The Motorola RAZR – Motorola’s first real impact on the SA market?

Motorola RAZR_Front

Let’s look back a year. Android feature phones were still few and far between – in fact, the only high end device available was the Samsung Galaxy S and the Motorola Milestone…and they took quite a few months to hit our shores. Motorola’s offering at this time were limited to the Milestone, and I cannot recall actually ever seeing the phone in public here in SA, though I did get to play with it’s CDMA counterpart, the infamous Droid. Infamous, because it was one of the phones that put Android into the lime light, helped massively by a massive marketing campaign by the operator that held its exclusivity – Verizon. I

Fast forward to January, and Motorola announced the awesome Atrix and it’s stable of accessories, as well as the XOOM, but we didn’t see those pieces of tech here in SA until about half a year later, and even then, with little fanfare…

When one looks at the current advertising landscape for Android in South Africa, Samsung pretty much dominates it, with LG and what was Sony Ericsson (still is with the current devices I’d imagine) also fairly noticeable. HTC is there, but not dominant, something I’d attribute to them not being directly active in South Africa. Motorola – I don’t think I’ve seen them advertise at all. Well, that is up until now.

It’s all about to change, according to Megan Nicholas, the country director for Motorola Mobility in South Africa.

First up, South Africa was the sixth country to see the launch, just over a week from the initial launch in New York City. We’re also going to be among the first countries bring the RAZR to retail during November.

Motorola also wants to make up for the mediocre reception of the Atrix and ensure that the country knows just how great, how powerful, basically, just how awesome the RAZR is. Consumer experience is a big focus. There will be a lot more visible marketing for the RAZR, and rightly so.

From our brief hands on at the launch, it is a fantastic device, which also comes with some great accessories, including the laptop dock, that enables Web Top, the HDMI dock, and can also connect to peripherals on Bluetooth and via USB.

It feels great in your hand, both in touch and in weight, and is really snappy when it comes to performance. I can only imagine how great it will be with Ice Cream Sandwich on it when that comes out. Motorola did mention it would be out in Q1 next year, and I’ve seen a few reports of it being ready in 6 weeks, though those were related to the Droid RAZR, the Verizon CDMA variant.

The other great thing about the RAZR is how Motorola has customised it. Motoblur is still there, but it doesn’t overpower the experience like it did before. Having the enterprise functionality, Motocast and the splash guard are all really great innovations that help set them apart from the rest.

However, this all comes to naught if the RAZR isn’t marketed properly, so hopefully Motorola has learned their lesson.

We should be receiving a review unit soon, as well as getting more hands on time with the various accessories, so watch this space.

In the mean time, check out our pictures from the launch event below, as well as hands on pictures with the RAZR.

Also checkout the Youtube video of the light show that Motorola put on for us in Nelson Mandela Square. It was quite something, and shows that they really do want people to know about their latest creation.

 

 

 

This entry was posted on Monday, October 31st, 2011 and is filed under Featured, Motorola. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
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