The KRZR is more evolution than revolution. It sports a distinctive metallic glossy shell in the familiar squared-off flip-phone design. It's slightly longer and slimmer than a RAZR, giving a sleek appearance and making the RAZR appear a bit boxy by comparison. The KRZR maintains the thin profile pioneered by RAZR with a slight increase in thickness to about 0.7 inches. Weight is a modest 3.6 ounces.
It's easy to see the technology heritage of the KRZR K1m, now available for Verizon Wireless on their CDMA network that includes EV-DO high speed data downloads up to 700 Kbps. Support for VCAST video on demand and music store are native. The KRZR includes touch sensitive external controls for the built-in music player. It also provides support for GPS services, including Verizon's VZ Navigator. No excuses now for getting lost in an unfamiliar city. VZ Navigator gives you turn by turn directions when you subscribe to this feature.
The touch sensitive etched keyboard is clearly RAZR developed technology. In fact, people unfamiliar with the new KRZR design will probably ask where you got that really cool looking RAZR phone. Many other RAZR cues are also visible, including the relatively large main display the smaller external color display. Both display over 65,000 colors. The standard digital camera is 1.3 Megapixels with a 4x digital zoom. It takes reasonably high resolution snapshots or will run in camcorder mode for video capture. If you find yourself needing to take lots of high resolution photos, memory is upgradable using microSD/TransFlash format memory cards up to 1 GB.
Other familiar high end features include voice drive menus that require no phone pre-training, Bluetooth wireless communications, speakerphone, voice memo, thousand entry phonebook with up to 5 entries per contact, text and multimedia messaging, and mobile Web browsing using the built-in WAP 2.0 browser. Battery life has been improved to 250 minutes of talk time and 440 hours on standby.
The KRZR upgrade seems more about style advancements than futuristic technology development, at least for now. Remember that the original RAZR sported only a VGA camera and limited multimedia functions when it was introduced. Derivative models added megapixel photography, iTunes, VCAST music store, and multiple colors. The challenge now will be maintaining a feeling of having the latest cool cellular look when your RAZR V3 appears a little dated next to your friend's KRZR K1m.
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