5 ms·

The Evolution of Motorola Phones

drbig 4y ago
De-paywall-ed: https://archive.is/0LWYb https://archive.is/0LWYb
SteeCee 4y ago
Little weird that, for such a simple article, they completely cut out phones between the Droid and new Razr. I thought the Moto X was iconic. Being able to customize it and buy it online was pretty big at the time.
- throwboatyface 4y ago
  The period when Google owned Motorola was very interesting. The Moto G was a great budget device that I think was killed by carriers who wanted to push $1000 phablets that required consumers to finance them.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    They looked great on paper, but my wife managed to destroy 2 in a couple months. I gave up and replaced with a Samsung that she has had for 4 years (IIRC, I can't remember when she bought it).
  - Avshalom 4y ago
    The moto g's continue to be great budget(ish ~200 new) devices. They're the last two phones I've bought, the first lasted ~3 years before I broke it, still good enough for the internet at large when I did. Replaced it with a G8 a couple years ago, still going strong. Minimal fucking with android, microsd slot, magnetic compass, enough battery to last a weekend if you're careful.
    - tootie 4y ago
      Moto G Power lasts for days and costs $150 unlocked. I got one for one of my kids and it's been incredible. Thinking of getting one for myself. The difference in features between it and a $1000 flagship just aren't that noticeable anymore. And battery is the number one differentiator for any device now.
      - Avshalom 4y ago
        Camera is a bit shit (by 2020 standards) but that's my only complaint (my current phone is the g8 power) and that might be fixable with a different camera app.
  - i_love_cookies 4y ago
    [dead]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
marban 4y ago
The StarTAC's antenna was a bit flimsy but the form factor and battery life (in comparison) were top notch compared to most other phones of that time.
- timbit42 4y ago
  The antenna was fake anyway.
nvarsj 4y ago
It's not talked about much, but RAZR was a skunk works program inside of Moto started by a small group of engineers independent of management. By that point the company had been largely taken over by cost cutting style management. Lean/6 Sigma was everywhere, and pretty much all research/innovation centres were being shut down. C level was incredibly incompetent. Ed Zander, the most incompetent choice of all, was appointed as CEO in 2004. The company basically looked like it was gonna die any day. Then RAZR happened. The swaths of incompetents had no idea how to leverage the success, but oh man they were able to spend great swathes of money on terrible ideas over the next few years. Probably the pinnacle of this incompetency was collaborating with Steve Jobs on the first iTunes enabled phone (ROKR). Basically Moto management opened the doors to Apple/Jobs on how to build cell phones - gave full access to Apple's engineering teams with virtually no upside for Moto but lots for Apple. RORK was a dud. Then iPhone came out a couple years later. I still remember the COO/CEOs downplaying it in town halls, saying things like "Where's the keyboard! No one is ever going to use a touch screen based device!". Of course, all the engineers knew the writing was on the wall - the iPhone was amazing.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  Even by today's standards, the RAZR is a marvel of engineering and industrial design. It's insane how thin it is for 2004 considering the swappable battery and dual display. Only thing holding it back was the sluggish SW and terrible UX, but that plagued most phones of the era. >C level was incredibly incompetent. Please name me a major western consumer electronics company of the era other than Apple that didn't have incompetents at the helm. Nortel, Nokia, Blackberry, Ericsson, Siemens, Alcatel, Philips, all these phone makers are extinct. They all failed to see the writing on the wall that mobile HW is becoming a commodity and the SW and UX will make the difference. The original iPod proved this. It was built with off-the-shelf parts that every hardware maker had access to. Same with the original iPhone. Just off-the-shelf parts and the secret sauce was in the SW not the HW. It feels like the only way to get to C level is to be as incompetent as possible.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    I've often heard it said that a great CEO needs to be a visonary to see the future. (s)He needs as a "right hand man" a great finance person who sees the numbers and reins in all those dreams and ensure they don't overspend and run out of money. The problem is then the CEO retires and his "right hand man" is the obvious choice - but the right hand man doesn't have vision of where to spend money, only where to save money and that lack of vision kills the new development pipeline. Even companies who make the least innovations (there isn't much you can do to make better soap or toilet paper) still need a visionary CEO to see investments that could pay off (could be automation to reduce costs, something to increase quality, or sometimes there really is a better soap).
alexisread 4y ago
No mention of the a1000? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_A1000 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_A1000 3g, 1mpix rear camera with video, front camera, stereo speakers, properly located gaming controls, Bluetooth, apps, UIQ2 so you could add a full-screen touch keyboard, opera web browser with flash javascript and landscape, vcal/vcard/sync, divx, big screen, personalJava, USB, microsd, dockable stylus, and a huge (at the time) battery. At the time, even stereo speakers were a big deal. This was years ahead of most other phones
kloch 4y ago
The first cellphone I bought was a Motorola Alpha https://www.mobilecollectors.net/phone/3802/motorola-microtac+alpha https://www.mobilecollectors.net/phone/3802/motorola-microta... I thought it was odd - and a bit misleading that it had the words "Digital Personal Communicator" on the box. I knew it couldn't communicate digitally but it did get me to imagine what that would be like. I assume digital referred to the storage of phone numbers + names which was a novel feature at the time. The display wasn't seven segment LED like previous versions, it had low-res green dot matrix LED arrays that could display a few crude alphanumeric characeters.
favorited 4y ago
My dad had the bag phone, but the bag itself sat on a shelf in the closet. The handset was mounted to the dashboard of his truck, so we used the term "car phone" rather than "bag phone."
teekert 4y ago
Cool to see, I used this one for some years: [0], specifically because it was a Linux phone. That fact never had any impact on the use of it, sadly, I was expecting some hackability back then, while the openmoko remained vaporware... [0] https://phonesdata.com/en/smartphones/motorola/a780-892/ https://phonesdata.com/en/smartphones/motorola/a780-892/
wing-_-nuts 4y ago
This is mostly OT, but I really miss smaller phones. I found my old iphone 3g the other day, and I realized it was the perfect size for a smart phone. I really like motorolla, but their phones have become hulking monstrosities...
gumby 4y ago
The most amusing thing to me about the ROKR was Jobs' clear distain for the device when presenting it on stage. I wonder how much influence/impetus it provided for the iphone. I'm sure we'll never know (and I'm equally sure there are various articles claiming the impact was lots, or little).
simplyaccont 4y ago
no mention of motorola e1000 (it was good phone with good feature set but motherboard died on me 3 time) or motorola atrix, which was first phone with dock that you could hook up screen/etc to and run ubuntu desktop from
- King-Aaron 4y ago
  Man, the E1000 was a fantastic phone. Extremely tough little phone too, at one point we jacked up a Toyota Landcruiser on top of it, and the case/screen didn't even scratch.
cjdoc29 4y ago
I know this isn't a Motorola phone as a standalone, but the StarTac had an accessory that you can add to the back of the phone which was a PDA. This was probably my favorite thing from Motorola (I was a kid). https://www.flickr.com/photos/redfiremg/3952257080 https://www.flickr.com/photos/redfiremg/3952257080
58x14 4y ago
Sad to see no mention of the Motorola Q (1) which I got in 2006. My first mobile phone was also my first ‘smartphone’ with a full keyboard. I didn’t have any cellular service (I was a child) so I downloaded a ~2gb package with 350,000 text-only Wikipedia articles onto a MiniSD card (before microSD!), and that kept me endlessly occupied. I still have that device, quite possibly my oldest possession. Maybe one day I’ll find a way to get it working. (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Q https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Q
BrandoElFollito 4y ago
I got my first phone when I joined Motorola in 1998. This was a StarTac and it was fantastic (anything would be for a first phone but its form factor was great, especially that it was fashionable to wear it on your belt) I went through the RAZR (really cool too) and finally the Q when I left in 2008. 10 years of really great phones and a cool part of my life.

De-paywall-ed: https://archive.is/0LWYb https://archive.is/0LWYb

Little weird that, for such a simple article, they completely cut out phones between the Droid and new Razr. I thought the Moto X was iconic. Being able to customize it and buy it online was pretty big at the time.

throwboatyface 4y ago
The period when Google owned Motorola was very interesting. The Moto G was a great budget device that I think was killed by carriers who wanted to push $1000 phablets that required consumers to finance them.
- bluGill 4y ago
  They looked great on paper, but my wife managed to destroy 2 in a couple months. I gave up and replaced with a Samsung that she has had for 4 years (IIRC, I can't remember when she bought it).
- Avshalom 4y ago
  The moto g's continue to be great budget(ish ~200 new) devices. They're the last two phones I've bought, the first lasted ~3 years before I broke it, still good enough for the internet at large when I did. Replaced it with a G8 a couple years ago, still going strong. Minimal fucking with android, microsd slot, magnetic compass, enough battery to last a weekend if you're careful.
  - tootie 4y ago
    Moto G Power lasts for days and costs $150 unlocked. I got one for one of my kids and it's been incredible. Thinking of getting one for myself. The difference in features between it and a $1000 flagship just aren't that noticeable anymore. And battery is the number one differentiator for any device now.
    - Avshalom 4y ago
      Camera is a bit shit (by 2020 standards) but that's my only complaint (my current phone is the g8 power) and that might be fixable with a different camera app.
- i_love_cookies 4y ago
  [dead]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

marban 4y ago

The StarTAC's antenna was a bit flimsy but the form factor and battery life (in comparison) were top notch compared to most other phones of that time.

timbit42 4y ago
The antenna was fake anyway.

nvarsj 4y ago

It's not talked about much, but RAZR was a skunk works program inside of Moto started by a small group of engineers independent of management. By that point the company had been largely taken over by cost cutting style management. Lean/6 Sigma was everywhere, and pretty much all research/innovation centres were being shut down. C level was incredibly incompetent. Ed Zander, the most incompetent choice of all, was appointed as CEO in 2004. The company basically looked like it was gonna die any day. Then RAZR happened. The swaths of incompetents had no idea how to leverage the success, but oh man they were able to spend great swathes of money on terrible ideas over the next few years. Probably the pinnacle of this incompetency was collaborating with Steve Jobs on the first iTunes enabled phone (ROKR). Basically Moto management opened the doors to Apple/Jobs on how to build cell phones - gave full access to Apple's engineering teams with virtually no upside for Moto but lots for Apple. RORK was a dud. Then iPhone came out a couple years later. I still remember the COO/CEOs downplaying it in town halls, saying things like "Where's the keyboard! No one is ever going to use a touch screen based device!". Of course, all the engineers knew the writing was on the wall - the iPhone was amazing.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
Even by today's standards, the RAZR is a marvel of engineering and industrial design. It's insane how thin it is for 2004 considering the swappable battery and dual display. Only thing holding it back was the sluggish SW and terrible UX, but that plagued most phones of the era. >C level was incredibly incompetent. Please name me a major western consumer electronics company of the era other than Apple that didn't have incompetents at the helm. Nortel, Nokia, Blackberry, Ericsson, Siemens, Alcatel, Philips, all these phone makers are extinct. They all failed to see the writing on the wall that mobile HW is becoming a commodity and the SW and UX will make the difference. The original iPod proved this. It was built with off-the-shelf parts that every hardware maker had access to. Same with the original iPhone. Just off-the-shelf parts and the secret sauce was in the SW not the HW. It feels like the only way to get to C level is to be as incompetent as possible.
- bluGill 4y ago
  I've often heard it said that a great CEO needs to be a visonary to see the future. (s)He needs as a "right hand man" a great finance person who sees the numbers and reins in all those dreams and ensure they don't overspend and run out of money. The problem is then the CEO retires and his "right hand man" is the obvious choice - but the right hand man doesn't have vision of where to spend money, only where to save money and that lack of vision kills the new development pipeline. Even companies who make the least innovations (there isn't much you can do to make better soap or toilet paper) still need a visionary CEO to see investments that could pay off (could be automation to reduce costs, something to increase quality, or sometimes there really is a better soap).

alexisread 4y ago

No mention of the a1000? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_A1000 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_A1000 3g, 1mpix rear camera with video, front camera, stereo speakers, properly located gaming controls, Bluetooth, apps, UIQ2 so you could add a full-screen touch keyboard, opera web browser with flash javascript and landscape, vcal/vcard/sync, divx, big screen, personalJava, USB, microsd, dockable stylus, and a huge (at the time) battery. At the time, even stereo speakers were a big deal. This was years ahead of most other phones

kloch 4y ago

The first cellphone I bought was a Motorola Alpha https://www.mobilecollectors.net/phone/3802/motorola-microtac+alpha https://www.mobilecollectors.net/phone/3802/motorola-microta... I thought it was odd - and a bit misleading that it had the words "Digital Personal Communicator" on the box. I knew it couldn't communicate digitally but it did get me to imagine what that would be like. I assume digital referred to the storage of phone numbers + names which was a novel feature at the time. The display wasn't seven segment LED like previous versions, it had low-res green dot matrix LED arrays that could display a few crude alphanumeric characeters.

favorited 4y ago

My dad had the bag phone, but the bag itself sat on a shelf in the closet. The handset was mounted to the dashboard of his truck, so we used the term "car phone" rather than "bag phone."

teekert 4y ago

Cool to see, I used this one for some years: [0], specifically because it was a Linux phone. That fact never had any impact on the use of it, sadly, I was expecting some hackability back then, while the openmoko remained vaporware... [0] https://phonesdata.com/en/smartphones/motorola/a780-892/ https://phonesdata.com/en/smartphones/motorola/a780-892/

wing-_-nuts 4y ago

This is mostly OT, but I really miss smaller phones. I found my old iphone 3g the other day, and I realized it was the perfect size for a smart phone. I really like motorolla, but their phones have become hulking monstrosities...

gumby 4y ago

The most amusing thing to me about the ROKR was Jobs' clear distain for the device when presenting it on stage. I wonder how much influence/impetus it provided for the iphone. I'm sure we'll never know (and I'm equally sure there are various articles claiming the impact was lots, or little).

simplyaccont 4y ago

no mention of motorola e1000 (it was good phone with good feature set but motherboard died on me 3 time) or motorola atrix, which was first phone with dock that you could hook up screen/etc to and run ubuntu desktop from

King-Aaron 4y ago
Man, the E1000 was a fantastic phone. Extremely tough little phone too, at one point we jacked up a Toyota Landcruiser on top of it, and the case/screen didn't even scratch.

cjdoc29 4y ago

I know this isn't a Motorola phone as a standalone, but the StarTac had an accessory that you can add to the back of the phone which was a PDA. This was probably my favorite thing from Motorola (I was a kid). https://www.flickr.com/photos/redfiremg/3952257080 https://www.flickr.com/photos/redfiremg/3952257080

58x14 4y ago

Sad to see no mention of the Motorola Q (1) which I got in 2006. My first mobile phone was also my first ‘smartphone’ with a full keyboard. I didn’t have any cellular service (I was a child) so I downloaded a ~2gb package with 350,000 text-only Wikipedia articles onto a MiniSD card (before microSD!), and that kept me endlessly occupied. I still have that device, quite possibly my oldest possession. Maybe one day I’ll find a way to get it working. (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Q https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Q

BrandoElFollito 4y ago

I got my first phone when I joined Motorola in 1998. This was a StarTac and it was fantastic (anything would be for a first phone but its form factor was great, especially that it was fashionable to wear it on your belt) I went through the RAZR (really cool too) and finally the Q when I left in 2008. 10 years of really great phones and a cool part of my life.