Motorola RAZR V3i iTunes

Status: 🟡 Parts missing

To be honest, this is where the triumphant march of the ultra-thin flip phone should have begun. The new version had a better camera, a memory card slot, and thanks to its mass production, the price became slightly less prohibitive. It was still a trendy accessory, though it was starting to show signs of aging. The Motorola RAZR V3i became a platform for collaborations with well-known brands. This was the period when the first wave of co-branding between mobile phone manufacturers and fashion houses began: LG teamed up with Prada, Samsung found its partnership with Giorgio Armani, and Motorola released the gold-plated V3i in collaboration with Dolce & Gabbana. However, that wasn’t the only collaboration.

Another significant event took place in 2005: the release of the Motorola ROKR E1 (more details here), the grandfather of the original iPhone, and the first mobile phone that could sync with the iTunes music service. A lesser-known fact is that alongside the E1, the RAZR V3i iTunes and SLVR L7 iTunes models were also released, a flip phone and a candy-bar phone in a unified style that could also pretend to be an iPod. However, most likely for marketing reasons, to avoid competing with the main model, an artificial limit on the number of songs that could be uploaded to the phone was reduced from 100 to 50—about four and a half albums. This might be enough for a morning jog playlist, but it’s clear that neither the V3i iTunes nor the SLVR L7 iTunes were popular modifications for this very reason.

Speaking of my personal impressions, the V3i feels slightly less premium compared to the standard V3. The matte finish and the etched circuit backlighting added their own magic. Here, the body polish is different, and the blue LED logo looks extremely cheap, though I’m nitpicking (I would have preferred a milky-white color, like on Apple laptops back then). Aside from its appearance and slightly improved technical specifications, this flip phone had little chance of finding a permanent spot in my pocket, even considering the lower price on the secondary market. In this category, I was mainly interested in smartphones. Nonetheless, a significant number of these phones passed through my hands, both for internet setup and J2ME program installation, as well as for deeper tuning. The RAZR V3(i) is something you see once and never forget.