Motorola's RAZR line of flip-style cell phones encompasses two generations -- the RAZR and the RAZR 2. The RAZR was released in 2004, with the RAZR 2 replacing it in 2007. Despite the two sharing a model name and manufacturer, a number of changes were made when the RAZR 2 replaced the RAZR.
Size
The most immediately recognizable change to the RAZR series was its size. While both generations remained 53 mm wide, the RAZR 2 was longer, thinner and slightly heavier than the RAZR. The original RAZR was 98 mm long and 13.9 mm thick and weighed 95 g, while the RAZR 2 was 103 mm long and 11.9 mm thick, weighing 117 g.
Operating System
Another key difference between the RAZR and the RAZR 2 is the operating system. The original RAZR ran on an operating system called P2K, a proprietary Motorola OS based on Versatile Real-Time Executive, a product of Mentor Graphics. The RAZR 2 abandoned this OS for a new proprietary Motorola OS, MOTOMAGX, that is based on the MontaVista Linux OS.
Camera
The camera and Web browser included in the RAZR2 was also significantly different from the RAZR. The RAZR's initial model, the V3, utilized a VGA camera with a resolution of 640 pixels x 480 pixels. This camera was upgraded during the run of the RAZR, being replaced with a 1.23 megapixel camera. The RAZR 2 improved on both of these cameras by including a 2.0 megapixel camera across all models.
Web Browser
The original RAZR line used a Wireless Application Protocol browser, a small-scale browser common in small mobile devices. The RAZR 2 offered a different browser, based on Opera 8.5 and allowing display of full HTML content.
Internal Memory
The transition from RAZR to RAZR 2 saw a huge jump in the internal memory capacity of the cell phone. The original RAZR came equipped with a meager 5.5 MB of internal storage, while the RAZR 2 was offered with both 420 MB of internal storage and 2 GB, depending on the model.
Display
The size of the display available on the RAZR also changed. The original RAZR had a 176 pixel x 220 pixel nine line thin-film transistor screen, capable of displaying 256,000 colors and an exterior display measuring 96 pixels x 80 pixels with 4,096 colors. The RAZR 2's main display featured a 240 x 320 thin-film transistor display with 265,000 colors, with the second external display also measuring 240 x 320 with 256,000 colors and contextual touch interaction.
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