The Motorola Razr is back on the market. Motorola's famous clamshell phone will be revived as a foldable smartphone.
If you caught the times before smartphones, you know that flip phones were very cool, especially the Motorola Razr. Well, that classic phone is coming back in a new form: a foldable phone that would have a starting price of $ 1,500 and would launch very soon, according to sources close to the project.
Lenovo, the phone maker, has reportedly entered into a partnership with US telecom operator Verizon to bring the new Razr exclusively to the United States in February this year. The devices are still in testing and the launch of the phone may be delayed, however.
Lenovo, the Chinese manufacturer that bought Motorola Mobility from Google in 2014, plans to produce around 200,000 units of the new Motorola Razr.
The new Razr shows that manufacturers want to experiment and look for niche products that will catch the eye of consumers who are increasingly happy to stay with their phones for more years.
Motorola launched the Razr V3 in 2004 and it became a symbol almost overnight. Celebrities like Fergie and David Beckham promoted the phone then and the company managed to sell over 130 million units globally.
Apple came up with the iPhone in 2007 and changed the whole industry and led to low sales of Motorola, Nokia or BlackBerry. Things got worse for Motorola and it switched to Google software in 2009 and then in 2011 it decided to sell the phone division to Google.
The foldable Razr is part of Verizon's 2019 strategy and includes 5G compatible smartphones from Samsung Electronics and Motorola through that Moto Mods.
Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo's boss, has hinted in the past that the Motorola Razr is back. A patent granted by Motorola Mobility in August 2018 shows a design with a flexible screen that folds with the help of a hinge.