The unlocking of the iPhone is a market ploy for it’s lacking capabilities and functionality. The “hacker” actually stated in an earlier blog that he did not know what he was doing. Also, he thinks that CDMA and GSM are compatible. His blog is ridiculas. How do you think that he was able to get access to so many iPhones when he is on a low budget. Also, the two mysterious people he worked with do not want to be known. Doesn’t that sound a little suspicious?
P.S. There is no Neuroscience major at RIT, I just think the US should know that! I am senior at RIT, RIT website Check it out for yourself.

The iPhone boasts an 8GB internal flash drive that is not expandable. This offers for only connecting the phone to your computer. Buy an iPod and then another phone. The iPhone is just another run of the mill PDA with phone cababilities. The iPod was revolutionary…the iPhone was a weak cash-in on some old technology.

Pros: Looks nice
Sounds well enough
Full web page with zoom
Cons: Expensive
Slow
No expandable memory
Slow internet connectivity if any
Fragile
Touch screen wears quickly.
RAZR2 with plan-$199.99
Base plan of hacked RAZR2-$49.99
10GB iPod mini-$50.00
Total Without tax and sub- $298.98
8GB iPhone-$499.99
Plan - $49.99 - $69.99
Total without tax and sub-$549.98

a weak status symbol in my opinion.

The Razor product has run its life cycle. When will the manufactures stop building these devices and stop being pushed around by the Carriers? Where are the built in hard drive multi media handhelds? ie the iphone. Apple obviously made it clear that the carrier will not control the customer of a ifone ( although they demand a 2 year committment! ) and also dictate terms to the manufacure. If they had, the ifone would be artifically lowered at the point of sale after the commission is netted out. This ongoing model has destroyed margins and continues to make this industry a technology waste land. Perhaps Apple not only came out with a cool device, but they may change this business for good of all consumers

to Michael, Evergreen, CO:

the iPhone has No MMC card, no high speed access, totally closed system (IIRC now BREWing) and you acutally have to pay a HIGHER rate plan for the SAME amount of items compared to another phone.

Not what i call innovations. The only thing innovative about it is the touchscreen. *shrugs* the rest of the phone is too mediocre for me to consider it. For the money i would rather a Palm Phone

Just a few points to add…

10 years ago nobody had java enabled web phones capable of average downloads at 400 kbps with digital cameras. In 1997 my Pentium desktop only had 256Mb of RAM with 56kbps dialup and a 640×480 webcam. My cell phone was an analog StarTac and my cameras used 35mm film.

The CDMA and EvDO technologies are faster and have higher capacity than the GSM/UMTS standards. However, the European market was created first and is consequentially bigger so development of new handsets generally happens first for GSM.

Europe/GSM is important. There are also Motorola CDMA networks in Japan, India, Brazil and China, though. Europe isn’t the only game in town.

I would suggest an organized effort to request a new service from Verizon. Most people probably don’t know what their phones are disabled from doing. Verizon is very interested in keeping its customers happy from what I’ve seen. Unfortunately that covers a lot of people, so it takes a lot of voices to influence corporate decisions. We can also influence market pressures by directing where we spend/don’t spend our dollars.

Verizon actually has the best coverage here in the southwest. Sprint is a close second and the Alltel, AT&T & T-Mobile networks just don’t compare. It is nice to hear that there is more competition on the east coast.

I said when I bought the Razr I would need to buy another cell phone because as a telephone the design is perfect. And I haven’t bought another cell phone.

Now most people don’t buy cell phones for there utility they buy them as status symbols (read comments above). How sad is that?

I must say however I am glad the RAZR became so popular. When they first came out it was quite embarrassing that status seekers might be envious of my telephone.

there is only one way to bring verizon down and make them stop butchering up the phones.when Motorola makes a phone with all of these features then the features should work when you buy the phone you payed for the features when you bough the phones.it should be against the law to cripple a phones features. may be a class action law suite is in store.its not just verizon do it is most cdma carriers and a few gsm but the gsm is not as bad as the cdma carriers.

Hey Chicago, where did you learn to write such good English ? What exactly is negetivity ? or even negetevities ? Learn to spell please or do not add your comments. Motorola is a good company and makes phones that are at the most mediocre and at least 10 years behind in technology as compared to Europe. Motorola is a great company in USA only. In Europe and Asia Nokia rules.

In terms of the RAZR beanded handsets, sure the original wasn’t of the highest quality, but it certainly turned a lot of heads and created a splurge of “me to” products in the industry.

Ultimately, this iconic device has held its own and created a handset revolution. Without it, there probably would be no iPhone. The bar would be much lower in terms of quality and design.

The newly designed RAZR2, depsite the (lack of buzz around the brand), is still one of the coolest phones in its categy and is probably not designed to compete directly against the iPhone given its price, feature set, and compact size.

It terms of Verizon, their business is to provide people with wireless and other communication services but they are “in” the business of making money. There are a fair amount of people who are willing to pay some premium to get extra services. In general wireless service providers would not be able to provide their services if they only sold the service itself. The fact that there is a market for additional services means there is profitability for both the service provider as well as the handset provider. Utlimately, this leads to a superior product with more R&D dollars and feateure functionality behind it.

All I know is my Razr comes with a terrible hissing background sound that you can’t get rid of, and I am on my second replacementwith the same issue. I will personally never buy another Motorola.

It is called RAZR2 because it was designed from the ground up. It has the same brand name because people recognize it. More people bought RAZRs than any other phone brand in history and Motorola is cashing in on that investment. If you want the best music player on the market, buy an iPod. If you want the best cell phone on the market, buy a RAZR. If you want to whine you can apparently get a job writing tech articles.

I own a Razr v3m with Verizon’s service. I enjoy the coverage area from Verizon, but hate their mentality as a company. I had to alter my phone to make all the features Moto provided available. I can now use my own mp3s as ringtones and backup my phonebook with Moto Phone Tools. Verizon (and every other carrier) has to stop crippling their phones in order for people to buy into their over priced extras. Why are ring tones double the price of songs from iTunes when they are shorter and less quality? Verizon, keep doing what you do best; provide us with the service and let us take it from there. Lastly, if I buy a game on one phone it should be transferable to another phone, period.

I don’t know if it was the RAZR or the software but my RAZR V3m was a complete piece of trash. Locked up constantly - taking the battery out to kill it and restart it was at least a 2x/week occurrence. I have had other Motorola products with Verizon in the past and the operational quality has been subpar compared to the premium price I paid.

I am now on my second LG phone with Verizon (replaced when they became outdated) and have had a great experience with both.

I will likely never buy a Motorola product for my own use again.

For years we’ve been spending hundreds of dollars on the newest phones that are in reality only minor upgrades from the previous model. Instead of creating something revolutionary, we’ve been getting more of the same. We pay a premium for some silly new feature. Its about time that these tech companies get creative… and innovative.

I am so happy that Apple has finally decided to change this trend of “more of the same” with a true “next-generation” phone. For those of you who haven’t tooled around with the iPhone or refuse to because you are a “PC-only” person, I highly suggest that you make the time to; even if you don’t plan to buy one. It will at the minimum give you new expectations for what you want in a future phone because it is just that good. The iPhone sure isn’t for everyone, but it sets the bar for what we should expect in the future. Innovation is leading the pack now. I hope that everyone else takes note.

So Motorola, don’t give us more of the same. Give us revolutionary.

Motorola did a great job with the RAZR and KRAZR; Verizon disabled hardware and software that Motorola provided, then Verizon charges extra to put the same features back in. Motorola is producing great equipment, Verizon is converting that into a cash cow by misleading their own customers. Sad.

I think the new Razr will be great once motorola sells it with other carriers besides Verizon. I say this as an At&t costumer with many friends on Verizon who hate it because of the high cost and the fact that you have to pay for every feature instead of them coming standard with the service. They should do the service plan like the iPhone plan. If the phone is truly capable then no consumers who know what they’re buying are going to want a service that cripples the phone.

Hey michael from houston, You also forgot pictures, music videos, movies, color. Can’t just say “more features” and not list them. Or more games, radio, gps… iPod at least evolved.

Yes Dan, it does have new features. But many of them (larger external display, better camera, touch sensitive audio buttons [though not Haptic], microSD and autofocus) have already been included in the Ve Maxx.

The V9m’s processor is also going to run at half-speed compared to the V9 or the V8. So in fact, most of whats not included on the Ve could in theory be upgraded if Verizon so chose to install their new UI on it, this is just basically a $99 markup for a phone already available in a new casing.

The RAZR2 does have new features. The phone is thinner as it does away with the lower “lip” of the flip. It is also a little wider and longer. It has a much larger external display with touch sensitive controls from which to play MP3’s or send brief text messages. It has the faster processor of the V3xx and can take a microSD or TRansflash card. I believe the Verizon version is limited to 2GB. All of the specs of this phone are avaialable at http://www.phonescoop.com - it looks like a great device.

Big deal, Verizon is just going to turn off all the features moto puts into them just like the did in the past so they can charge you for them. Unfortunately they are not as hackable as the E815’s.

http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/compare.php?id%5B%5D=1024&id%5B%5D=1243&id%5B%5D=953

Again, I don’t see the big upgrade here, so it’s 20% thinner, at it’s size, I’d rather take the extra battery life.

Remember that Verizon is going to more than likely kill most of the cool features, or at least limit them.

Well, here are my own research results:

I own an iPod, and I love it.
I own a Razr, and I hate it.

You can make a wild guess which phone I’m buying next.

I really hate that about Verizon, how everything has to be done with there services, and you have to pay them to turn it on, and oh it costs more each month to use x, y, z and since you have x, y, z… now we also have you charge you more for using those services we just turned on… I think I’m going to get a different service provider.

Down with Verizon!

Chuck in Dallas, how exactly have the iPods been changed?

Thinner, check!
Bigger Screeen, check!
More features, check!

That sounds like what has happened with the new RAZR.

I know you haven’t seen the phone in person yet because it’s not out yet. So how about you save your criticism until you can see what you are talking about.

Ok a new phone with more options big deal Verizon is going to turn them all off just so they can charge you to turn them back on. Another usless phone by from Verizon. I’ll keep my old phone that days has all the options that Verizon leaves on by default so there really isn’t enough differance between the old and the new to warrent getting a new phone. I think the big question here is why waste the money on a new crippled phone?

Razr’s are fun now because they became cheaper.

And easier to hack!

I am only interested in size, features, performance, reliability, and battery life. I could care less what a company names the device.

Come on guys, give some credit to Motorola for coming up with iconic Razr. Other competitors tried to copy the slim design but point me to one non qwerty phone that looks better the Razr even now. The new Razr 2 is even slimmer and looks very slick. I agree its a bit delayed and will be compared with iphone which has a better software. But trust me, I have seen it personally and its looks awesome. Motorola is a company that innovates and does not copy designs from others. Innovations do not happen on a daily basis. Wait for their phones that are solar charged and you don’t need to charge you phone for months, add to it a mini projector. Have you thought of a Qwerty Razr. Take a deep breadth. You will be shocked.

The RAZR phone is too cool for school. It won’t catch on (again), once the iPhone gets games, its all over.

–

http://ThunkDifferent.com

” Verizon’s (VZ) wireless unit became the first U.S. operator to announce plans to carry Motorola’s (MOT) latest multimedia phone, the Motorarz2 V9m. Oh good. More RAZRs. ”

HAHA Nice typo! “Motorarz2 v9m”.

In response to the 2 comments above:

because the ipod changes and doesn’t look the same as it did when it first came out. This phone doesn’t look any different than the other razrs. That is why people are getting sick of them. They used to be cool. Now, you can find them in every mobile home park in the country.

What I don’t understand is the significant lack of research in this post.

Verizon released a CDMA version of the V6 RAZR only a few short months ago, to little fan fare. It is worth noting that the specs on that device, and the RAZR2 are strikingly similar.

Another thing I find missing is the fact that the RAZR might just be old news. When it came out it was the slim one in the game. Technologically speaking the phone was far inferior to the competition, menus were slow, the phone was infinitely hard to SMS on, it was a mess.

In my mind, people bought them, and then told themselves never to buy one again, because short of “looking cool” they were just not good phones, something that will not be said about the iPod.

Looks like a great product to me. Lots of innovative features.

So you’ll bash the new RAZR2 because it’s called a RAZR. It would really be interesting to know if you even reasearched the new phone before you wrote this article. Very responsible journalism.

“Oh good. More RAZRs”??? No one would say “Oh good. More iPods”. So then what’s wrong with an upgrade to the RAZR?

I dont know why you are all going after RAZR. It is a brand and it’s successors are lookalike and are more innovative than The Apple Ipod and its successors. No one is berating the I-pod. So why are people after Razrs blood.

All your banal articles about Razr’s are as boring, so my guess is to give these negetivities a break. It affects lots of people in a lot a negetive ways. I hope you understand … !!