The Motorola Razr was a beautiful dumbphone, and it’s still undefeated
Is it possible for a phone to have “pretty privilege”? Mediocre features and functionality be damned, the original Motorola Razr V3 and its successors dominated the US cellphone market for four years following its 2004 release — up to and including the iPhone’s introduction in 2007 — seemingly on vibes and aesthetics alone. Not to glamorize consumerism or anything, but I miss it terribly.
I was 11 years old when the Razr launched and probably among the first generation of kiddies that begged their parents to buy them a cellphone. We weren’t really the target demographic before that — cellphones had mostly been bulky, boring things primarily for working adults. SMS texting had just become something that everyone did day-to-day, and mobile data, while available on many models, was too expensive and slow to even take into consideration. The only “flippable” tech I cared about until that point was the Game Boy Advance SP.
But the Razr had something that other handsets had mostly neglected: it was hot. The design innovatively revitalized Y2K Futurism pop culture and is even now fondly remembered as a figurehead for the “Chromecore” and “McBling” aesthetics. It seemingly prioritized fashion over function, and that felt desirably fresh compared to the typical blobs of chunky plastic that had become commonplace (looking at you, Nokia 1100). Motorola’s former head of design, Jim Wicks, once told The Verge that the company had intentionally set out to create something that “would cut against everything everyone else was doing with handsets at the time.”
The razer-thin handset lived up to its namesake. It was just 10mm thick, around half the size of most phones at that time. It was also much wider than its competitors, to make enough room for a larger, super-flat keypad that could be used without hitting the wrong keys. The case was partially constructed from metal and glass for added rigidity. That, along with its backlit and laser-etched aluminum keypad, made it look like something taken right out of a sci-fi movie. Motorola leaned hard into that vibe, with some early Matrix-inspired ads.
It ultimately didn’t matter that Motorola’s software was actually ass, known for being laggy and infuriating to navigate, or that many of the original Razr’s features — such as its lackluster 0.3-megapixel camera — lagged behind what other phones on the market could offer. It looked, and felt, incredibly premium. Even the eye-watering $500 price (with a two-year contract) didn’t prevent that first, confusingly named “V3” model from selling over 130 million units, at a time when other “fun” handsets like the $280 Nokia 3220 cost significantly less.
The luxurious price may have actually boosted the Razr’s status. The original Razr was launched to a crowd of fashion journalists, not tech bloggers, at the Arken Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen. The device was then cleverly marketed as a celebrity must-have, promoted by everyone from Paris Hilton to Bono. Meryl Streep used one as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada, as did Jack Shephard in season 3 of Lost. You could eventually buy a Razr in almost any color to best match your personal style and identity.
People were especially thirsty for the pink models, which were supposedly custom-made for celebs like Nicole Richie and Maria Sharapova before being made officially available to the general public. The pink Razr was rumored to have sold 3 million units in the UK alone. Rihanna was still using hers all the way in 2014, long after flip phones had fallen out of favor. The pop culture connection runs so deep that Motorola brought back Paris Hilton to promote the hot pink 2024 model.
This cult status, alongside Gen Z’s obsession with Y2K “bimbo” and “Barbiecore” culture in general, helped immortalize the original Razr V3 as the “it girl” phone of the mid-2000s. And as Y2K fashion has surged in popularity among younger generations, the Razr has once again become nearly impossible to ignore. The incredibly kitsch 2005 Dolce & Gabbana model was as much an iconic “accessory” as Ugg boots and Juicy Couture tracksuits. There’s even a rising trend of Millennials and Gen Z switching back to the iconic flip phone as a way of detaching from feeling permanently online.
We can still see Razr’s celebrity- and fashion-focused advertising playbook being applied, albeit less successfully, by today’s dominant phone makers. Apple debuted the Apple Watch during 2014’s Paris Fashion Week and hired former Yves Saint Laurent CEO Paul Deneve and Burberry chief Angela Ahrendts into senior roles. Tune in to any of Samsung’s phone launch events over the last few years, and you’ll see plenty of focus on famous faces, from BTS to Sabrina Carpenter. And that treatment is especially noticeable in its foldable lineup — various artists and online influencers starred in a bizarre promotional video for the Galaxy Z Flip when it launched in 2020, and there’s been a big focus on celebrity marketing for subsequent model releases since then.
But the fun factor simply isn’t the same anymore, and smartphones have increasingly stagnated into thick glassy rectangles since the iPhone appeared on the scene. Experimental design is an expensive risk now that apps (which are typically optimized for large touchscreens) have become the main reason we use our phones, and manufacturers all adopt the same universally popular features like biometric scanners and wireless charging. Even Motorola hasn’t been able to replicate its own success in repeated attempts to revive the Razr brand. Holding a 2020 Razr didn’t make me feel like a fashionista or a drunk party girl. Mostly, it just made me feel old and wistful.
The Razr brand eventually became a victim of its own success. Motorola stuck with a visually similar design for around four years across the various Razr and Razr2 models, long enough to feel outdated compared to Apple and Samsung’s “innovative” touchscreen slabs. Now, after 16 years of phones largely conforming to the blueprint Apple set, the most divisive choice US consumers typically face isn’t design — it’s what color your text bubbles should be.
I never did get a Razr, and I don’t really want one anymore. The 2024 version looks nice but can’t even aspire to be what the V3 once was. But I’d give anything for Motorola, or someone else, to go back to making cool-ass dumbphones.
