Great to look at, but
Motorola probably runs the best advertising of any large mobile handset company today, and the new ad for the brand new Motorola V8 RAZR2 is another fantastic one. But recent Motorola products have failed to enthuse buyers for a variety of reasons, poor user interface being one of them, and this has been evident in its slide down the global sales charts.
That is why the RAZR2 is so crucial for Motorola. The original phone rejuvenated a then dimming star and became the hottest product in a dull market. The problem was, as many users of the RAZR discovered, it looked darn cool, but the phone was a pain to operate. Motorola gave us various iterations of the phone, with slightly updated features, but over 30 months after launch, the RAZR was well past its sell-by date, and frankly, the RAZR2 may have come a year too late.
Don’t get us wrong; the RAZR2 is still a great device. It has a beautiful form-factor and as far as clamshell phones go, it is the best looking phone in the market. Motorola has also worked double-time to correct many of the problems that were a concern on the original. Heck, the RAZR2 has the nicest Motorola interface yet and has a lot of interesting little tricks and treats.
But here is the problem: at Motorola’s Rs 20,000 price-point for a 512 MB phone (the V8 model sold in India does not have expandable memory), it is pushing the limit. You can get Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung handsets that are equally, if not more, capable (more memory, more megapixels), and if you consider Samsung’s Metal series, as good-looking. And there are unlocked iPhones available too for around Rs 25,000 (or less, if you do it yourself).
The RAZR2 should have been launched in 2006; by 2007, we should have seen the RAZR3. This is a beautiful device and one should buy it for its looks alone, but as far as capabilities go, there are better devices out there.
When Big Gets Really Big
If you visit a Samsung Digital brand showroom in some cities, you could find yourself staring at the TV pictured here—in its actual size. This 70-inch behemoth is the largest production Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) TV being sold in the world. The TV incorporates the latest Orangic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) backlight technology that allows for very high contrast ratios— in this case exceeding 500,000:1, something that is quite noticeable when you watch anything on this beast. Samsung India will sell you this TV for the minor consideration of Rs 24 lakh.
