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    It's Showtime for Razr Phone Revival as Pre-Orders Open

    By Adam Dickter, newsfactor.com | Newsfactor.com – Wed, Oct 26, 2011
    Revivals generally have mixed success on Broadway. Verizon Wireless and Motorola Mobility soon will see how they play out in the smartphone market as they unleash the new Razr, available for pre-orders Thursday.

    A pre-iPhone favorite in 2004 as a clamshell, flip-top feature phone, the Razr is back as a state-of-the-art, Android-powered touchscreen smartphone complete with 4G data speed via Verizon's long-term evolution network.

    Superior Experience

    The phone will take its place on the top shelf of Verizon's smartphone lineup as part of its branded Droid line, which Verizon says is reserved for "premium devices that offer customers a superior experience."

    In addition to its speed, other features include a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED advanced display, thin 7.1 mm design, one gigabyte of RAM and 8 megapixel rear camera and enhanced security features like remote wipe, pin lock and government-grade encryption for e-mail, calendar and contacts. It ships with Android 2.3.5, or Gingerbread. A nano-coating protects it from spills, and it ships preloaded with QuickOffice to handle Microsoft Office files.

    On the drawback side: The $299 price tag (with two-year voice and data contract), which will be tough to swallow for the cost-conscious during these hard economic times, especially with much cheaper competitors, including the now $99 iPhone 4.

    Pre-orders begin at 8 a.m. Eastern Standard Time via droiddoes.com/DroidRazr or by phone. The in-store release date was not announced, though Verizon promises to ship orders by Nov. 10.

    Stiff Competition

    The Droid Razr release comes as Nokia is ushering out its first crop of phones powered by Microsoft's Windows Phone 7, including the snazzy Lumia 800 (with the Mango update); Apple is seeing record sales for the iPhone 4S; and Samsung's Galaxy S II is also making strong headway.

    And while Research In Motion is rolling out some new BlackBerry products, that company has suffered from bad publicity after this month's three-day outage of data services for users in parts of Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and North and South America.

    The Razr is priced high among other Verizon offerings, even in the limited 4G category. The LG Revolution can be purchased for just $149 while another Droid product, Samsung's Charge, is $100 cheaper at $199. The $299 price is the same as the 3G Apple iPhone 4S with 32 GB of storage.

    "At a $299 price point, it's aimed at the deep-pocketed to the well-off early adopters," said William Ho, a wireless analyst at Current Analysis. "It runs in parallel to the early Razr days that commanded premiums. 
It competes against other Android phones vs. iPhone and BlackBerry."

    Verizon hopes to have a total of 15 LTE-capable devices for sale by the end of the year, Forbes magazine reported, as the company further extends its 4G network, currently serving markets covering 185 million Americans.

     

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