Looked at this article recently about US mobile market share, and it surprised me how far Motorola has slipped, but also a reminder that most of the world do not use smart phones even in the hi tech US of A, (RIM 7% therefore Apple prob at 5%).

Or another way to look at it, there is still a big market to convert to the smartphone cause.

http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events...r_Market_Share

Without app-stores\digital assets, it's much easier to drop your handset and sync your minimal data to a new one.

Now there's a much bigger lock-in\tie-in to the platform that you've 'invested' in.

Edit: Er... I meant to say, that was part of the reason that RAZRs (and the multitude of candystick phones) were easy to leave behind and migrate to a new platform without strings attached.

The RAZR was horrible though. OK, so it did fit in my pocket very easily, but that was the only thing going for it. I gave mine away after a couple of months.

I hated my RAZR, hated the SLVR... but for a phone that they were basically giving away on contract, it's better than some other piece o' craptacular specials out there now.

I'd take metal construction over plastic any day.

It was interesting how the world went mad over flip phones at the time.

I still think they are a very good idea for a base phone. Even if its a landscape implementation like the Nintendo DS. I always loved the protection it added to the internal screen from being cracked (Ironically cracked the outside screen on 3 flip phones... and on my N900... but never an internal screen).

Never, however, had a RAZR... as they were never available on prepaid in Australia (and up until a year or two ago... that was all I needed).

its called the razr burn.
people got bored of it :P

Oh how the mighty have fallen. The RAZR was once the most desirable business phone. But in a rapidly-moving market you need to keep innovating, and Motorola lost the plot.

I didn't get a RAZR until they became dirt cheap on prepay. I paired it with my N800 for 2G web browsing until I got a 3G phone. Now my daughter uses my old RAZR.

PS: I'll say one thing for the RAZR, its mini-USB socket is (mechanically) solid as a rock.

I loved my RAZR, I got it used from my sister and had it for a year before I switched to the N95, it was the only Motorola phone I've ever owned (and IMO if we don't count the Droid and Droid x the only good one) it was built like a tank, it fell, slid, got burnt, wet, dusty, had things dropped on it and it did not die. In the very end, it had a speaker fault where there would be a small buzz whenever it was open and its frame was scratched and used up like all hell and it still worked the same way as when I had it. It was one hell of a phone in its time. Such a shame that its time went by so quickly.

This is the one I had. You know, they say good design is timeless and I still love its design. Motorola's industrial style always clicked with me, which is also why I like the N900's design (which mixed an industrial look with that nice curved style)

the world?