Kottke recently felt his Nokia phone had been techno-trounced by Motorola’s RAZR. RAZR is a phone that wows on first impressions because it’s so - oh, I’m getting all clammy handed at the memory of my first experience of it…

Motorola was so sure of its new phone’s “Design” credentials that it launched it first to a load of design journalists in Copenhagen, including me. It really looked special back then; so shiny and thin, like (weak metaphor coming) a supermodel. But actually getting one (let’s take that metaphor to its straining limit) revealed the blemishes that Photoshop and make-up on models usually cover up.

Despite what it looks like, the RAZR is not all metal - the painted plastic bits chipped and wore away. The interface was sluggish and counter-intuitive. The colour outer screen was impossible to see without its light on - which was easiest to trigger by opening it (so you simply look at the big screen instead…). It was too huge and felt like it folded around my face. The keys were hard to use because the divisions between them were too indistinct. It was so annoying that I gave to a friend, who feels much the same way…

It’s amazing how wowed one can get by something so skin deep.