For the Droid Razr, Motorola reached deep into its playbook.
Motorola long ruled the flip-phone market in the mid-2000s, with its thin clamshell Razr phone. Now the Razr brand is back, in an incredibly thin new smartphone that runs on Verizon's superfast 4G LTE network. It's just 0.28 inches thick. That's almost 25 percent thinner than the Apple iPhone 4S.
It comes with the same industrial machine-like styling we've come to expect from Motorola. It's a beautiful, streamlined package that includes a stunning 4.3-inch touch screen and Kevlar fiber on the back. The Kevlar could be a gimmick, but it looks and feels nice in the hand.
The Droid Razr is $300 with a two-year contract agreement from Verizon. The almost impossibly thin build means that the Razr has no removable battery, which may be a deterrent to some. It comes with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and a dual-core 1.2-gigahertz processor.
The phone's other specs: 1 gigabyte of RAM, super-strong Gorilla Glass to prevent scratches, an 8-megapixel rear camera and a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera for video chats. The camera on the Droid Razr takes only average pictures, though, and performs poorly in low light.
In a streaming video battery test, the Droid Razr had mixed results. Using the same test I use for all smartphones -- a continuous streaming video using the phone's data connection -- the Droid Razr lasted just more than three hours. The Razr did better when performing the same streaming video test over WiFi, lasting nearly seven hours. In more realistic use -- texting, calling, app downloading and casual Web browsing -- the Droid Razr lasted from morning until early evening. That, unfortunately, is all we've been able to ask of these powerful 4G smartphones.
The Droid Razr's top competition is a phone that hasn't yet been released. The forthcoming Samsung Galaxy Nexus is expected to be released this month and also will run on Verizon's 4G LTE network. The Galaxy Nexus will ship with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), Google's eagerly anticipated new mobile operating system.
I haven't seen the Galaxy Nexus yet, so I won't begin to handicap a comparison. But I have seen the Droid Razr, and it's an incredibly sexy and powerful phone. Its almost unnaturally thin build belies the speed packed inside. There's no better service out there than Verizon's 4G LTE network, and the Droid Razr will rightfully assume its perch as the most drool-worthy option there.
