South Korea gets first dibs on RAZR 2

While most of us have to wait until next month (or later for CDMA-dependent folks) to get our hands on Motorola's shiny new RAZR 2 (otherwise known as the other big phone coming out this summer), those in South Korea can now lay claim to a few early bragging rights, as Moto's decided to give them first dibs on it. According to Motorola Korea, the somewhat unusual move is being done "in recognition of tech-savvy and fashion-aware Korean consumers." The perks end there, however, as they'll still have to cough up a hefty 580,000 Korean won (or $630) to call the phone their own, although that price is before the usual discounts and subsidies.

[techwarrior @ Jun 29th 2007 12:32PM]

i wish i new the price after the rebates and subsidies.

[harpreet @ Jun 29th 2007 12:40PM]

630$!!! good lord .....iphone is way much better than this thing for that price

[Tom @ Jun 29th 2007 2:08PM]

See, when you normally buy a mobile phone, you get discounts. My phone normally is about $300 - how much did I get it for? $45. I'm sure this phone's price will drop to around $200 or less. Luckily for us, SOME companies try to make things affordable for us common folk.

[I.M. Yerpappy @ Jun 29th 2007 12:46PM]

Oh wow!. A thin turd that flips open. When are those Motorola designers gonna come up with something original. A two-year old design has worn thin.

[RyanTV @ Jun 29th 2007 1:13PM]

I've had Motorola phones for 10+ years and have always liked them, but if Motorola thinks they are going to be able to drop an essentially last gen clamshell on the market for MORE than what Apple is selling an iPhone for, they are going to have a rude awakening.

There is no way that I'm going to pay $600 for any phone in the first place, but if I were, I'd probably choose to have an 8GB media phone over this.

That being said, the RAZR2 looks like it would be a fabulous phone at the $150-$200 price point.

[Dale @ Jun 29th 2007 1:37PM]

I'm sure the dollar amount bracketed reflects the US price at a direct exchange rate. I am certain the RAZR2 will be less when it hits here.

[Johan S @ Jun 29th 2007 1:39PM]

I like the video conferencing feature. That's a must-have that the iPhone missed (the iphone's camera faces outward ..and maybe EDGE is probably not enough to do it properly).

BUT .. What's the point of two useless-for-browsing resolution QVGA screens? The outside screen should be much higher res. I like a flip phone for making phone calls or text messaging (maybe the need a third lcd that has a touch screen or OLED keys keyboard inside also - LOL), but the outside screen can be for web browsing. They really do need to bump the outside screen res to 800 x 600 (small displays with this res already exist - see Hitachi).

I don't think they will though, I expect them to have an iPhone equivalent phone in 3 years or so, by which time iPhone 3 will be released that has a stereo display or projects holograms.

Anyway, I think Motorola just doesn't have fluid thinkers like apple has. Probably, they come up with things based on market research -- maybe they thought people don't want to browse the web or get directions from a phone --but Apple figured out that users would do it in masse if the interface was highly responsive and good. Thank goodness the iPhone emerged to show them how to do things .. although I am sure they will think "not invented here" and fail to recognize its good points.

[Akbar Fazil @ Jun 29th 2007 3:40PM]

800x600? You must be joking.
240x320 is a pretty acceptable res for this size (2.2 inches) of display. Any larger resolution on this size is going to get hard to read/use.

Even the "allmighty" iphone is only 320x480 but it has a much larger display area (3.5 inches)

To jump to that resolution and be useable you would need a much larger display (I would guess 4.5 inches and higher)

[Steve_Jobs_Is_A_Genius @ Jun 29th 2007 1:39PM]

Are you joking me?!?!?!?!?!? NEWS ON ENGADGET WITHOUT MENTION OF THE IPHONE. OMG! THIS IS A MIRACLE! THE SITE HAS BEEN HACKED! CALL THE POLICE QUICKLY!

[Luis @ Jun 29th 2007 1:49PM]

There are a lot of phones that eclipse the price of the iPhone. I'm sorry if you guys are used to cheap/free subsidized phones.

[tyler @ Jun 29th 2007 1:59PM]

I highly doubt this phone will be anywhere near $600 or more when it hits stateside. I'm real curious when this is coming to Verizon though because I'm due for a new phone here in a couple months and wouldn't mind taking a look at this one. (Or if they'd ever bring the BB Pearl to VWZ). I'm not the 'power' phone user so this looks like a nice update to the RAZR. I just hope Verizon doesn't ruin it with the crappy software they put on their phones.

[ken @ Jun 29th 2007 2:45PM]

Didn't the original V3 RAZR have something like a $500 retail price tag when it first came out?

[winebot @ Jun 29th 2007 2:51PM]

subsidies? korea? you guys are kidding right?
there are very little phone subsidies in korea. the phone is pretty pricey, but its the service thats relatively cheap (more of a pay as you use).

[Brad @ Jun 29th 2007 3:34PM]

When the RAZR first debuted in November 2005, the retail price at the "new Cingular" at the time was $650.00 on a two year service agreement, but it plummeted to $399.99 very soon after, and now there giving them away.

My predictions is "the new ATT", what a coincidence, will release the Motorola "Wildcat"(codename) RAZR2 V9 for a staggering $400.00 with a $50-$100 MIR. My estimated release for Cingular will be early/mid November, close to the biggest shopping day of the year, one day after Thanksgiving, LOL. And it will be a great Christmas stocking stuffer, or Hanukkah bush present.

The Motorola RAZR2 V8 will probably debut a bit earlier, and it's already been confirmed that T-Mobile is picking this one up. Estimated price, I'll say about $299.00-$375.00 USD with two year service agreement with a $50-$75 MIR.

Hope this helps!

If you cannot hold your cash any longer, then you can buy one right now (final firmware) from CTI-Miami or Celluloco. CTI is $849.99 USD. for V8 and Celluloco is close to $1052.00 USD.

[JD Moore @ Jun 29th 2007 6:03PM]

I assume you're being sarcastic. RAZR was a great seller, with a horrible user interface, but Motorola isn't/wasn't the leader of mobile phone sales at large.

[Cellphone_User @ Jun 29th 2007 6:18PM]

RAZR2 is nothing special in the land of slimmest phones in the world, where RAZR2 would be considered to be "fat" and lacking features(mainly mobile TV reception or 3G).

[greyscale @ Jun 30th 2007 2:52AM]

He said fat in the land of the worlds slimmest phones, which it is. It's 2mm thinner than the RAZR making it 2mm thicker than the (for example) Samsung D830 making it fat. Thin is in, be about it.