What Is So Special About Motorola Razr i?

Motorola does its market research pretty well. That is probably why they released Motorola Razr i to the European market and similar Razr M to the American market. In here, we will see what is so special about Razr i that distinguishes it from other smartphones.

Tech Specs

Here, we are going to compare Razr i with a very similar model, Droid Razr M.

From the tech specs, you can see one thing is pretty evident. The models differ by only one, albeit important, aspect, and that is the processor. Razr i supports an Intel processor, a rarity among smartphones and tablets. Android smartphones supporting an Intel processor are too few. Earlier last year, Lenovo K800 smartphone came to market with Intel processor; it didn’t quite become a success though.

Intel processors follow a particular architecture known as x86, which is supported only on desktop computers and laptops running Windows, Mac OS, etc. On the other hand, smartphones and most of the tablets are based on ARM Cortex architecture or the slightly different Qualcomm Krait. Processors following these architectures include NVidia Tegra, TI OMAP, Qualcomm Snapdragon, etc.

With Razr i, Motorola is doing an innovation by incorporating an Intel processor on an Android smartphone. This particular innovation has been attempted on other levels as well. You should be able to install Android OS on your Windows desktop PC. Android-x86  has tools and downloads necessary for installing Android on desktop.

Intel Atom Z2460 processor on the phone is clocked at 2 GHz, and it is a single-core processor. However, due to the presence of Intel’s Hyper-Threading technology, the processor has a secondary virtual core (known as a thread). Hence, multi-tasking will be fast in this phone. Also, Intel has developed a firmware for the processor that gives phenomenal battery savings and security.

Motorola Razr i is primarily made for the European market, and is acclaimed to be one of the best smartphones out there. In Europe, 4G LTE is not yet pervasive.

This is one reason why the Razr i model without LTE capability can be safely released and promoted successfully in Europe. While on the other hand, you are getting the same kind of model (Droid Razr M), with LTE capability, in the US market with the Snapdragon S4 SoC, which is LTE capable. Qualcomm has been the major provider of LTE baseband in the US, which makes sense to Motorola’s decision.

There is no fundamental difference in processing power between the Intel processor and the Snapdragon processor. The Snapdragon has two physical cores and at clock speed of 1.5 GHz, it can run demanding applications without any performance drop. There is however difference in the graphics cards available. Razr i uses PowerVR which is slightly less powerful as compared to Adreno 225 on Razr M. However, the Intel CPU has hardware built-in that supports HD playback. The major attraction of Razr i is that Motorola can advertise a 2 GHz processor on a smartphone. There is no currently available ARM Cortex processor that has 2 GHz clock speed. Also, with association to Intel brand name, Motorola could promote the smartphone very well in the European market.

Razr i is a very sturdy device. It is protected at the back by a rubberized Kevlar 2 fiber, which makes it durable and strong. Also, with Gorilla Glass protection at the front, the display is very much scratch resistant. Also, the phone is very thin and light. The only thing to mention is the storage available. It is only 8 GB with around 5 GB available to use. However, the MicroSD slot counteracts this.

The price starting at almost 320 pounds is a very good price for Razr i. Looking at the features, Razr i is a very good purchase.