Motorola RAZR takes a fresh breath with V8 and V9

Motorola officially unveiled the Motorola RAZR2 V8 and V9 models. These are the descendants of the highly popular Motorola RAZR V3 which paved the way for the ultra slim trend in the mobile world.

The Motorola RAZR2 comes in two versions - the first one is the Motorola RAZR2 V8 which has quad-band GSM/EDGE network support, while the second one is the Motorola RAZR2 V9 which is a quad-band GSM/EDGE/3G/HSDPA-enabled device. Other than that, feature-wise and design-wise the two are almost identical. There will also be an EVDO CDMA version, named RAZR2 V9m but it is out of the scope of this article.

Motorola RAZR2 V8

The Motorola RAZR2 comes equipped with a main 2.2" 262K color TFT display with a QVGA (320x240 pixels) resolution plus a really large secondary 2" 262K color TFT display with a QVGA resolution too. It would practically mean that there would be no difference between using any of the two. What is more, Motorola are promising a handy messaging function that would allow user to compose and send messages without even opening the clamshell.

Motorola RAZR2 V9

Design-wise, the RAZR2 has received an enormous facelift in both looks and style. It is thinner than every previous RAZR model and it has a new flushed-out metallic design with some hardened glass to protect all those square inches of displays that it offers.

The Motorola RAZR2 will have full support for stereo Bluetooth, it will have a microUSB slot for data connections and attaching headphones (makes us sorry for losing the standard miniUSB) and would certainly appeal with its 2 megapixel camera, which unfortunately doesn't feature autofocus.

Both versions will have external touch-sensitive music keys, plus high-quality MPEG 4 video capture and playback and speaker independent voice dialing. The touch sensitive keys are in fact part of the external display which means that it's part touch-sensitive. Furthermore the keys come with a clever feedback (haptics) technology. The handset produces slight vibrations every time a touch-sensitive key is pressed. Both devices are powered by an ARM 11 processor which makes them faster than any of the previous RAZR models.

All that being said, it must be pointed out that the two handset versions have certain differences. The Motorola RAZR2 V8 boasts a new Linux/Java user interface and will be sold in two variants - one with 420MB of memory available to the user, and a second one with 2GB of memory available to the user. Obviously, it won't have a memory cards slot. On the other hand the Motorola RAZR2 V9 retains the original Motorola Synergy UI and has only 45MB of memory but has a microSD memory card slot.

The Motorola RAZR2 V8 will become globally available in July 2007, while the Motorola RAZR2 V9 is supposed to hit the shelves somewhere in Q3 2007.

An interesting update to the Motorola portfolio is also the transformation of the formerly announced Motorola RIZR Z6 into Motorola ROKR Z6. The Motorola RIZR Z6 was supposed to become the first member of the Motorola MOTOMUSIC family, but obviously the manufacturer has decided to keep the rich multimedia devices into the ROKR lineup.

Motorola ROKR Z6, previously known as RIZR Z6

The Motorola ROKR Z6 will become commercially available world wide in June 2007.