When Motorola announced the Droid RAZR for Verizon, many in the tech community joked that it was officially the world’s greatest smartphone, but only for the next few hours since Google and Samsung were scheduled to get on a stage in Hong Kong and announce what we now know as the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Comparing the RAZR and the Nexus, the latter has a larger and higher resolution screen, runs a newer version of Android, and … that’s pretty much it, but it’s enough to make mobile geeks forget that the RAZR even exists. Here’s where things get funny. Motorola recently announced a device called the MT917 for the Chinese market. It’s basically the RAZR, but with a larger 4.5 inch screen that also boasts a full 720p resolution, 13 megapixel camera, and what we’re assuming to be a larger battery. How much girth does the MT917 need to add to have those superior components? Just 1.4 mm, making it a total of 8.5 mm thick. We argued that the MT917 should have been what Americans received instead of what’s currently out on the market, and according to the folks at PocketNow we may actually get what we want.
They say that a handful of photos have surfaced on the internet that were taken with a device that has the model name “RAZRMAX” within the EXIF data. Said photos appear to be only 6 megapixels, so we can’t tell if the RAZRMAX is the MT917 or simply a chunkier RAZR. The latter is a suggestion by a stranger with only 1 post (read: no reputation) on the website “RAZR Forums”. He claims to have visited a Verizon store and expressed concern about purchasing a RAZR because of poor battery life, to wish the employee he was speaking to said not to worry because a slightly thicker RAZR called the RAZRMAX was going to come out soon to address those issues.
Keep your eyes peeled for CES and MWC early next year, something tells us that we’re going to see the RAZR we’ve actually been waiting for instead of the disappointment that’s currently on store shelves.