Snippet: Motorola’s New $1500 Folding Razr ☇

Chaim Gartenberg for The Verge:

Motorola is bringing the Razr back in the form of a foldable Android phone, but that doesn’t mean that the company is leaving the classic design of the original behind. As a neat tribute to the OG RAZR, Motorola has included a secret “Retro Razr” mode that turns the $1,499 modern smartphone into the spitting image of its 2004-era predecessor.

The mode is basically a glorified skinned Android launcher that faithfully re-creates the original RAZR UI through software, right down to the classic boot animation. But Motorola has put in some serious work here: the skin is fully functional. Click the button for messaging, and it’ll launch the Android messaging app. Click right to open settings, and the settings app will launch. The best part is dialing a phone number, which features the same pop-up UI as the original, including the sounds.

While both this phone and the company making it are not anything like the RAZR and Motorola of the early-aughts, it’s both an interesting take on the folding phone and enough design cues to get me a bit nostalgic. Unlike the original RAZR, it’s going to be exclusive to Verizon at launch and not take SIM cards, and be quite pricey for midrange specs (I don’t think even taking into account inflation would make the two close). Due to those shortcomings, it doesn’t look like I’ll be picking one up and setting the default ringtone to Waves like the old days.