of everything I ever need to do in that environment. I ca
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I generally agree Android devices are great and can do a hell of a lot, but it's not anywhere close to 90% of the utility of a laptop. As someone else said, they're closer to thin clients, which is a great thing, no doubt, but even there they are only 90% of the way there... ConnectBot crashes quite a bit, and there's still no NX Client for Android. Cisco Anyconnect is available, but ONLY if you root your device.
Many things I can get just BARELY functioning on my Android phone, but rather fragile and hav
Re:HDMI? (Score:4, Interesting)
However, if we look at raw flops... The TI in a RAZR is capable of 4.8Gflops, a little less than 1/2 a P4 at 3.0Ghz and around 4x that of a 1Ghz PIII (don't have exact numbers on me, but the PIII was first processor to break 1Gflop barrier). And if you consider power requirements, heat signature, and cost per unit, the disparity is far greater. Back ins 2000, 1Gflop cost about $1000 in computing hardware. As we approach the year 2012, 1Gflop cost is nearing $1 of hardware (and huge savings in power usage). That is pretty amazing to me.
So yeah. Comparing a TI OMAP processor to a PII is retarded. Good thing it was only an anonymous coward...
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Sorry, but I'm unimpressed. That "$1" device won't DO ANYTHING without a good $50 of other stuff wrapped around it, so measuring that "$1" piece is pretty pointless and arbitrary.
The cost of a useful device is much more interesting. I'm very impressed I can get pretty good Android phone (Samsung Intercept) these da
Re:HDMI? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes they are powerful enough.
Second, some people want to use their tv as a slide show projector.
Third, its an extra feature for those people out there who shop based on feature lists.
Fourth it creates a need for people to buy a mini HDMI to full size converter. Even if its just to experiment with and never use again.
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I love my N8 too, and it comes with the hdmi cable included in the box!
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I was hoping that my first sentence that they are powerful enough encompassed video decoding. Oopsies.
Hopefully netflix runs out the HDMI port. That would be another fun use-case. no ripping, encoding, and several hour long transfers to a micro SD card.
Its cool that the n8 came with the adapter, but what I've seen is that most don't.
Also, I'm pretty sure its not the poor little 680 MHz ARM 11 that is doing the video decoding.
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As mentioned, yes, but additionally these things have "WebTop" which is some ARM-compiled distro of Ubuntu with firefox and maybe a few others running on that HDMI port. Looking at a ps listing on one of these you'll see "/usr/bin/Xorg" running.
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Not only are they powerful enough, they're getting even more powerful (well, as I'm sure you guessed...).
The iPhone 4 and higher end Android phones are capable of 3D graphics performance that can look like a current-generation console (concessions are made, but clever design can make that non-obvious), and they do it at nigh-HD resolutions. In just a short couple of years, we're going to have phones that meet or beat the consoles currently attached to TVs. Certainly, more powerful consoles will be out by
Re:HDMI? (Score:5, Interesting)
And to follow that post ... ARM announces its next-gen GPU, the snappily named Mali-T658.
The is the followup to the GPU that's used in the Galaxy S2, and is up to 10x the performance. The old chip supported 2 cores, this one supports 4, each core being twice the perf of the previous model, and as usual, can turn cores on or off depending on the power requirements.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15668347 [bbc.co.uk]
The firm claims the new technology will offer battery-powered mobile handsets roughly the same graphics performance as Sony's Playstation 3 console,
but the bit I liked best: "At the moment many of the speech recognition applications that are out there are solely relying on the CPU," said Mr Davies. "Very few are taking advantage of the acceleration of the GPU - and that's clearly an area of growth for us."
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Why would anyone want HDMI on their phones? Are the phones really powerful enough to output an HD signal to TVs that people would want to watch?
Powerful enough?
Absolutely.
Or to your computer monitor.
It doesn't take a lot of power. Its just a digital signal down a wire.
The question of merit is your first one: WHY.
HDMI chips are incredibly cheap, usually built into the processor itself. They sort of fall out processor design as a freebe.
Practical use is almost nil.
You might find an occasional opportunity to shoot the video on the phone of the kids birthday party and play it back on the TV.
But storing feature length film (or streaming them) from yo
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Or, using a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, use the phone for graphics design for your Make-A-Bot, or PCB layout.
Next year is definitely NOT going to be the year of the desktop computer, Linux or otherwise.
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But its just NOT done.
And the data caps won't allow you to do that any time soon.
All possible, yes. Maybe 10% of the buyers try it out once, but Nobody does it after that.
Its just not done.
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And yes, technically phones are powerful enough to do that.
Just keep in mind that HD can mean multiple types of resolutions, and that usually phones are at the lower end of what's considered HD. And my phone for instance, the Sprint Evo 4G, which is already dated, and which was the first phone with a micro-HDMI port, can output full HDMI resolutions (after I rooted it and installed a custom Android ROM on it). Now I believe, rooting the phone is no longer needed on most Android-micro-HDMI phones to get the
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Does it run PowerPoint? :-)
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If you didn't have a console, you could always plug that into your TV and watch Netflix.
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I assumed it would be for watching streamed video, or fully downloaded movies that you transferred from your PC.
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If it's anything like my Atrix, then the feature is mostly a gimick. Basically, connecting the HDMI cable launches a special media player. It will only play certain formats with a really bad interface.
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I think my Streak is meant to do something similar, but I've never tried it as it requires purchasing a dock.
I'm thinking that perhaps if you installed CyanogenMod or some other custom ROMs they will allow proper screen mirroring, though I haven't looked into it. Certainly it's not a hardware limitation anyway.
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Don't really care enough to start mucking around.
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Yeah it's not really worth it. When they start putting in wireless HDMI or some such then it will be pretty cool though, Iron Man style.
Reinvented? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems a bit of an overstatement, how about slapped the Razr brand on a modern smartphone which isn't a clamshell.
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Seems a bit of an overstatement, how about slapped the Razr brand on a modern smartphone which isn't a clamshell.
Exactly. Kind of like handing someone a dishtowel and suddenly calling it a "Kleenex"...tends to promote a few "hey, what the hell?" responses...
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A single touchscreen clamshell would do fine for me though, the other half could be a keyboard which I'd only use sometimes, but would be enough.
I think a double-screen clamshell would be quite expensive, especially if they wired the notification bar to a 3rd screen on the outside.
Is it too much to ask... (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on. Can't even one smartphone maker do a decent clamshell design? I've found the slide mechanism on slide-outs way too vulnerable to breakdowns, and the bar phones are even worse. When did the idea of a reliable case design that protects the important stuff go out of fashion?
Re:Is it too much to ask... (Score:5, Insightful)
When apple stopped doing it.
Re:Is it too much to ask... (Score:5, Funny)
That's not fair. When RIM put out the Pearl Flip, that's when everyone realized it wasn't cool anymore.
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when corning said, hey, check out this new glass we made.
Re:Is it too much to ask... (Score:4, Insightful)
Today's giant scree designs make clamshell a bit difficult. You could have the hinge on the other side, but that makes vertical operation awkward. You could keep the traditional clamshell orientation, but then it becomes a very long, weird device... unless you make the screen smaller, which just isn't what makes a desirable smartphone for the vast majority of people.
They do make cases for people such as yourself, though: http://www.oriongadgets.com/Apple-iPhone-3GS-Leather-Flip-Type-Case-Crocodile-Pattern-Red-pid-5305.html
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unless you make the screen smaller, which just isn't what makes a desirable smartphone for the vast majority of people.
I doubt most people pick a phone based on screen size.
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Really? Size and resolution were at the top of my list, and friends (techie and non-techie alike) seemed to think it important for their decisions, also.
Re:Is it too much to ask... (Score:4, Interesting)
This.
http://thecoolgadgets.com/fujitsu-dual-screen-mobile-phone-shown-at-ceatec-2010/ [thecoolgadgets.com]
I want.
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The exact SECOND that GORILLA GLASS and capacitative touch-screens came along... eliminating the need to make horrible design decisions around protecting an incredibly fragile screen.
When I'm doing some light reading on my droid, I don't want it to be twice as wide, with part of it (the keyboard) flapping around, when I don't need it.
Conversely, I wouldn't buy a smartphone without a keyboard, and a slider works p
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Can't even one smartphone maker do a decent clamshell design?
Sprint (and Boost Mobile) got RIM to make one for them recently, the Blackberry Style, but the gadget blogs were too busy laughing at the fact that it was a clamshell to notice it was one of RIM's better phones. (As opposed to the Pearl Flip, which like all Pearls, was a piece of garbage.) It's end-of-lifed at Sprint already, though Boost Mobile, a prepaid subsidiary, still has some in stock.
More informative yesterday (Score:3)
This probably would have been more informative yesterday when amazon was selling them for $111.11.
It's.. It's.. (Score:2)
That's a Motorolla Photon with a keyboard!
Hey. Guys. It's a flat Android phone. (Score:3)
Big fat hairy deal. Sorry, but other than the iconic Razr this phone looks pretty standard fare.
I actually like the original Razr. It was a super-flat fold phone with a sturdy metal body and a awesome keypad. And am quite sure it would still have a market if they'd continue to produce it. There are quite a few cellphone classics out there that probably would never die out and allways have customers. Motorolas Razr and the Siemens M35 being two of those.
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I agree on the second part, disagree on the first part.
Thin devices are awesome. sucks to grip them but i love the engineering that goes into making something that tiny.
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In name only (Score:2)
Its not the same phone, just yet another android phone. Yet another marketing gimmick.
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Agree. If anything, it's closer to the SLVR.
um, ok... (Score:2)
...the new RAZR is nothing like the V3[x]. I liked the V3. I still have two: the V3i and the V3r.
Now all I need is a firmware update so I can use a 3G SIM in them...
old news (Score:2)
I submitted it a month ago:
http://slashdot.org/submission/1821524/razr-is-back-as-droid [slashdot.org]
Seeing is not believing (Score:2)
The RAZR was a hot phone
Perhaps, but most Motorola phones suck little black toads. Unreliable, restrictive, and unimaginative are the three words which first come to mind. Not unimaginative in visual design — the RAZR was certainly groundbreaking that way — but in function. They may have a lot of patents, but as I have posted before, Google are on a hiding to nothing if they think they're going to benefit from them.
[...] the display on the DROID RAZR [...] still isn’t perfect
That's going to kill it: it's one of the first things people look at. If it looks grainy compared with o
Thick or Thin? (Score:2)
It may be 7.1mm thin, but it is also 11.1mm thick. It depends on where you measure. And dimensions are usually given at the widest point - otherwise they are absolutely arbitrary.
So I would boycott it just for lying to the customer. And because I am perfectly happy with a budget android phone running CM7.1 (based on Android 2.3.7, not 2.3.5, ha!).
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Has the purchase even closed yet? From the press release [google.com]:
The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2011 or early 2012.
It might be a little early for the Google purchase to have any impact on the phones. Hopefully someday, though.
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Oh come on, let's be realistic here, the amount of lifeforce that Sony devices sucks is minimal. I use my PSP, three walkmen and a sony TV everyday just to keep my nails from growing.
You're blowing this way out of proportion.
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"Appears to be working, but isn't" is about the worst way a phone can act up on you. I had that happen with multiple WinMo based HTC phones over the years. Definitely not fun when your job includes on-call duty. After the first time I got burned while on-call I had them dire
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Because it's too hard to read those tiny screens, especially when you're sufing or trying to read a book. Even navigation works better with larger screens.
Most of the "smart phone" features require more screen space to be effective.
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Why is it that most of the high-end smart phones come with these huge screens? For me the size of an Iphone is much better suited, and I might be willing to go a tad larger, but with the new Nexus at 4.6x", how am I supposed to put it anywhere?
Er, "put" it anywhere? The designers and vendors don't imagine such a device ever leaving your hand, which is why they try and cram as much entertainment value (dual cameras, HD recording and playback, streaming video, etc, etc.) into a device that USED to just make phone calls.
Thus, if it fits in your hand, what seems to be the problem...
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I never understood the lure of the RAZR, I got one with an upgrade a few months after everyone started raving about them - it was the tackiest, cheapest phone I have ever had. The UI was shit, the features were shit, the battery life wasnt all that great. What was so spectacular about it?
I sold it after a couple of weeks and stuck to my Samsung clamshell - best phone I ever had pre-smartphone.
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What do you expect? Motorola has always delivered terrible software. Even a Motorola phone I had way back in the days (2 line gray dot character display) was troublesome to use because of all the software bugs.
Anybody who things that this one is different has not learned anything from the past.