The best-selling clamshell style phone ever released belongs to Motorola. It was the RAZR that catapulted the company to the top of the mobile industry before smartphones took over. When the series retired around a decade ago, it had achieved well over 100 million units sold.
Motorola eventually brought the series back with DROID branding as Android started booming, but it never achieved the same level of success. But the company isn’t done with it yet.
Lenovo, which owns Motorola these days, recently made it clear that the RAZR could rise again. CEO Yang Yuanqing spoke at MWC 2018 and revealed that, if the right technology presents itself, the company would revive the RAZR and bring the well-known name back to the market.
There’s just a very specific technology he and Lenovo would like to see before making things official.
The head honcho at Lenovo fielded questions from the media at the Barcelona-based trade show, and someone brought up the possibility of Motorola’s RAZR coming back. Yuanqing’s response certainly didn’t rule anything out.
Here’s what Yuanqing told TechRadar:
“With the new technology, particularly foldable screens, I think you will see more and more innovation on our smartphone design. So hopefully what you just described [the Motorola RAZR brand] will be developed or realized very soon.”
Aside from just confirming the RAZR is far from dead, he says foldable displays would be a catalyst to do something. The reporter followed up to ensure he was talking about specifically about the RAZR, and Yuanqing reiterated his initial response. If foldable displays make it mainstream, Motorola will have it on a new RAZR.
It’s unclear when companies plan on releasing phones with displays that fold into a more compact body. Samsung is developing the Galaxy X, but there’s no real indication that it’ll arrive this year.
