Motorola’s relaunched Razr could cost more than iPhone XS

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Razr2
Expect a bit of a design overhaul since the last time you saw the Razr.
Photo: OptoScalpel/Wikipedia CC

Motorola is planning to bring back its popular pre-iPhone line of Razr handsets — but don’t expect it to cost what a cellphone cost back in the early 2000s.

According to a new report, Motorola’s revived flip phone brand could carry a price tag of $1,500 when it launches. In other words, it’s trying to take on the iPhone, a handset whose popularity helped cement the Razr’s fate, with a new phone that costs more than Apple’s flagship. We’ll give it to Motorola: That’s a bold strategy!

The Razr was actually a pretty darn decent line of cellphones in around 2004 and 2005. It managed to be a fashion statement of the time, before Apple came along and took over that market with the iPhone.

In fact, the brand is pretty entwined in Apple history. As I’ve written before in my daily Apple history post, “Today in Apple history,” Apple and Motorola actually teamed up for a 2005 phone that combined the Razr with the iPod to create — well, nothing particularly good actually.

A few years later, in November 2008, Apple’s iPhone 3G dethroned the Razr as the top-selling U.S. cell phone. By that point, it was clear that Apple had changed the phone game and there was no coming back.

The best phone of 2009 2019

Ten years later, however, Motorola clearly thinks there is coming back. Its new Razr handset will supposedly take a page out of Samsung’s playbook and offer a foldable display — although details beyond this are sketchy. Nonetheless, it could launch as an exclusive for Verizon as soon as February.

Can the Razr claw back some relevancy by reviving a brand for something other than novelty nostalgia? We’ll have to wait and see. But we’re kind of intrigued to find out!

Source: Wall Street Journal

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