Motorola’s RAZR phone redefined cool like no other phone so far this century. Sleek, slim and sharp, it spawned an avalanche of clones that delivered everything but the design sophistication the RAZR still has to this day. Can HelloMoto do it again?

            
           The MOTOKRZR K1 - “the crazy reflective RAZR”

First the RAZR came in silver. Then came black, pink, blue, ice blue, red (for Bono’s PRODUCT: RED campaign) and even a gold coloured edition with Dolce and Gabanna.

A range of tweaks ensued, available in other countries, with better cameras to even having an iTunes client built in. A thicker 3G version emerged, which retained the shape but seemed double the thickness.

Actually, that has now been rectified with the new RAZR V3xx, a 3G videophone model finally as  slim as the original RAZR.

              
             The RAZR V3xx - a 3G RAZR that’s really thin

Motorola also followed up with the SLVR, effectively a RAZR in stretched out ‘candy-bar’ style form. Available in black or silver, and now red (for PRODUCT: RED again), it has also become a hit phone and is widely available today.

                        
                        The SLVR in different colours

There was also the PEBL, a phone shaped like a pebble the size of a bar of soap. While it was announced some time ago and is a lovely phone of its own, I haven’t seen too many of them around, unlike the RAZR which is everywhere.

So, how to follow up the amazing hit that is the RAZR? The KRZR and the RIZR are the answer.

The KRZR, which is pronounced ‘krazer’, is supposed to stand for ‘crazy reflective RAZR’ because of its beautiful designed and shiny case. 

                             
                       The MOTOKRZR when closed

The name initially caused some confusion when it was announced a couple of months ago, with photos leaking out onto the Internet. Some thought it might be pronounced ‘cruiser’, as that matched Moto’s naming convention.

RAZR is razor, SLVR is sliver (and not silver!), PEBL is pebble. But having the sound of the RAZR within KRZR, even though it just doesn’t look like that when you say it in your head at first glance, was the intention all along.

              
                  The Motorola PEBL - in ‘pumpkin’ orange 

And why not? The RAZR still sells quite well today, with Aussie phone companies offering the silver model for AUD $199 with one of their phone plans. It’s a long way from the AUD $1399 it originally commanded on its release a couple of years ago.

The first thing you notice about the KRZR is that it looks like a RAZR that’s gone on a diet. It’s only two thirds the width of the RAZR to start with, and fits beautifully in your hand. It retains the design lines of the RAZR, with clean lines, precision detailing and premium materials shrouded (as Motorola put it) within a distinctive metallic gloss front finish. 

To further expand on the case, Motorola’s own description says it all: “Showcasing a multi-dimensional, metallic gloss finish for visual depth, the MOTOKRZR radiates a subtle elegance through magnesium, polished chrome and hardened glass. The solid glass on the front — a technological breakthrough and a first for a large-volume handset — results in a high-gloss luster balancing the soft velvet-like finish on the back”.

It all sounds pretty high-falutin’ and flash, but one thing’s for sure… it’s definitely a very elegantly designed phone, with full effort put in to outdoing the RAZR. Of course such a glossy surface picks up the fingerprints as is common on iPods, PSPs and other gadgets – you’ll just need to wipe them off every now and then.

I was told at the launch that a special cloth will be bundled, so until someone comes up with the fingerprint-proof glossy surface, that will have to do.

The phone is a 2.75G quad-band phone, meaning it supports voice calls, along with GPRS and EDGE for data transfer. This isn’t as fast as 3G or even 3.5G phones, and naturally it doesn’t support video calls, but this phone wasn’t designed to do that. It was designed to be a fashion phone with high-end voice features as standard.

            
Motorola and Oakley’s O ROKR Bluetooth headphone sunglasses

Other features include a 2 megapixel camera with 8x digital zoom, video capture and playback using MPEG-4 at 15fps which will record up to 25 minutes of video on the embedded memory (which is shared with your other information), an integrated MP3 player with Stereo Bluetooth headset support, optional removable MicroSD memory and an airplane flightmode feature. 

The graphical user interface, which was one of the criticisms of the RAZR, as it wasn’t as smooth as the interfaces found on Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones, nor was it as pretty, seems to largely be the same in the new KRZR. Granted, the graphics are a little bit better, and the phone seemed fast and responsive, but the icons still look like graphics from the Commodore 64.

                  
   Motorola’s pebble shaped portable USB charger with internal 
   lithium ion battery. Use it to recharge your phone anytime. 

Quite why this is so is a question probably best left to the late and great Julius Sumner Miller, as he always seemed to have the answer. The Motorola representatives I spoke to aren’t the ones responsible for graphical user interface design. The public has been vocal about this in the past, so I can only hope that Motorola is listening and is working on an upgrade for future models.

You really have to hold the KRZR in your hand to see how they’ve taken the RAZR and made it one better. Released just in time for Christmas, it’s bound to be a big hit for Motorola.

The second new phone of theirs (amongst many others which we briefly cover below, and will look at again in the future) is the RIZR. This looks like a RAZR that slides upwards, as a slider phone, except that it is also two thirds the width of the RAZR, just like the KRZR. It isn’t quite as slim as the KRZR, being just a touch larger.

                       
         The MOTORIZR - it’s not as wide as it looks here

It glides open with a touch to reveal the keypad underneath replete with the RAZR styled keypad we’re all familiar with. Behind the screen is a 2 megapixel digital camera. Many of the features are the same as the KRZR – there’s a MicroSD socket, an mp3 player, video capture and playback, a flightmode and quad-band GSM, GPRS and EDGE.

With the RAZR, Motorola had the ultimate clamshell (or flip) phone. The SLVR was the candy-bar. Now the KRZR is the RAZR reborn, and the RIZR is the version of the RAZR for all those who love slider-phones.

The KRZR and RIZR by no means complete Motorola’s line-up. There’s a new RAZR MAXX phone which is compatible with 3.5G 850Mhz and 2100Mhz HSDPA networks. The new RAZR V3xx is the super slim 3G RAZR upgrade we spoke of earlier.

            
   The Motorola RAZR MAXX - a 3.5G HSDPA high-speed phone

The Motorola Q is a Windows Mobile 5.0 powered Pocket PC phone that’s as slim as the RAZR, but runs Windows and sports a full QWERTY thumb keyboard. The Motorola W220 phone looks more like an ‘entry level’ phone but still manages to capture that RAZR styling.

             
                                 The Motorola Q

Finally, besides a range of Bluetooth accessories, the Motorola Oakley OROKR Bluetooth sunglasses, the pebble shaped portable charger with mini-USB plug that charges up Motorola phones (and any device with a mini-USB charging port), the Motorola FONE is one of the coolest entry-level phones around.

             
                                  The MOTOFONE

Using a special ‘e-paper’ screen instead of an LCD screen, it offers big buttons, big and easy-to-read numbers (in daylight or at night time with the assistance of lights on the side of the screen under the glass), very long battery life (no LCD to power) and what is promised to be a very, very affordable price.

Aimed at second and third world markets, this phone will bring mobile communications to the masses, with a phone that’s slimmer than the RAZR or SLVR, and still retains that ‘design cool’ that Motorola has brought to the world.

We’ll certainly be looking at other phone manufacturers and their latest range in the future, but Motorola’s newest mobiles are looking very hot indeed. There’s no doubt they’ll sell millions worldwide this Christmas and will very likely celebrate the KRZR and RIZR as the next two big successes.

The MOTOKRZR K1 sells for AUD $850 and will be available on many phone plans. The MOTORIZR Z3 is still $TBA but will be available soon. For more information and to see images, visit Motorola’s website.

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