Thin and stylish the original Motorola Razr flip phone was a huge success. I used a Black Razr for many years, until it broke in 2009. In November 2011, Motorola released the first Razr smartphone–the Droid Razr.
The new Razr has a 1.2GHz TI OMAP 4430 processor, 16GB of internal storage, an 8MP rear-facing camera, a 1.3MP front-facing camera, and a 4.3″ Super AMOLED display (960×540 pixels). It measures 5.15″ (H) x 2.71″ (W) x 0.28″ (D) and weighs 4.48 ounces. The Droid Razr comes with Android 2.3.5 installed, and can be upgraded to Android 4.0. It’s also the first phone to have the latest version of Motorola’s Webtop application. In the US, Verizon sells the Razr for $299.99 (with a two-year contract). I bought our Razr test device (sans contract) from a local Best Buy Mobile location for $799.99 (plus tax).
In this week’s episode of Cracking Open, I show you what’s inside the Droid Razr, and discuss what I learned from my teardown. That basically, the Razr is an upgraded Droid Bionic.
December 8, 2011, 10:34 AM PST | Length:00:03:00
Full teardown gallery: Cracking Open the Motorola Droid Razr
Cracking Open observations
Replaceable battery: Unlike the Bionic, the Razr’s battery isn’t designed to be user-replaceable. But, it’s not soldered to the motherboard either. If you’re willing to remove the back cover (and likely void the warranty), you could replace a dead battery.- Standard Torx T5 screws: I was able to remove all the Razr’s screws with Torx T3, T4, and T5 screwdriver bits.
- Super AMOLED display: The Razr has a 4.3″ (960×540 pixels) qHD Super AMOLED display. Although their displays are the same size and offer the same resolution, this is a step up from the Bionic’s LCD.
- 1.3MP front-facing camera: The Bionic has a VGA-quality camera. The Razr has a 1.3MP front-facing camera.
- Slightly higher-capacity battery: The Razr has a 1,780 mAh battery, compared to the Bionic’s 1,735 mAh battery.
- 1.2GHz Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 Processor: Although Motorola stuck with the TI OMAP 4430 processor, the Razr has a 1.2GHz chip compared to the Bionic’s 1GHz processor.
Internal hardware
To avoid damaging our test device, I decided against desoldering all the EMI shields on the Razr’s motherboard. Luckily, our friends over at iFixit did.
- 3.8V 1,780mAh Li-Ion Polymer battery (SNN5899A)
- microSD and SIM card reader
- 8MP rear-facing camera
- 1.3MP front-facing camera
- 1.2GHz Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 Application Processor
- Samsung K3PE7E700M-XGC1 4Gb LPDDR2 RAM
- Hynix H90H1GH51JMP (likely covers the TI OMAP 4430 processor)
- Atmel MXT224E touchscreen controller
- Toshiba THGBM4G7D2GBAIE 16GB EMMC Flash Memory
- Qualcomm PM8028 power management chip
- Qualcomm MDM6600 (provides GSM and CDMA connectivity also used on iPhone 4)
- Motorola T6VP0XBG (LTE baseband processor)
- Texas Instruments WL1285C (provides 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, FM and GPS support)
- Toshiba Y9A0A111308LA Memory Stack
- Bosch 2133 accelerometer
- Infineon 5726
- ST Ericsson CPCAP 6556002
- Skyworks 77449 Power Amplifier Module
- Avago ACPM-7868 quad-band power amplifier
For more information on the Droid Razr, check out Deb Shinder’s real-world review, “Motorola Droid Razr: Super model or serial killer?”
