Motorola has a really long history of making phones. While it may not be a popular player in the market today, the brand has been selling smartphones since 1983, when it sold the giant brick of a phone, the DynaTAC 8000x! But the real success for the company came via the iconic Moto Razr series, particularly the Moto Razr V3.

moto razr 02

Why was it so popular? Because it had one of the sexiest designs in a phone of its time. It was sleek, all-metal, and best of all, the flip to open sound was pretty satisfying. Anyone who wanted to be cool back in 2005 got this device. Well, by anyone, I mean someone with decent money, because this phone set you back more than $400 at launch. While that would get you a decent mid-ranger today, $400 was a significant amount to spend on a fancy phone back then.

The Moto Razr V3 got full marks for its design. So it’s no surprise that the phone managed to sell over 130 million units between 2004 to 2008. It is the best selling clamshell phone till date, which goes on to show its popularity among users.The phone drew long lines, quickly selling out too.

What Was So Special About Its Design?

Moto razr 03

Motorola dared to be different with the Moto Razr V3. It was a time when every phone had started to look like a brick. Yes, there were weird designs from companies like Nokia, but they were still fairly rectangular and thick. Remember the lipstick phone? Crazy design, but still a brick!

What made the Razr special was it chic look. It was super sleek, light weight (95 grams), and was shiny, all thanks to its metal design. The body was made out of magnesium and aluminum and unlike other smartphones in its day, the phone’s keypad was tactile and stayed flush with the body.

The simple act of flipping open the phone got a special fan following. Even today, I’m sure a lot of us would just pause for a second to see a Moto Razr flip open. That’s how iconic the Moto Razr has become!

moto razr

Another cool feature was its camera! No, it wasn’t high resolution or feature rich. But thanks to its clamshell design, you could take selfies or use it like a mirror too. The display outside wasn’t great though. But you could make it work.

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Talking about displays, guess where Vivo Nex Dual gets its inspiration from? The Razr V3 featured two screens, a small 96 x 80 pixel display on the outside and a 2.2-inch 220 x 176 display inside. Both were color screens, but nothing to shout about when you compare it with smartphones today. However, the outside screen came in quite handy alerting the user about new notifications, charging, and other details in a short format. The phone had a pretty decent MP3 player too, so you could listen to songs and get into your groove in style.

The Moto Razr had a small 680mAh battery with 250 hours of standby and 7 hours of talktime. It was nothing special but given its sleek design, it was enough to keep users interested.

motor razr 02

Despite its expensive price tag, the phone became a status symbol among the youth. If you had a Moto Razr, you were considered to be cool! Motorola released the model in multiple color variants too, including a Black version. Later on, we would see updates to the original model like the Moto V3re and the Moto V3x.

There’s no denying that the Moto Razr V3 holds a special place among all phone users from the 2000s. While we are not sure if the company plans to revive the series with a foldable clamshell like design, it would be really cool to see its design being adapted to cater to today’s users.

Will we ever see a clamshell foldable smartphone from Motorola? Maybe we’ll!

Let’s wait and watch.

 

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