One of the biggest selling points of the iPhone was its status as the world's thinnest smartphone. Measuring just 9.3mm in thickness, it was certainly the slimmest smartphone the world had seen when it was released in the summer of 2010. Samsung attempted to challenge this with the Galaxy S2, a phone that measured a mere 8.5mm and that helped to push Android contracts ahead of the iPhone for the first time. But Apple still made the claim of producing the world's thinnest smartphone, a claim that was challenged by Samsung via the UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

The ASA rejected Samsung's claim, as the Galaxy S2 has a 'lip' on one end that is thicker than the iPhone 4, while the iPhone is uniformly thin. But while these two companies were battling it out over this title, amongst many other petty things, neither seemed to acknowledge the Japanese NEC Medias, which measured just a mere 7.9mm, rendering both of their claims null and void.

But now even this record has been beaten by the latest smartphone from Motorola. Motorola were probably the company that kicked off the trend for producing slim mobile phones, as their RAZR series of 2005-2007 were marketed primarily for their very slim designs. To date the RAZR V3 has sold twice as many handsets as the iPhone 4. It is this brand that Motorola has revived for its latest Android phone.

Aside from the name and the slim designs, the new Motorola RAZR does not have much in common with the original phone series. The older RAZR phones were garish pink flip-phones, with state of the art 1 megapixel cameras and mp3 ring-tones. By contrast, the new RAZR has a lot more features up its sleeves.

While capitalizing on the brand and slimness that brought Motorola so much success all those years ago, the company has also done much to incorporate the winning features that made the Samsung Galaxy S2 such a popular phone. One of these features was the S2's 4.3 inch Super AMOLED Screen, that offers a level of brightness and vibrancy that most LCD screens cannot compete with.

While not quite Super AMOLED Plus, the Super AMOLED screen of the Motorola RAZR is the closest that a phone has come to competing against the S2 in the screen department. This screen also benefits from a sharper qHD resolution, which offers better image quality than the Samsung device.

On the hardware front, the RAZR matches the S2 in almost all areas. It has a speedy 1.2GHz processor with 1GB RAM, 16GB internal storage which is expandable with 32GB microSD cards, as well as some speedy data connections. The RAZR also has dual band DLNA Wi-Fi, making it one of the most reliable smartphones for wireless internet browsing.

Running on Android Gingerbread the RAZR also comes with Motorola's custom Android interface. Motorola were one of the first companies to recognize the importance of decent social networking support on a smartphone, and this is no less true for the RAZR than any of their earlier Android handsets. The phone also comes with YouTube support out of the box, as well as access to Android Market for games and apps.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the RAZR is that, despite its very slim nature, it is one of the most durable and rugged phones on the market. There is always a worry with paper thin electronic gadgets that they will snap easily under pressure. While this may be true for some inferior devices, it is not true for the RAZR as Motorola have incorporated some design principles from their earlier Defy rugged phone.

The RAZR is produced from Kevlar, which is the same material that the US military use to develop ballistic body armour. The RAZR has also been fitted with extra splash resistance, making it less likely to be damaged from water and other liquids compared to standard smartphones.

Motorola has enjoyed some moderate success since it adopted Google's Android back in 2008, but has so far not managed to achieve the same sort of hysterical cult following that it had with its original RAZR phones. This is where the new Motorola RAZR is going to make a huge difference for Motorola, as it brings slimness, sturdiness, and the best features of the bestselling phone of 2011, ensuring that 2012 will be a fantastic year for Motorola.