Mobile operators halt sale of Razr phones

Cingular Wireless and T-Mobile temporarily stopped selling Motorola's popular, ultra-thin Razr phone this week, because of a defect that causes calls to be disconnected.

Motorola said a "limited number" of the phones shipped to the U.S. market were affected by the glitch. The Razr is one of Motorola's most popular phones.

"Motorola and its customers are addressing an issue affecting a very limited number of Razr handsets sold for GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) networks over the last four weeks," Alan Buddendeck, a spokesman for Motorola, said in an e-mail. "Motorola and its customers have taken steps to ensure an easy exchange process for consumers."

T-Mobile stopped selling the Razr late Wednesday after Motorola told it about the problem, said Peter Dobrow, a T-Mobile spokesman. Cingular stopped selling it in stores earlier in the week, said Mark Siegel, a Cingular spokesman.

A faulty component in the sleek, thin phones caused the calls to disconnect and the phones to reboot.

"We pulled all Razr units from retail, since it was not immediately known which devices had the defective component," Dobrow said. "Motorola is currently working with us to identify the affected units."

Motorola said that phones that were affected were shipped on Feb. 1, and that new phones without the glitch have already begun shipping. It expects normal availability of the handsets by next week, Buddendeck said. T-Mobile expects to begin reselling the phones early next week, according to Dobrow.

Customers with affected handsets may contact their carrier for an exchange. The problem affects only GSM phones. GSM is a cellular phone technology standard in Europe that is also used by Cingular and T-Mobile in the United States. Razr phones on the Verizon Wireless network were not affected, because Verizon uses a different technology.

[i_am_still_wade]

Another Moto recall, I'm not suprised

The last Motorola I had, the V600, was recalled because it kept dropping calls. I know other people who have Moto's with Cingular, and they complain of dropped calls. When I stopped using the V600, dropped calls vanished for me. I'm not suprised, Moto makes cool but inferior phones.

Couple that with Moto's sorry phonebook, and I'll never touch a Moto again.

[Gerald Quaglia]

Moto has problem w/ iden also

Motorola has been cranking out crappy iden phones for Nextel also. Dropped calls, poor RF. Unfortuatly Moto is the only game in town if you have Nextel. If I didn't use Nextel, I would never buy a Motorola phone, period.

[anolehippy]

Motorola RAZR

Motorola has always made a very high quality item, from communications to microprocessors. My RAZR V3, as with ALL my Motorola products works with NO problems what-so-ever.I have NEVER had a single dropped call, which speaks well of Motorola and Cingular.

[JBCavalier]

V551 has same glitch

The same glitch reported in the Razr occurs in the V551.

The phone will disconnect when trying to answer a phone call and then it reboots.

It also, will forget ring tones and then magically re-locate them over time.

Battery life is terrible even with the "new" replacement battery silent recall.

Making and answering calls has always been a rebooting nightmare, even though the system is not Windows based.

[bennaepc]

Razr defective since new on the market

I got my first Razr in June of 2005, returned it after a month and again in the fall. Now I've just ordered my third replacement. This phone has been defective since its inception-a lot longer than Feb 1!

[deavers]

RAZRs Are Greatest Phone Available Today. Period.

My family has had 4 T-Mobile RAZRs since November 2005 and they work great! No phone is perfect but this phone is the BEST phone on the market today bar none! I fact I was trying to add a 5th RAZR yesterday but couldn't due to the recall, but I will as soon T-Mobile restocks hopefully early next week!

[DemonsBlood]

um....how about no?

RAZR's are old now, if you want a thin phone try NEC L1( thinner than RAZR with a 1.3mp camera rather than a weak 300k pixel camera. if you think the ******** are great, how bout a k800i instead

[Zapp06]

Please: Razr are in the past now!!

The Samsung A900 is a much more powerful and advance phone than the Razr. I am not going to even argue with you; just do a side by side comparison of the two phones. You will see that the Blade A900 outshines the Razr.

[mjm01010101]

Razr's best phone?

I never understood the hype of this phone. The phone may be slimmer than most mobiles, but it is certainly wider. Motorola's interface is horrible, I prefer any Nokia to what Motorola has produced. My GF has had three Motorolas, (also something I can't understand why she keeps getting them,) but all three have had strange glitches, the latest is every conversation after three minutes it starts getting less and less clear.

Watch Samsung in this space: They will overtake them all!

[down2theriver]

Dropped calls

I switched from Verizon to Alltel (same towers in my area)
recently and upgraded from a standard LG phone to a Razr. I
used to get near perfect reception on my LG at my home, with
the Razr I get a fair number of dropped calls. I've been to Alltel
once and they 'reprogrammed' the phone but it really hasn't
changed anything. I'll be swapping it out later this week. I will
note it doesn't reboot in the process as mentioned in this
article, though I had a i930 Moto on Nextel recently that did
that. I had high hopes for this phone since I was told they get
better reception, but after 2.5 months I'm somewhat
disappointed and sincerely hope they can get it working as well
as my cheap LG.

[ajbright]

Maybe it's the new version?

I've had the older razr for about 3 months now, and not one call was dropped.

Maybe the new version has this problem, but certainly not the v3.

It's more likely that poor coverage is to blame if you ask me, moving from one area to another or trying to take or make a call in areas that are just plain bad for cell phones.

[bennaepc]

Older model is defective

I purchased my first RAZR V3 in June of 2005, had it replaced within a month for dropped calls, and then again in October for dropped calls and reboots. I thought for awhile that the problem was bad Cingular service, but after reading the recent newsabout the glitches, I realize the problem has existed since at least October of 2005, possibly since June. I have just requested my 3rd replacement, but I'm going to try for a different phone altogether this time. I've had it with Motorola and their deception over this problem.

[paigek21]

Razr defective before Feb 1

I bought two Razrs in January. Both phones drop calls when there is full signal and reboot. It seems that they just cut off and cut back on. They even do it when you aren't talking on them. It is Ridiculous. I had a hard time getting tmobile to replace them and they are only 1.5 months old. This is my third set and will be my last set of motorola phones. My V600s did the same thing, except worse. The ones before that were replaced by an altogether different model and taken off of the market. I thought that i was safe and that all of the bugs would have been worked out of the Razr by now. It has been in the market for two years. I guess that they just keep passing the same problems to different model phones.

[EasiLy2k]

RAZR gsm v3

The defective RAZR's are very rare..just fyi the dropped calls are only on 850/900 MHZ roaming and the screen WILL go white then drop the call...thats the defective dropped call part "defect"