Motorola Capri, a.k.a. the RAZR slider, previewed

The guys over at PhoneScoop have sure made the site live up to its name today: not only did they get some serious hands-on time with Motorola's upcoming RAZR slider -- codenamed Capri -- they also got to preview the next version of Moto's much-maligned Synergy UI that will show up in such models as the Canary and the SCPL. At least on paper, the Capri seems to offer a very compelling feature set that will probably attract anyone into the RAZR lifestyle- you're getting a model only slightly thicker and heavier than its clamshell counterpart, but which sports a 2.0 megapixel camera, A2DP-capable Bluetooth, and what sounds like a greatly improved user interface. Especially noteworthy in the overhauled Synergy is an address book that seems to work much more intuitively than past iterations (remember the one on the StarTAC?), allowing you to organize entries by name and search for contacts using multiple letters. Although Phone Scoop was only testing a pre-production model, they have identified some potential problems to watch out for on the final version, such as the unusually crappy quality of what should be a decent camera, and most importantly, a spring-assisted slider that's difficult to activate due to the raised antenna bulge so familiar to RAZR owners. Click on if you want to peep a few more snaps, but you're really doing yourself a disservice if you don't head over to PhoneScoop for the full gallery and a very thorough write-up...

[Korey @ Jun 22nd 2006 11:23AM]

hope its not that color when cingy gets it but im switchin to smartphones anyway

[cycomachead @ Jun 22nd 2006 11:25AM]

At first glance it looked liike a blue slvr
But I likr the blue color
Hope Verizon has it- when its out

[Brian @ Jun 22nd 2006 11:32AM]

That phone makes me love America for some reason...

[JT @ Jun 22nd 2006 11:50AM]

Unless it wins universal acclaim for its brand new UI, don't expect from me to shell out any more $/€ in MOTO devices (unless it's a Q of course). The orginal RAZR and its 1998 interface has me disgusted for a while.

[sc00tert00ter @ Jun 22nd 2006 11:57AM]

cool phone! i wonder wat is under that browm tape at the bottom of the phone. i think the phone's screen will scratch :(

[YoMammaFool @ Jun 22nd 2006 12:06PM]

Say mane! This phone looks to be off the chizzel nizzel. I like it. Maybe they will make the screen scratch resistant for when I slide it up to slap my ho's in the face. Baby powder proof too. Charrrles get out of my head... Dang... I'm tha juggernaut beeee.....tch.....

[Aaron @ Jun 22nd 2006 12:15PM]

Scratched screens would be my concern with a slider as well. I have a RAZR and the plastic over the camera and LCD on the front are pretty scratched because I am tough on cell phones (Keys in pocket/. Luckily with a flip the inside is clear and scratch free.

[pableu @ Jun 22nd 2006 12:22PM]

@sc00tert00ter
I have a SLVR and see absolutely no scratches on the screen. I'm more afraid of breaking the glass than scratching it.

[Mike @ Jun 22nd 2006 12:42PM]

I love it. Any idea on a release date?

[David F @ Jun 22nd 2006 12:43PM]

They point out that the slider won't open in your pocket, that's a plus.

[shirizaki @ Jun 22nd 2006 12:53PM]

No one's noticed....



THE ****ing 2GB MICROSD CARD IN THE PICS!!!!!!

WOOHOO!!!!

The phone looks nice. Sad to see the new UI won't be in this iteration. Guess that'll be in the rokr 2 :(

Looks nice. Can't wait to get my smudges on it :p

[shirizaki @ Jun 22nd 2006 1:11PM]

I forgot to add that this phone has the stereo bluetooth profile.


SCHWING!

(hopefully they don't put iTunes on it.)

[Tom Reinke @ Jun 22nd 2006 1:23PM]

Does Motorola know that perhaps they should work on improving the hardware that they have out already rather than releasing new phones quarterly? I'm stuck with my old V710 (Lack of money) and I've been waiting for the long promised update to fix the crashes I get all the time. Other friends of mine have RAZRs and complain about the horrible lag and slowdown they recieve when trying to navigate through menus and contacts lists.

Just a thought, but Motorola should lay off on realeasing all these new technologies and work on the things that they've left people stranded with.

[LeDoubleD @ Jun 22nd 2006 1:23PM]

Where do you see the Mirco SD slot? I see it on the RAZR but not on the Capri.

[pito189 @ Jun 22nd 2006 1:28PM]

All I Motorola to fix is to give me the ability to set different caller groups to have different rings and text message tones. Right now if you set a group to have a certain ring the whole ring plays when you get a text from them. Annoys the hell out of me.

[Wanax @ Jun 22nd 2006 1:33PM]

Tom,

Motorola came out with an update for the v710, it's called the v815. Brilliant huh? Why waste money fixing something when you can just make people buy the new replacement model (aka, the Steve Jobs IPOD business model)

To bad Verizon users will never see the new Motorola UI. By the time they release it 6 months after other providers get it, they'll have lobotomized the phone by forcing their own UI onto it.

[Tom Reinke @ Jun 22nd 2006 1:49PM]

Wanax,

I know about the new v815, but its a shame that I bought my v710 2 weeks prior to the new release of that phone. I talked to verizon and they won't give me an update so I'm stuck with my current one.

This still doesn't explain why Motorola has not fixed the latency issues with the RAZRs, these phones just get more and more expensive you'd expect that the quality of these products would go up, not down.

[BitBucket @ Jun 22nd 2006 1:52PM]

I'm waiting for the Sammy D900. It's thinner and it's not a Moto.

[Wanax @ Jun 22nd 2006 2:04PM]

Tom,

I think the latency issue with the RAZR had to do with the Verizon UI, not Motorola. I just got the new RAZR V3m model and there doesn't seem to be any issues, but only time will tell.

[kevin @ Jun 22nd 2006 2:07PM]

Looks nice. I'm a huge fan of sliding phones - I have the Kyocera KX-5 (slider remix) now. It's great because the buttons are protected but the screen and most phone functions are still easily accessed. Plus you don't have to worry about the broken hinges that seem to happen with all of my friends' flip phones. Now, if they could only make it tri-mode (or better yet, quad) I'd be lining up to buy one... I've been to enough places in the sticks that could only get analog coverage to know better than to get a dual-mode digital only phone.

[Tom Reinke @ Jun 22nd 2006 2:17PM]

Wanax,

I don't know if it is the fact that Verizon's user interface had something to do with it because one of my friends' is a Cingular RAZR, straight from the store. It could be that it was just a faulty phone.

My personal opinion is that Motorola really doesn't need to keep making phones if they keep on releasing, for lack of better words, crap. My opinion is formed on just the experiences that I've had with their phones and what I've seen with others phones, but it just may be because I have bad luck. XD

[Denny @ Jun 22nd 2006 2:26PM]

Cool??? How about cheap Nokia 8801 Knock-off!

[Eli @ Jun 22nd 2006 2:37PM]

This isn't the RAZR slider, it's the RAZR SLDR!

[Ladderless @ Jun 22nd 2006 2:39PM]

I upgraded from the v710 to the e815, then switched back -- The v710 is the only Verizon phone that will allow me internet access via Bluetooth ...without buying the data service.

The latest v710 software 8700_02.03.00R seems pretty stable.

[Joshi @ Jun 22nd 2006 5:33PM]

It's nice...but it looks really big.

How come sliders are so much thicker than flip phones? You'd think that the top part (housing the screen) could be thinner than the top half of a flip phone, since you only have one screen on there, and no camera. And the bottom part is thicker too!

Case in point: Samsung's Ultra Edition 12.9 slider is almost twice as thick as their UE 6.9 candybar phone. Two complete phones are about the same size as their slim slider! Admittedly, they don't say it's the world's thinnest slider - only the world's thinnest with a 3 megapixel camera - but you get the point.

The Capri looks distinctly un-RAZRlike. But maybe that's just because of the close-up.

[Echid @ Jun 22nd 2006 8:00PM]

WEll in the Capri case its only 3mm thicker then the RAZR. And sliders are generally thicker because the have to include the sliding mechanism, instead of just the hinge that flips have.

[MickeyMoo @ Jun 22nd 2006 8:19PM]

I'm not sure what one of the posters above meant re: iPod business model....

I have an original 5GB Brick iPod - Apple has released firmware updates for it over the years to address any lingering issues. Each model subsequent to the original has added a very specific hardware based feature (non mechanical scroll wheel, then buttons, bigger hard drives, color screeens, video playback) I don't really see this as a valid comparison to Moto releasing a new phone instead of addressing serious flaws with the one that preceded it...

[sheik124 @ Jun 22nd 2006 9:22PM]

Searching for phonebook contacts by multiple letters has been around on Motorola phones for a while, I know for a fact both the V635 and the V3i are capable of it, and they're both on the "old" UI.

[Mulyadi Kurniawan @ Jun 23rd 2006 12:05AM]

Motorola is on a role. I wish their Moto Q had a bigger screen and quad-band.

[CJ @ Jun 23rd 2006 12:33AM]

@MickeyMoo,

Jobs said in an interview a few weeks ago that if you wanted to have the latest innovations, you needed to buy a new iPod every year. Thus was exposed the iPod business model -- fix the flaws in the old versions by releasing a new version. No one is saying that they won't put out software updates, then no one would even bother to buy the new stuff. It's the dead batteries that make us replace them so frequently. For your perusal:

http://www.engadget.com/2006/05/26/jobs-you-have-to-buy-a-new-ipod-at-least-once-a-year/

CJ

[Romir @ Jun 23rd 2006 1:41AM]

Its called Motorola Z1 in China.

http://www.motorola.com.cn/z1/

[Michael Oryl @ Jun 23rd 2006 2:49PM]

No, it isn't called the Z1 in China. That phone has nothing to do with the Capri.

I had a Capri for a few days. The UI was still quite slow and all, but it was a prototype. That's to be expected.

Anyway, some nicer photos can be found here:

http://www.mobileburn.com/gallery.jsp?Id=2513

[DS @ Jun 23rd 2006 9:31PM]

The inside keypad on that phone looks VERY similar to the keypad on Sprint's Samsung A900 Blade.

http://img.engadget.com/common/images/3060000000053263.JPG?0.8835739543779841

[-_- @ Jun 23rd 2006 9:43PM]

awright, most of the questions about the ui and stuff y'all are asking about can be answered! how? by simply clicking the link! duh! phonescoop has a nice long article about it; yes, it's quad band, it has edge (3g is not an option; the chipset's too large for the RAZR form factor), and if you have PATIENCE (that means you can count to three before you explode at the god-forsaken-pile-of-junk-TRIPLETS UI!!!!), the revamped synergy ui isn't all that terrible. It's a vast improvement over the vXXX phones and PEBLs and SLVRs (who all seem to share the exact same UI and hardware, despite $100-$200 differences)
my v551's VGA camera makes print-quality pics on the highest setting at 1x zoom, so moto cameras aren't so bad. if you want a digital camera, get a digital camera. if you want a handy compromise, get a camera phone.

[heff @ Jul 4th 2006 9:19AM]

eww, it looks gross. hmm... im not a fan of motorola anyways, but i like the design...kinda. can we get some new keypads at least?? well, i'm gonna stay with my ghetto old LG VX 6100 ;)

[Josh T. @ Jul 6th 2006 1:00PM]

This is gona be hot!! Cant wait for more details.

[Bryan @ Oct 17th 2006 8:05PM]

When is this phone released?!?