This is the Motorola Droid Razr M. This was the first smartphone that I ever owned and I remember getting it from a Verizon store all the way back in 2013. I may have had some other super cheap smartphones before it, but I really can't remember them. This is the first one that I remember ever owning and back then, I loved it!
Even when this phone came out back in 2012, it was never meant to be a high end phone. From what I've read, it was $99 at the Verizon store when it first came out so it was a budget phone even back then. These days, it's specs are laughable. While it does have 4G which is nice and a Super AMOLED display which is awesome, it only has a 1.5Ghz dual core processor and a small 4.3 inch screen with a resolution of 540 x 960. Yeah... not great. When I was looking at phones on eBay last night, I actually seen the big brother to this phone, the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx, selling for a few dollars less than what I paid for this one. The Maxx has a processor that's nearly twice as fast as this one's at 2.7Ghz, but paid a few more dollars for a worse phone because of the nostalgia.
Also fun fact, my Razr M was the only phone that I've ever owned that I destroyed. I've never cracked a screen on a phone in my life but sadly I was a little careless with my Razr M and it succumbed to water damage due to me being dumb and that ultimately killed it.
Along with my phone, the eBay seller that I purchased it from is also including a phone case for it as well as the original box. Damn, how many people really still hold onto boxes for a budget phone that they got 8 years ago!? That's mind blowing and awesome at the same time! Since it includes a case and the original box, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the owner took really good care of it all this time. From the pictures I've seen, I can't even see a scratch on it.
The seller was asking $26.95 or best offer for everything with free shipping. Last night, I sent the seller an offer of $19.95 which they quickly counter-offered with $22.95. I sent a counter offer of a dollar more at $20.95 which they just accepted about an hour ago. I'm expecting to get it by Friday.
Besides this being the first smartphone (or should I say good smartphone) I ever owned though, there was another reason that I got so much joy out of my Razr M.
Back in 2013, Cyanogenmod was probably the most popular custom ROM that you could put on an Android device at the time. It was a pain in the ass to install and set up, but it made my experience with my Razr M so much better!
I still remember having to learn how to root my phone, unlock my bootloader, install TWRP (Team Win Recovery Project), flash the Cyanogenmod ROM to my phone, and install Gapps (Google Apps).
I remember after installing TWRP onto it that I thought I had messed it up because for a few hours I couldn't get it to boot. Finally though, I managed to pull it off and it worked beautifully!
These days I hear it's quite easy to mod Android phones, but back then it took research and patience.
I was able to do a lot of cool things with Cyanogenmod like overclocking it... yeah, I overclocked my phone!
In summary, despite it being an 8 year old phone, I'll be excited to get it this week. I'll try to see if I can find a Cyanogenmod ROM online again and try to flash it just like I did my old one. It seems like it may be tough though as since it's such an old phone, I had trouble trying to find the ROM just via a quick Google search last night. Hopefully I can find it though!
My current smartphone has been giving me issues ever since I upgraded it to Android 9.0 earlier this year. It freezes so often that it can become nearly unusable at times. I plan on using the Razr M for at least a week as my primary phone. That'll be one of the next articles that I write about it so stay tuned for that one!