Can The New Razr2 Compete W/ iPhone?
05.15.07 - 05:32pm
Motorola may have announced a rather large quarterly loss, their first in three years, but they are up and fighting again as they have announced the new Razr 2.
To be released shortly after the iPhone’s debut, Motorola simply cannot afford to lose any more profits than they already have.
“With the modern style and powerful performance of RAZR2, Motorola is once again redefining the cell phone,” said Motorola CEO Ed Zander in a statement.
A new Razr wasn’t what analysts were hoping for however as it does little to fend off the devices like the iPhone. It does hold storage for a 1000 songs and also has an improved camera but it just seems to be lacking when compared to the iPhone.
“People went in there thinking that maybe there would be a game-changing new device,” said Inder Singh, an analyst at Prudential Equity Group in New York, who rates Motorola shares “neutral weight” and doesn’t own any. “What we got was a new Razr. Maybe it buys them some time before they really have to come up with something really differentiated.”
“It’s not a product, it’s a brand,” Zander said, referring to the Razr, which has sold 98 million units. Motorola will continue selling versions of the phone for years, he said.
The original Razr first sold for $500 and did extremely well as it kicked off the sleek looking cell phone trend.Since then however Motorola has not been able to follow their hit wonder with the same pizazz as phones from the Pebl to the Krzr barely fizzled.
The new Razr is 2MM thinner than the original and supports multimedia features: music and video playback. The new model was not yet given a price tag but is likely to be in the $200 to $300 range. It has a 2″ external TFT display - the largest on a clamshell handset currently on the market to date. Touch sensitive music keys that include haptic technology (providing tactical feedback without actually moving) have also been added. The phone also has an HTML browser and a 2.0 mega-pixel camera. It also features real-time wireless video sharing, gull Web browsing and e-mail access.
Still one wonders if it can compete with the iPhone’s “Cool Factor”, the already famous touch screen, plus video/music and internet capabilities. Basically if your going to throw down three stones for a phone you should have the capabilities to throw down 2 stones more and get the hottest item on the market. Face it, whose going to want to look at your Razr2 when your buddy has the iPhone.
We’ll see as the whole deal will go down in just the next couple months, as it’s set to be released in Asia in early July and come to us later in the summer.
Motorola also unveiled a new Moto Z8 media phone, two models of the Q e-mail handset and the Rokr Z6 music phone all set to ship in Europe and Asia next month, along with a music agreement with Napster Inc.
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