Will Motorola Razr be folded just for the sake of folding?

At the end of last year, Lenovo released the Motorola Razr foldable screen phone, which immediately caused a strong response in the industry. Some foreign media and almost all Chinese media were amazed. Foreign media Cnet even named it the 2019 Innovation Award "Innovation Awards".

However, as Razr is about to be launched in the US, and some foreign media have gradually obtained prototypes and even retail versions, in stark contrast to the initial astonishment, Razr has encountered challenges in design, use, maintenance and other basic elements of a smartphone. These make us wonder, is the Razr, which Motorola officially claims took four years to develop, really a 100% complete smartphone? Note the four-year development cycle.

The biggest selling point has become a complaint point. What is the unique innovation of the hinge?

As we all know, for the new folding screen mobile phones, no matter which folding method (vertical inward folding, vertical outward folding, horizontal folding, etc.), the hinge is the most fundamental factor that determines the folding screen mobile phone experience (after all, it needs to be folded frequently, otherwise what is the point of folding), and it is also one of the main criteria for measuring the manufacturer's innovative technological capabilities in folding flat phones.

Previously, Samsung Galaxy Fold foldable screen mobile phone has been repeatedly delayed in its launch, and the biggest problem and the most improvements are in the hinge part. For this reason, when Razr was developed and launched, the hinge part was used as the biggest selling point of innovation and product. Even Motorola’s official publicity later used the title that the core of Rzar is the hinge, not the screen (the screen is also very important for smartphones), in order to highlight the advantages of Razr as a foldable screen mobile phone compared with its rivals.

But unfortunately, it is on this biggest selling point that Rzar seems to have failed.

Recently, CNET used a test machine called Square Trade FoldBot to test the new phone by repeatedly folding and unfolding it. Prior to this, CNET used the same machine to test the Samsung Galaxy Fold foldable screen phone. Samsung's product was tested 120,000 times in a row without any folding problems.

Unfortunately, the Motorola Razr ended after the 27,218th time, and in the last few seconds of the test, the phone could no longer fold properly. As a result, when the test team took the Razr off the test machine, it could no longer close properly. Although the Rzar's screen was not damaged, once the hinge has an obvious fault, the folding screen phone loses its meaning and value, right? In this regard, CNET calculated based on a 2017 study that Americans look at their phones an average of 80 times a day, and the life of the Motorola Razr may be only more than a year.

Motorola naturally disagrees with this test result, believing that CNET's test method is wrong, that is, the FoldBot used by CNET for testing "will put excessive pressure on the hinge" because the design "does not allow the phone to open and close in the expected way." At the same time, Motorola also released a test folding video on its own video channel (the folding method is much gentler), and wrote "flips for years" in the title, indicating that it is confident that the Razr folding phone can be used for several years.

We don't know what kind of logical conclusion the industry, especially users, will draw after seeing Motorola's explanation.

First of all, we don't know what the industry's testing standards are for these new folding screen phones? For example, the Square Trade FoldBot test used by CNET mentioned above. But there is one thing Motorola cannot deny, that is, Razr lost to Samsung in its biggest selling point. This was the biggest shortcoming of Samsung's folding screen phones before, and now their shortcomings have surpassed your strengths, and can even be said to be the biggest selling point.

The second is Motorola's own test. We believe that the evaluation of Carolina Milanesi, a technology analyst at Creative Strategies, is quite representative of the actual users. She said, "At the end of the day, you can't tell every user that you should fold it this way." The reality is that for a foldable screen phone, no one wants to be careful when opening or closing it every day (according to the regulations of Motorola's test). The ability to "flip and close quickly" or even fold in a random way is one of the most core user needs and experiences of foldable screen mobile phone products.

Finally, it should be noted that in order to make Razr as durable as a traditional clamshell phone, Motorola itself said that they spent four years improving the screen hinge engineering design. During this period, it went through 19 generations of upgrades and improvements before finally completing this hinge called bashel (bell-shaped hinge technology). They also invited some foreign media to visit their headquarters laboratory in Chicago to show that there are many industrial robots conducting various rigorous tests on new equipment under development, among which hinge durability is the focus.

So the question is, are Motorola's internal testing standards for its biggest selling point lower than those of the industry? You know, in order to prove the selling point of their products, manufacturers often adopt testing standards that are much higher than the standards of third parties in the industry, but Motorola's testing is the opposite. This also makes the industry reasonably question the innovation of Razr, or more precisely, where is the unique hinge innovation that its official claims?

No comparison, no harm. What does the Razr, which is full of compromises, mean?

If the above is the lack of Razr's core selling point, then the following evaluation and comparison will make Razr, as a smartphone, a product that may be a compromise in every aspect.

For example, recently, YouTuber JerryRigEverything, who is famous for violent tests, released a test of Razr. Although this YouTuber is known for violent tests, we found that some items in his test were not so.

For example, in the screen hardness test, the Razr's inner screen (folding screen) showed obvious scratches at a hardness of 2 (note: the inner screen is the core screen of the application), which is far lower than the requirement of 6-7 for ordinary mobile phones to show obvious scratches. In other words, Razr not only fails to meet the basic mobile phone screen hardness, but is even far from it.

According to Motorola's official introduction, the Razr's display is cut as a whole at once, with no exposed edges, greatly increasing the number of folding times. There are five customized protective layers on the front and back of the display panel to prevent scratches and wear, and the nano-coating makes it waterproof and splash-proof, which other folding screen devices cannot do. However, the results of third-party tests showed that even the basic hardness of the mobile phone screen could not be achieved. What's the reason?

Another example is the sand test. JerryRigEverything sprinkled pebbles and sand on the inner screen of the Razr, then folded and unfolded it. Although the screen was fine, the hinge seemed to be mixed with sand, and there was noise every time it was folded. Does this mean that the hinge, the core selling point of the Razr, has a problem again?

In addition to JerryRigEverything, another typical review comes from the well-known technology blog The Verge. After multiple trials, the blog concluded that Razr compromises too much. For more details, interested readers can check it out: https://www.phonefoldable.com/the-verge-motorola-razr-review-folding-flip-phone-flops/. We only capture the more important aspects to show our approval.

In the trial, the company also questioned the hinge design of the Rzar. First, it makes a squeaking noise when opening and closing. Although Motorola claims that the sound will never affect the quality of the product, the test still believes that the sound does affect the "product quality". Here we prefer to call it "product experience". Secondly, the touch of the screen is sacrificed for the hinge.

In addition to the core hinge of Razr, the test also tested the configuration and actual application, and the final conclusion was that Razr, a folding screen phone priced at $1,499, is not even worth one-sixth of the current price (that is, $250, the entry-level thousand-yuan phone level). Even if you think the price of the folding screen is reasonable, the actual experience of opening and closing it is not good.

Finally, the well-known disassembly organization iFixit recently disassembled the Razr. While affirming the achievements of Razr in design, iFixit believes that Razr is the most complex smartphone ever and gave it a repairability score of 1 point (out of 10 points).

It is important to note that iFixit pointed out that the Razr has a small gap between the hinge of the device and the display screen on both sides, which mainly appears when the device is folded. This small gap may allow foreign objects to enter, and Samsung's foldable phone Galaxy Fold had such a problem before. It seems to be a hinge problem again. In addition, iFixit also questioned the service life of the Razr. How long these devices can last under normal use is still unknown.

If the above is just a media review, then a reporter from The Verge took Razr to the recent Samsung S20 series mobile phone launch conference and directly compared it with the Samsung Galaxy Z flip folding screen mobile phone released at the conference.

There is no harm without comparison. The Verge reporter concluded that Razr is no match for Z flip at all, and Samsung's folding phone Galaxy Z Flip is better than Razr in all aspects.

The report claims that the Galaxy Z Flip avoids every mistake that the Razr made, and there are countless of them. For example, Samsung's foldable phone won't make any creaking sounds, and it may have a better camera, a bigger battery and a faster processor; it also uses a glass screen and supports wireless charging.

We believe that the most objective comparison is between Samsung's recently released Galaxy Z Flip and Razr. After all, the main folding method is the same (making it easier to compare the innovation strength of both parties in hinge and related screen technology), and the price is close (Galaxy Z Flip is priced at $1,380), making it easier to compare configuration and experience. However, the result is that Razr's mistakes caused by compromise have disappointed the industry.

The innovative DNA and value before the merger and acquisition are exhausted. Where is the cost-cutting and innovative strength after the merger and acquisition?

After reading the above discussion and analysis, people may wonder, if there are so many compromises, why did Razr cause such a sensation when it was released? In fact, it is very simple. When seeing Razr, the industry naturally thinks of Razr V3 15 years ago, and many people also habitually think that today's Razr can replicate the so-called success of Razr V3. What is the truth?

In 2004, Motorola launched the Razr V3. This ultra-thin flip phone with an all-metal body broke the stereotype of mobile phones at the time and became a big seller as soon as it was launched, with sales reaching 50 million units within two years. Motorola's revenue soared by 35% that year.

To this end, Motorola announced that it would surpass Nokia and return to the top position in the mobile phone industry. However, the solution adopted was not to continue to innovate, but to reduce prices. The price of V3 dropped from $500 when it was launched to only $50 in 2006. In terms of research and development, almost no results were achieved. New phones were only slightly modified based on V3, and they became new phones by changing the shell or color. Even when Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, launched the first iPhone, Motorola was still selling Razr.

The end result was that Motorola's profit margins were getting lower and lower. It was calculated that at the time, Motorola's average profit per mobile phone was only $5. Coupled with the previous large-scale layoffs, innovation stagnated. Motorola had always been one of the top ten American companies in patent registration, but by 2006, it had fallen to 34th place.

After that, Motorola tried to save itself and released the Android flagship DROID (also known as Milestone). This phone had good reputation and sales, but it still could not stop the rise of iPhone and Samsung, which was also in the Android camp. Eventually, Motorola's mobile phone division was sold to Google and eventually fell into the hands of Lenovo. But at that time, Google already had the patents that it cared about most, and Motorola's former top engineers had also been taken in by Google.

I wonder what the industry has seen from the above-mentioned rise and fall of Motorola due to Razr? What we see is that when Lenovo finally acquired Motorola Mobility, Motorola's previous innovative DNA and value had been exhausted.

More importantly, after Lenovo acquired Motorola Mobility, it still used price and reduced operating costs (such as layoffs) to develop Motorola Mobility's business. For example, in 2018, it was reported that nearly 50% of Motorola's Chicago headquarters employees would be cut, most of whom were R&D personnel. Although Lenovo denied this statement, it also admitted that layoffs were indeed made, but not in such a large proportion.

However, Lenovo's mobile business later prioritized profitability, and its strategy of constantly reducing market size and operating costs, as well as its low-price strategy, was no different from the strategy used by Motorola when it was in decline. With such a strategy, how much support can Motorola Mobility get from innovative resources? Is it fully committed to innovation?

With the release of Razr, reports on Razr's research and development have gradually been disclosed by the media, and we have discovered some clues from them.

For example, when referring to the design of Razr, Ruben Castano, vice president of design at Motorola, said, "We did not work directly on the design of Razr, but that's understandable. The team even took a page from the design of the original Razr, pushing the parts into the thicker part of the base and adding a lot of other hardware, including a 22-band cellular radio wave antenna for 4G LTE, a fingerprint sensor, Wi-Fi and GPS, etc."

Jeff Snow, general manager of innovative products at Motorola, said he has been using the Razr without opening the flip since July, instead choosing to sort through messages and other notifications on the smaller secondary screen.

What do Motorola Mobility executives want to say about the above statement?

What we see is that when Lenovo's Motorola Mobility was developing Razr, it did not escape the inertial thinking of the industry mentioned above. It paid too much attention to form (folding) and ignored the essential difference in function and application and experience between it and smartphones (even the folding form requires a new design combined with smartphone applications). This also explains why Razr has many so-called compromises, even to the point of whether the completion of a mobile phone in the 10,000 yuan price range is in line with its positioning in the 10,000 yuan price range.

Especially Jeff Snow's discussion on the application of Razr. Let's not talk about how ridiculous this statement is for the actual application of smartphone users. It is limited to the discussion of Razr, which seems to prove why Razr performed so poorly in the folding test, and even asked users to fold the phone according to their own "positions". Look at Motorola executives, they haven't folded the phone for at least 4 months (just a quick question, is Razr used as a backup phone)!

In summary, a company that claims to have spent four years developing folding as its biggest innovation and selling point (hinge technology) and has made many compromises for this, but in the end, this selling point still has flaws; at the same time, apart from folding, there are no other outstanding highlights. Combined with Motorola Mobility’s current development strategy, it is difficult for us to determine whether Razr is a 100% complete mobile phone product among smartphones priced at 10,000 yuan? Will it be folded just for the sake of folding?

Fortunately, Lenovo has delayed the launch of the Razr, although it claims it has nothing to do with technology and is due to supply and demand. Let's hope so.