Motorola RAZR2 V9 and V8

A couple of new handsets from Motorola which look nice on paper.. the Motorola RAZR2 V8 is a GSM device with the very similar RAZR2 V9 which is 3G with HSPDA. They have just about the largest external display that I've seen, a 2.0" 240x320 pixel panel with a 2.2" internal one. There are some cool looking external media controls too.

On the RAZR2 V8 there's plenty of internal memory, a whopping 420MB expandable with microSD cards, a so-so 2 megapixel camera and lots of multimedia goodies. Talktime is an impressive 8 hours. The 3G RAZR V9 has much less memory and of course a shorter talktime but is otherwise pretty similar.

What's the catch? Well, predictably from the name "RAZR2" these look pretty much like all the other RAZRs you've ever seen. And if (like me) you're fed up with the predictable styling and you hate that nasty RAZR keypad then you'll never buy one.. regardless of all the other features.

The RAZR2 is Motorola's idea of a brand new phone - and if you look under the hood it seems to be rather good. But most customers will just see it as the same old same old and will avoid it in droves.. after all, there are plenty of other 2G, 3G and 3.5G RAZRs on the market which just aren't shifting.

Moto pulled off another trick too and announced four other "new" handsets.. which appear to be four already announced devices with their names changed.

Fundamentally these all seem to be very capable devices but Motorola has made them fashion phones.. and the RAZR is definitely out of fashion. The fact the Motorola have repeated the same mistake with the RAZR2 that they have made several times before tells me that this company is not capable of learning. I certainly wouldn't like to be a shareholder!

Link - Why the RAZR is killing Motorola