The RAZR is the latest Android offering from Motorola. Upon hearing the name, many people may be thinking “I used to own a Motorola RAZR several years ago, why on earth is Motorola rereleasing such an old phone?” In truth, this is not the same as the original RAZR phones, although it does share their penchant for slenderness.

The first RAZR phones were launched at the start of this century and enjoyed enormous success due to their slim bodies. Up until that point, mobile phones had been big and bulky, and not particularly nice looking. The RAZR was the first attractive phone, and the first phone to develop a must-have following (to date, the RAZR V3 has sold more than double the iPhone).

Since that time Motorola has not managed to produce a phone that has been quite so popular. They have produced a number of excellent Android devices, including the Atrix and the Milestone/Droid, but perhaps now they are trying to rekindle that winning formula that they had all those years back.

This is essentially all that the new Motorola RAZR has in common with the original flip-phones – the slimness and the name. Not much else will be recognizable by anyone who owned one of the original RAZR phones. For a start, this is not a flip-phone, it is a candybar touchscreen device running the very latest Android Gingerbread.

It is very thin though. As it does not operate on a clamshell design it can be even thinner than the original phones – just a mere 7.1mm. This is thinner than the iPhone 4, thinner than the Samsung Galaxy S2 and even thinner than the NEC Medias from Japan.

Many people worry that such slim phones will be more delicate and liable to breaking easily. This might be the case with the iPhone or the Galaxy S2, but not the RAZR. This is because the RAZR is made from highly durable Kevlar, the material used in ballistic body armour, and it is also extra splash resistant.

The Galaxy S2 has been the biggest selling phone of 2011 by far. Some of its most attractive features have been its dual core processor and Super AMOLED Plus screen. The RAZR matches this with ease, running on a 1.2GHz chip with 1GB RAM, and having a mesmerizing 4.3 inch Super AMOLED screen with qHD resolution.

Android Gingerbread has already been superseded by Ice Cream Sandwich, but for now the latest update is only available on the Galaxy Nexus. This is no reason to be disheartened. Gingerbread still remains an excellent version, and the RAZR will be one of the first Gingerbread phones to see an update. The phone includes all the usual Android goodies including excellent YouTube support and access to Android Market, along with some of the best social networking support on the smartphone market thanks to Motorola’s Android interface, making this one of the best Android contracts around.

The RAZR marks a new beginning for Motorola, or at least a return to form. The company has learnt what has made other Android phones like the Galaxy S2 so popular, and emulated it to perfect effect in their own device. They have also resuscitated the key ingredients that worked so well for them all those years ago. If there is one thing that the iPhone and Galaxy S2 have proven in recent times, it is that people still have a love for all things slender and petite.