Motorola’s rebooted Razr phone could be here sooner than expected. We saw a patent of the device late last year, and there has been much talk since of Motorola’s entrant into the world of foldable phones. Now the handset-maker has officially confirmed that to be the case.
According to Dan Dery, Motorola’s vice president of global product, the company has “no intention of coming later than everybody else in the market”. Considering the Samsung Galaxy Fold is set to launch on 26th April, and the Huawei Mate X in June, that means we shouldn’t have long to wait for Motorola’s foldable.
A caveat: Motorola hasn’t actually confirmed that the new handset will be a rebooted Razr, just that it will be a foldable.
“We started work on foldables a long time ago.And we have been doing a lot of iteration," Dery said.
So there’s a chance that the Razr was just one of many mooted options and the final design will be nothing like it.
But they haven’t denied it either. Which means a new Razr could well still be on the cards.
According to the patent, the Razr will retain its original clamshell styling but with a large internal screen that folds in half when closed. Having a screen on the outside would expose it to too much punishment, according to Dery.
“We have been testing a plastic OLED device with plastic film on top,” Dery said, referring to the same design as Huawei’s Mate X.
“The fact that you’re touching (that kind of display) with your nails is scratching it. It has a short life right away; it starts dying the day you unpack it. But it’s beautiful. That first day, it’s beautiful.”
Hence Motorola’s “intention would not be to put the display outside,” he went on.
“When you know the scratching issues you would be facing, you will have something that is very rapidly not usable.”
This corresponds with the patent seen online.
The original Razr launched in 2004 and went on to be the bestselling clamshell phone ever. Will Motorola reboot it just like Nokia did its 3310 and 8110? This interview would suggest so…
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