Motorola Shows off Sequel to the RAZR Handset

At a conference held in New York, Motorola has shown off a range of new handsets, including its sequel to the popular RAZR handset, the aptly named, RAZR2. First to be shown were two new evolutions of their BlackBerry competitor, the Q handset. The Q8 will be a standard GSM model, while the Q9 will be a 3G - HSDPA enabled unit. Motorola claims that the Q9 is now the fastest smartphone on the market.

The Q9 is being launched in Italy today, with launches around Europe over the summer and the rest of the world later. The company has come up with some interesting changes to the user interface, including a range of single click buttons to access the main menu functions. At the presentation, they said that an average user could save a day of typing per year with the new interface they have designed. The handsets will run using Windows Mobile 6 OS and come with an adaptive screen display which automatically adjusts the brightness depending on the environment you are in.

Another new handset is the Z6, a music player phone. The key pitch for this handset was speed and ease of use. The handset supports USB 2, which they say would enable 500 songs to be transferred from a PC to the handset in just 20 minutes. The Sony Ericsson walkman phones are reported to take over an hour to achieve the same quantity of transfer. For Europeans, the handset will also include a Bluetooth enabled stereo headset and the phone is being launched today. The rest of the world should follow within a few weeks.

The main product launch though, was the replacement for the RAZR. Motorola's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Ed Zander previewed the handset by commenting that the company has already shipped over 98.8 million RAZR's since its launch, and expects to pass the 100 million mark within weeks.

The RAZR 2 is 2mm thiner than the current model, and comes with an internal screen that is twice the resolution of the current model - being some 320x240 pixels in size. The phone will also come with a 2" external screen, which they say is the largest external screen on a clamshell phone to date.

It is not a plastic handset, but will have a chasis made of stainless steel and aluminum - with a hardened glass screen. The chipset is a 500Mhz ARM processor, which will be some 5 times faster than the current handset. Also, some versions of the handset will ship with Linux/Java as the OS.

Other notable changes are complete revamp of the user interface - to be fair, old Motorola handsets have always lacked a certain ease of use factor. They will include a "crystal talk" facility which will cut ambient and background noise dynamically to make the phone easier to use in noisy environments. Interestingly, text messages can be displayed on the external screen, and if your reply is common-place - you can select a preset reply from a menu option. This enables you to reply to a text message without having to open the handset.

The camera is just 2 Megapixels, which is a bit low by today's standards - but it has a novel muti-shot option which enables the phone to take up to 8 photos, 2 seconds apart with a single click.

The GSM version of the handset will be available in Asia within weeks, with a worldwide rollout during the summer.

No anticipated prices were given for any of the handsets.

Below are a selection of screenshots from the webcast held today.

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Posted to the site on 15th May 2007