I have a late 50's Motorola radio. The logo seems WAY more modern in styling than the radio itself! The combination of the 50's styling AND the logo that's still used today makes the radio seem to be a modern "retro" recreation. - Except it's full of vacuum tubes and it's AM only!
Very informative, back in the day when America was in the front of technology! The feeling I get after watching this is that we owe so much to this company!
@@DFX4509B Intel got lucky by being cheap enough to be chosen by IBM back in the 8086 days. Their architecture is trash compared to what the 68k had, and the Pentium wouldn't even be a thing if they didn't have the massive PC market giving them enough money. I wonder how things would be if the 68k had been chosen for the IBM PC. Working with OS development for the goddamn awful x86_64 architecture, that would be a dream.
@@ElShogoso They did kinda swing back at the Pentium with the PPC arch though, which Apple switching to it is probably one of the main reasons they barely scraped by in the '90s while Atari and Commodore went under.
Between Tech Tales, Thrifts, Reviews, Oddware, and all the other stuff on your channel, I must say you have some of the most consistently great stuff on RUclips...don't change a thing, and keep up the great work! :)
i have the moto G3, its a fast quad core with 2gb ram, and dude it easily runs for 6 days without charging... so yeah, motorola is one of the few ones with good battery life
It's a two fold problem: as batteries are getting better phones are consuming more power, and larger capacity batteries are larger but consumers are demanding thinner phones.
fedos im pretty sure if they were to make a phone with a proven battery life of 2 weeks, but having a thicker body, it would still sell well, by now, people have had smartphones for 6years or longer, and pretty much everyone is sick of their phones getting empty even before the workday is over.... so LOADS of people would prefer a slightly thicker phone if this means it has 4 times the battery life or whatever (just example)
+raafmaat A two week lifetime? Even if that's technically possible the battery would be huge. Yes, I think that the resulting phone would be unwieldy. To say nothing of the cost.
fedos look at it this way: alot of people (especially girls) have thick phone cases around their phone, making their phone like 2 cm thick... so if they were to make a smartphone of arround that size, but keep the inner workings the same as in other phones, they would suddenly EASILY have 4 times the space for battery... but like i said, just an example make it 1 week, or 10 days whatever
I use to live in Chicago and worked for Motorola (97-99) assembling cell phones and repairing them specifically the Star Tac. I handled Michael Jordan's Star Tac when it came in for repair until I was laid off. Fun Fact: If you made it 20 yrs with the company you would become "Galvinized" lol meaning you could not be fired.
This is 100% true. Unfortunately all of my friends parents who were galvanized were eventually laid off anyway. A similar practice was put into place at Sears corporate down the street from Motorola, which is extremely interesting considering the rounds of layoffs happening at both companies at the same time. For decade, Schaumburg was hit pretty hard between those two companies!
I agree. Nokia has a very interesting history, starting its life making pulp, while another company that would merge into it made rubber (including rubber boots). There's even a story of how a municipality in Finland got rich by forgetting they owned stock in a company that once made rubber boots in there, and then blowing most of the money on a luxury retirement home (a former college's relatives had the chance to spend their final years there, that's why I know about that bit of the story).
Very interesting video. It's quite sad that Paul V Galvin did so much to advance technology yet hardly anyone knows of him, but people like Steve jobs get so much praise whilst barely doing anything.
Motorola processors were used in many Apple products, so they played a role in their success. Steve did a lot of stuff in his life. He was already a legend before the 80s. Buying Pixar, making it successful, returning to Apple, bringing around the iPod, iPhone, iPad... so many things have changed because of his vision. To say that he barely did anything is ridiculous.
+Karen Elizabeth Apple was founded in 1977, so he certainly wasn't a "legend" before the 80ies. Actually it was his problematic personality, which got him fired from his own company Apple. He really only made 4 important things in his life (no and I don't mean betraying his best friend (or better usable idiot in Steve's mind) Woz of his Breakout bonus). - he founded/cofounded Apple, NeXT and Pixar - he turned Apple around - he was a true genius product innovator - he was so smart that he took alternative medicine to fight his pancreas cancer and died of that decision. So he was somewhat like Newton: some stunning achievements, but a disgusting personality.
I love your Tech Tales man. You are great! I've been subscribed for years on my other channel since your first Sims stuff. You are the only "Simmer" that I still sub to because you make the best content. Not just Sims either as I said I love your Tech Tales videos they are my favorite always very intriguing and well edited. Good Job man never stop!
cee128d Being the materialistic person I am, I much prefer the iPhone 6 I currently have, and I more fondly remembered when my parents got themselves a pair of Blackberry Curves (which I proceeded to let get stolen once handed down to me) instead of the Razr. That being said, did they make different/newer models or something, because looking back at them, they would be horribly outdated today since they were absent of an internet function and such.
+DarknessViper99 There were at least four different models over the years and a couple of sub-models. They did have internet although it worked better if you tethered it to a laptop or tablet. But it's the fewer features (I consider it bloatware) is the exact reason I still use them to this day and it's extremely doubtful that I would ever switch to a dumb phone (my term for iPhones and the like). No virus or malware to worry about, no spying on me, and I can run 3 or 4 days before I have to charge the battery. I just NEED a PHONE to make VOICE calls. I don't have any need (or want) a small computer to do e-mail, texts, surf the web, play music and games, or any of the other crap they put on iPhones. Maybe it's because I'm in my 60's, maybe it's because my eyesight is failing and I can't see enough on the screen to do anything useful, or maybe it's because when I'm out and about I don't want to be distracted by some device ringing every couple of minutes. I have things to do besides being tied to device like that. When I need the internet or e-mail or want to play games it's much easier to do it on a real computer and if I want to listen to music I'll do that on a dedicated music/audio device that doesn't run down my phones battery.
I actually designed & sold custom made dress shirts to Chris Galvin. I had no idea who he was & chuckled a bit when he told me he wanted 36 shirts, half white, half blue. Then he sent his driver to pick them up which is when I realized he was a person of considerable means!
"Now to see who you really are! *tears off mask* OLD MAN MOTOROLA?!?!?" Motorola: Yeah, and I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids...... and your apple!
Great video! I was lucky enough to work for Motorola from 1994 to 2007 (NOT an engineer, but IT for their employee health care and retirement benefits). It was one of the best companies I've had the pleasure of working for in 30+ years. My co-workers and management were wonderful, and the company truly cared about their employees. That's another aspect of the era which is sadly no more.
Oh, I don't know. The biggest pattern you notice throughout Moto's history was innovation. First to market with car radios, cell phones, pagers, etc. In 2009, Motorola was one of the first Android adopters other than HTC. Their Droid X was billed as an "iPhone Killer" and while it didn't, was one of the first to adopt the modern style of phones we see today - imagine the physical buttons are the soft buttons of modern Android and 2010's Droid X is pretty much a cell phone of today, dropping the thumbstick/trackball, keypads, and huge 90s/early 00s-style face buttons of the past for a clean candybar design, sharper than the iPhone. Moto was one of the first with always-on OLED heads up display for notifications, controls, time, etc. with the Moto X allll the way back in 2013, something that wouldn't make its way onto Samsung and LG devices until 3 years later. Moto X also added physical gestures like the double-twist for camera, later, karate chop to launch torch, etc. Not to mention always-listening hardware for Google Now, something that had to use OpenMic or other third party applications before, but with much less battery consumption. There's a reason Google purchased Motorola - for their patent portfolio. While I'm not a huge fan of Moto Mods and think it's kind of stupid, it's still... new tech. Plus there's the shatterproof displays on the Moto X Force (Turbo 2) and Moto G Force. What other company is actually innovating with cell phone tech? Samsung has a curved display - that's kind of cool. LG is going to drop a wider screen, I guess. Apple is... well, the same as always. But Motorola pushes through huge sweeping gamechanger features every time. Sometimes they fail or are too soon for the tech to be good. Remember Motorola Atrix? The phone that could be attached to a traditional display+keyboard and be used as a desktop PC. Failed idea. but wait... that's what Microsoft is doing right now with Continuum. Sorry about the rant, but I think the line "but the old school Motorola is long gone" is false.
Well now we continue with the razr, a great flip phone with new tecnhnology that few are willing to try, only Motorola was brave enough to do this... but if it weren't for those meddling kids at Samsung.. again... well the rest is history. Im really glad that motorola is still on the market and doin great job with their phones... and well lets not forget the first moto g that was on example of doing something awesome in a low cost.
Watching this video on a moto z 2 with the shatter proof screen and the jb audio mod. I have dropped this phone so many times and have never broke the screen. I have had this phone for 5 years.. Although I just use it around the house now as it doesn't have a active phone number so I have to use Wi-Fi it's still awesome. I think the reason they don't make all phones with the shatter proof screen is because they are to durable. Lots of people upgrade when they bust their screen.. it's amazing how much abuse it takes.
This comment aged well. I've since used a Z3 and a handful of mods, and just picked up the Moto Edge 2021 this year. Lol. Damn 4 years ago huh. I tried the Nokia 7.1 Plus, the Sony Xperia 1 and the Xperia 1.II, but they just flake out. Assistant trigger flakes out, can't use twist/shake gestures, lacking display features. Motorola is just too good.
The irony here being that Motorola mobility/Lenovo has carved out a respectable niche in the mid-tier Android market, while Nokia.... weeeeeeelll......
+Fernando Alegre if I remember rightly there were plans for a high end Lenovo phone to compete with the Surface phone, but since the surface phone never surfaced neither did the Lenovo phone.
Mid-tier? I have the Turbo 2 which as far as I am aware is squarely in the top-tier. Not the top of the top tier obviously, but definitely in there. I actually had no idea that Lenovo had anything to do with it, certainly doesn't say so anywhere on the device.
Great video. I worked at Motorola for 4 years in one of their cell phone manufacturing plants in Harvard, IL, and one was one of the many victims of the massive layoffs due to their 2001 restructuring. Still the best job I ever had . . . while it lasted.
My father worked for Motorola for a lot of my life. This video does a good job summarizing things that were background noise from my father for large portions of my childhood. Thanks for another great vid!
Reminds me of the king of Swamp Castle. "Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. And that one sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up."
Wow! I never knew Moto was so influential in the technological development of the 20th century. First car radio, 2-way radios, transistors, 8-bit microprocessors, cell phones (not once, but twice!) Hello, Moto!
I remember Siemens phones being very popular here when I was in 7th and 8th grade. Now that I think about it, I haven't seen a phone from them in many many years.
They aren't making phones anymore. Sold their phone division and it was shut down briefly afterwards. I still love my M65, a very unique device that has a magnesium exoskeleton, making it very robust. The screen was one of the best available at the time, remarkably bright and sharp for its day.
This brought back some nostalgia. My parents both had Motorola bag phones, my mom had hers wired into the car she drove, which ended up being passed down to me as my first car. A couple phones down the road, I got my hands on silver RAZR v3 that I used for many years. It went through 3 battery packs before I ended up retiring it due to the batteries no longer being manufactured. The next one I got was a Droid MAXX that I'm still using to this day.
I will forever be greatful for Motorola for making the 68000 cpu chip that made my Amiga computers possible. I also had their neigh indestructible microtac cellphone. Still have a Gp-300 radio that's survived 3 trips though water. And their Motorola Sabre "You can pound bricks with this" radio that used to be used by Navy Seals. It's rocks solid, but weighs accordingly.
It's interesting watching a video that was a good part of my career. I worked at Motorola from 1997 to 2012, through much of the peak and downfall as you documented. I worked for the infrastructure division (mobile phone networks) that went with the Motorola Solutions split. We however were bought out quickly by Nokia-Siemens (NSN) joint venture. Eventually Nokia sold off its phone operations to Microsoft and bought our the NSN joint venture. Nokia eventually went on to buy Alcatel (French telecom) - Lucent (former bell manufacturing). Now they all go by Nokia. The Motorola tower you showed is all that is left of the "original" buildings, I live and work not to from it. The vast majority of the former campus around it has been sold off to a developer and will be some mixed use thing. Zurich Insurance also built a huge, very avaunt guard building that can best be described as a bunch of sticks put together into a vertical square on a former chunk of the campus. Today Motorola I believe employs about 4-5000 people in the Chicago area, including the tower you showed and a new building in downtown Chicago.....a huge step down from a peak of 100,000 people around 2000!
I love this kind of mini documentaries and I would like to see more on brands who ruled their market before collapsing (or changed beyond recognition) like IBM, Atari, AOL, Palm, etc.
Damn I'd become a patreon for Tech Tales alone, regardless of the quality of all your other content. This is beyond Discovery Channel, Nat Geo or whatever, great research, good voice, just awesome. The best of this episode: Nokia DOES make, bomb proof cellphones!
Hey LGR, just want you to know that I'm always impressed with your thorough research and really accessible presentation to what might be to most a "boring nerdy topic". Multiple thumbs up! :)
Damnit man, why are your videos so freakin' good? This time the intro, precisely the "This is LGR Tech Tales" part, gave me the shivers, holding on for pretty long. You're awesome man, thanks for so much good content! :)
I must've seen those flip phones a million times when I browsed through the Argos catalogues as a kid. They still look magic. The screens are so colourful!!
Great addition to Tech Tales. I remember Razors being the must have phone, and I remember seeing an iPhone for the first time around then. Funny to see it all in a historical perspective, I definitely doubted the iPhone back then.
I honestly never knew Motorolla had such a HUGE impact on tech. That's actually really awesome. I had a Krzr back when I was younger and I was the coolest kid on the block.
Motorola was so much more than a phone company. They played a big role in the microprocessor industry and the development of the RISC architecture. I remember many heated debates at work about RISC vs CISC. The Power PC is another story. Your videos focus on the phones does tell the financial story of Motorola well.
I'm just about old enough to remember the days where if you wanted a mobile phone it was either Motorola, or something that barely worked. But here in Denmark Motorola phones more or less vanished completely at the end of the 1990s. Nokia and Ericsson completely dominated the market, along with a couple smaller local companies. The Razer phones never succeeded here - if you wanted a flip-phone you bought an Ericsson, if you wanted a brick you bought Nokia. By the time Motorola was in serious trouble, no one here knew they were still making phones since no one bothered to sell them.
This series upon rewatching is worthier of being a YT Original than anything else on there aside from Retro Tech. So worthy in fact, I’m sure they don’t deserve it knowing how RUclips treats its creators.
Had a Motorola cellphone in the past and loved it. I had no idea they had such an illustrious and turbulent history. Love Tech Tales! Sing it with me, "Tech Tales, oo-oo!"
I really like these informative videos. On my own, I likely wouldn't have bothered to research the subject, but when its an LGR video I know I will learn a good deal about the subject in a short time, with all the bases covered.
Although blackberry seems dying out from regular consumers, they got a strong backing from the government and other business companies that has high security risks. Their PGP Encryption is top notch that secured blackberry from not really going under the water.
Man the Razor was a slick phone back in the day. I worked in a store that sold all this stuff back then at the height of all of their popularity. Beepers were HUGELY popular with teenagers. They were like fashion accessories to them. Most people who bought cell phones from me were adults but the beeper crowd were the teens. Most of the kids who lived in the area I worked had at least one and pretty much all of our teenage employees had one.
Bought a couple DROID2 phones a long time ago. Along with upgraded batteries. The hardware still functions perfectly, batteries are all kaput. Used them for bicycle lights. They were basically Palm top computers for me around 2010-2013. Loved the physical KB. Used it to interact with my security cameras. Music. RUclips. The foam at the bottom of the screen started to expand and creep up the display just slightly. I think it was just from being stored in a garage over winters.
I work at Google and went to the Motorola building today, the the Motorola sign is still there but most of the floors are Google. The droid was my first smart phone!
If you really work at Google, can you then explain me why Google officially supports the TPP? It is obviously very bad for consumers and little companies! publicpolicy.googleblog.com/2016/06/the-trans-pacific-partnership-step.html
I've been an intern at Motorola Mobility in 2014. I started working 2 weeks before Lenovo aqcuired the company. I really enjoied working there. At the end of the intership I have had to write an report for my college about the company history and the work I've done there, this video would have helped me a lot!
I got the moto G3 (2gb version) a few months ago has a nice quad core wich plays carmageddon and GTA fine, has 2 gb of ram wich is enough, and the battery lasts for 6 days of normal use (normal use for me is making pics, using whatsapp, some calls and some sporadic browsing) so for 200 bucks i would say this is the best phone one can possibly get! it outperforms many 500+ dollar phones, and it outperforms pretty much everything on battery life
eugeeeneee multiple iphones and samsungs etc, just look up the specs and see some benchmark tests. The specs for the g3 (2gb version) are rediculously high for just 200 bucks
eugeeeneee i didnt say it would beat the new flagships ;) i only said it beats multiple 500+ dollar phones, wich is cool for a 200 bucks phone, especially since also the battery life is stupidly long
This reminds me of when my Dad brought home his first cellphone around 2005 and my sister and I had fun recording ringtones he could use. An old heavy duty looking black cell phone with a bright orange screen. It was awesome.
But I hear the new Moto Z with the Moto Mods was supposed to be an amazing phone. I tried it at a Rogers store and it is a great phone. Motorolla isn't quite dead yet in my opinion
I have a Motorola Droid Turbo right now. I've had it about a year now. The best thing about it is that it's the first phone that I've gotten in years that didn't fail on me in the first few weeks and needed to get replaced.
I remember the Razr being the must have in 2006 but when I went to go purchase and android phone I was surprised to see them still around crazy how things change. Good to hear you in Gaming Historians video again.
![The Life & Death of Mad Catz [LGR Tech Tales]](/img/1.gif)
As a fanatic of retro videogames (and especially SEGA), I will be forever grateful for Motorola's 68000 microprocessor.
Hear hear!
Me too
+Zoe Papillon Yeah what Zoe said.
Zoe Papillon Yep. And the Capcom CPS-1 and CPS-2
Whilst I remember the Motorola ROKR E1, I don't know anything about the Motorola Silver, I've never even heard of that phone before.
Amazing that the Motorola logo was introduced as early as 1955. A design classic!
I have a late 50's Motorola radio. The logo seems WAY more modern in styling than the radio itself! The combination of the 50's styling AND the logo that's still used today makes the radio seem to be a modern "retro" recreation. - Except it's full of vacuum tubes and it's AM only!
Very informative, back in the day when America was in the front of technology! The feeling I get after watching this is that we owe so much to this company!
Who else thinks that the Motorola Logo is pretty cool?
even cooler is his evil twin William's Electronics logo
I. ^^
perfect for MDxx pills thats for sure
I always thought it looked like a bat.
"M" actually stands for Majin
if it weren't for those meddling kids at [insert_competitor_name_here]
If it weren't for those meddling kids at Intel, whose newly-introduced Pentium line in 1993 started leaving the 68000 series of CPUs in the dust...
If it wernt for those meddling kids at fucking Samsung who made the fucking S which took over the world.
@@DFX4509B Intel got lucky by being cheap enough to be chosen by IBM back in the 8086 days. Their architecture is trash compared to what the 68k had, and the Pentium wouldn't even be a thing if they didn't have the massive PC market giving them enough money.
I wonder how things would be if the 68k had been chosen for the IBM PC. Working with OS development for the goddamn awful x86_64 architecture, that would be a dream.
@@ElShogoso They did kinda swing back at the Pentium with the PPC arch though, which Apple switching to it is probably one of the main reasons they barely scraped by in the '90s while Atari and Commodore went under.
If it weren’t for those meddling kids at Nickelodeon these days!
Between Tech Tales, Thrifts, Reviews, Oddware, and all the other stuff on your channel, I must say you have some of the most consistently great stuff on RUclips...don't change a thing, and keep up the great work! :)
Thanks a lot!
Clint, how are you so awsome? TEACH ME YOUR SECRETS
Starting with a battery company you would think smartphones today would have better battery life.
i have the moto G3, its a fast quad core with 2gb ram, and dude it easily runs for 6 days without charging... so yeah, motorola is one of the few ones with good battery life
It's a two fold problem: as batteries are getting better phones are consuming more power, and larger capacity batteries are larger but consumers are demanding thinner phones.
fedos
im pretty sure if they were to make a phone with a proven battery life of 2 weeks, but having a thicker body, it would still sell well, by now, people have had smartphones for 6years or longer, and pretty much everyone is sick of their phones getting empty even before the workday is over.... so LOADS of people would prefer a slightly thicker phone if this means it has 4 times the battery life or whatever (just example)
+raafmaat A two week lifetime? Even if that's technically possible the battery would be huge. Yes, I think that the resulting phone would be unwieldy. To say nothing of the cost.
fedos
look at it this way: alot of people (especially girls) have thick phone cases around their phone, making their phone like 2 cm thick... so if they were to make a smartphone of arround that size, but keep the inner workings the same as in other phones, they would suddenly EASILY have 4 times the space for battery...
but like i said, just an example
make it 1 week, or 10 days whatever
I use to live in Chicago and worked for Motorola (97-99) assembling cell phones and repairing them specifically the Star Tac. I handled Michael Jordan's Star Tac when it came in for repair until I was laid off.
Fun Fact: If you made it 20 yrs with the company you would become "Galvinized" lol meaning you could not be fired.
You mean you couldn't be laid off? Or you can't be fired?
@@CptCPT-dl9lh bet he meant couldn't be laid off. An employee that couldn't be fired would have dire consequences to the company.
This is 100% true. Unfortunately all of my friends parents who were galvanized were eventually laid off anyway. A similar practice was put into place at Sears corporate down the street from Motorola, which is extremely interesting considering the rounds of layoffs happening at both companies at the same time. For decade, Schaumburg was hit pretty hard between those two companies!
Next tech tales video suggestion: The rise and fall of Nokia, or something like that.
The fall probably destroyed half the world.
One time I threw my Nokia phone as high as I could to the air and let it fall down and it was fine.
It'd be fun to hear his opinion on the Teletaco....I mean the N-Gage....
I've seen a 3210 used as a hocket puck, smashed to hell and back obviously but still accepted calls.
I agree. Nokia has a very interesting history, starting its life making pulp, while another company that would merge into it made rubber (including rubber boots). There's even a story of how a municipality in Finland got rich by forgetting they owned stock in a company that once made rubber boots in there, and then blowing most of the money on a luxury retirement home (a former college's relatives had the chance to spend their final years there, that's why I know about that bit of the story).
Very interesting video.
It's quite sad that Paul V Galvin did so much to advance technology yet hardly anyone knows of him, but people like Steve jobs get so much praise whilst barely doing anything.
The world is a DARK PLACE.
I once heard someone say that Bill Gates invented computers, truly a sad world.
Motorola processors were used in many Apple products, so they played a role in their success.
Steve did a lot of stuff in his life. He was already a legend before the 80s. Buying Pixar, making it successful, returning to Apple, bringing around the iPod, iPhone, iPad... so many things have changed because of his vision. To say that he barely did anything is ridiculous.
Steve Wozniak was better than Steve jobs.
+Karen Elizabeth
Apple was founded in 1977, so he certainly wasn't a "legend" before the 80ies. Actually it was his problematic personality, which got him fired from his own company Apple. He really only made 4 important things in his life (no and I don't mean betraying his best friend (or better usable idiot in Steve's mind) Woz of his Breakout bonus).
- he founded/cofounded Apple, NeXT and Pixar
- he turned Apple around
- he was a true genius product innovator
- he was so smart that he took alternative medicine to fight his
pancreas cancer and died of that decision.
So he was somewhat like Newton: some stunning achievements, but a disgusting personality.
Please keep making these, Clint!
nakyer Oops!
your videos are just so well scripted and nicely edited
it's also just awesome to see your passion towards these old and new techs
Thank you!
What
I love your Tech Tales man. You are great! I've been subscribed for years on my other channel since your first Sims stuff. You are the only "Simmer" that I still sub to because you make the best content. Not just Sims either as I said I love your Tech Tales videos they are my favorite always very intriguing and well edited. Good Job man never stop!
Thanks, I'm glad you're still enjoying!
These are fantastically put together, fascinating to hear the stories of tech.
Man, I remember the Motorola Razr, both of my parents had one in its heyday, makes me think about how far cellphone technology had come.
I'm still using one. Best cell phone ever produced.
Same, I had the silver one and my mother had the pink one. I do miss it sometimes. I think I still have it somewhere.
cee128d Being the materialistic person I am, I much prefer the iPhone 6 I currently have, and I more fondly remembered when my parents got themselves a pair of Blackberry Curves (which I proceeded to let get stolen once handed down to me) instead of the Razr. That being said, did they make different/newer models or something, because looking back at them, they would be horribly outdated today since they were absent of an internet function and such.
TheCrimsonDuelist Heh, my parents had the exact same colored pairs, but they were horribly neglected once they switched over to their new phones.
+DarknessViper99 There were at least four different models over the years and a couple of sub-models. They did have internet although it worked better if you tethered it to a laptop or tablet. But it's the fewer features (I consider it bloatware) is the exact reason I still use them to this day and it's extremely doubtful that I would ever switch to a dumb phone (my term for iPhones and the like). No virus or malware to worry about, no spying on me, and I can run 3 or 4 days before I have to charge the battery. I just NEED a PHONE to make VOICE calls. I don't have any need (or want) a small computer to do e-mail, texts, surf the web, play music and games, or any of the other crap they put on iPhones.
Maybe it's because I'm in my 60's, maybe it's because my eyesight is failing and I can't see enough on the screen to do anything useful, or maybe it's because when I'm out and about I don't want to be distracted by some device ringing every couple of minutes. I have things to do besides being tied to device like that. When I need the internet or e-mail or want to play games it's much easier to do it on a real computer and if I want to listen to music I'll do that on a dedicated music/audio device that doesn't run down my phones battery.
I actually designed & sold custom made dress shirts to Chris Galvin. I had no idea who he was & chuckled a bit when he told me he wanted 36 shirts, half white, half blue. Then he sent his driver to pick them up which is when I realized he was a person of considerable means!
"Now to see who you really are!
*tears off mask*
OLD MAN MOTOROLA?!?!?"
Motorola: Yeah, and I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids...... and your apple!
But why old man moto? Why did you dress up as the ghost of the stock exchange and tried to scare away day traders? 😂
Low your Tech Tales! Always happy to see new episode :)
I just discovered this series and Im now binged watching ALL OF THEM!! Good stuff!
Thank you!
SAME
Great video! I was lucky enough to work for Motorola from 1994 to 2007 (NOT an engineer, but IT for their employee health care and retirement benefits). It was one of the best companies I've had the pleasure of working for in 30+ years. My co-workers and management were wonderful, and the company truly cared about their employees. That's another aspect of the era which is sadly no more.
Oh, I don't know. The biggest pattern you notice throughout Moto's history was innovation. First to market with car radios, cell phones, pagers, etc.
In 2009, Motorola was one of the first Android adopters other than HTC. Their Droid X was billed as an "iPhone Killer" and while it didn't, was one of the first to adopt the modern style of phones we see today - imagine the physical buttons are the soft buttons of modern Android and 2010's Droid X is pretty much a cell phone of today, dropping the thumbstick/trackball, keypads, and huge 90s/early 00s-style face buttons of the past for a clean candybar design, sharper than the iPhone.
Moto was one of the first with always-on OLED heads up display for notifications, controls, time, etc. with the Moto X allll the way back in 2013, something that wouldn't make its way onto Samsung and LG devices until 3 years later.
Moto X also added physical gestures like the double-twist for camera, later, karate chop to launch torch, etc. Not to mention always-listening hardware for Google Now, something that had to use OpenMic or other third party applications before, but with much less battery consumption. There's a reason Google purchased Motorola - for their patent portfolio.
While I'm not a huge fan of Moto Mods and think it's kind of stupid, it's still... new tech. Plus there's the shatterproof displays on the Moto X Force (Turbo 2) and Moto G Force.
What other company is actually innovating with cell phone tech? Samsung has a curved display - that's kind of cool. LG is going to drop a wider screen, I guess. Apple is... well, the same as always. But Motorola pushes through huge sweeping gamechanger features every time.
Sometimes they fail or are too soon for the tech to be good. Remember Motorola Atrix? The phone that could be attached to a traditional display+keyboard and be used as a desktop PC. Failed idea. but wait... that's what Microsoft is doing right now with Continuum.
Sorry about the rant, but I think the line "but the old school Motorola is long gone" is false.
I owned Moto Droid X 👍
Well now we continue with the razr, a great flip phone with new tecnhnology that few are willing to try, only Motorola was brave enough to do this... but if it weren't for those meddling kids at Samsung.. again... well the rest is history. Im really glad that motorola is still on the market and doin great job with their phones... and well lets not forget the first moto g that was on example of doing something awesome in a low cost.
Watching this video on a moto z 2 with the shatter proof screen and the jb audio mod. I have dropped this phone so many times and have never broke the screen. I have had this phone for 5 years.. Although I just use it around the house now as it doesn't have a active phone number so I have to use Wi-Fi it's still awesome. I think the reason they don't make all phones with the shatter proof screen is because they are to durable. Lots of people upgrade when they bust their screen.. it's amazing how much abuse it takes.
This comment aged well. I've since used a Z3 and a handful of mods, and just picked up the Moto Edge 2021 this year. Lol.
Damn 4 years ago huh. I tried the Nokia 7.1 Plus, the Sony Xperia 1 and the Xperia 1.II, but they just flake out. Assistant trigger flakes out, can't use twist/shake gestures, lacking display features.
Motorola is just too good.
Unlike much internet content I consume, this series always makes me feel smarter. Thanks, Clint!
I was genuinely surprised that anything worthy of note ever happened here in Wisconsin.
Alright, so it didn't last long...
Watch the video on id software / doom / wolfenstein 3D
Cray supercomputers were (and are still) made in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.
I can listen to these tech tales for hours at a time. but it wouldn't be the same without your incredible voice. Keep it up Clint. 😃
The irony here being that Motorola mobility/Lenovo has carved out a respectable niche in the mid-tier Android market, while Nokia.... weeeeeeelll......
Thinkpad inspired phone fucking when, Lenovo
+Fernando Alegre if I remember rightly there were plans for a high end Lenovo phone to compete with the Surface phone, but since the surface phone never surfaced neither did the Lenovo phone.
+cameron Swingle Lenovo just announced a line of phablets.
Mid-tier? I have the Turbo 2 which as far as I am aware is squarely in the top-tier. Not the top of the top tier obviously, but definitely in there.
I actually had no idea that Lenovo had anything to do with it, certainly doesn't say so anywhere on the device.
+James Hoppe Yeah I guess mid tier would be like nexus 5 or oneplustwo
Great video. I worked at Motorola for 4 years in one of their cell phone manufacturing plants in Harvard, IL, and one was one of the many victims of the massive layoffs due to their 2001 restructuring. Still the best job I ever had . . . while it lasted.
My father worked for Motorola for a lot of my life. This video does a good job summarizing things that were background noise from my father for large portions of my childhood. Thanks for another great vid!
12:13: It looks like they are not going to re-release the razer at all!
2019:
Reminds me of the king of Swamp Castle.
"Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them.
It sank into the swamp.
So I built a second one.
And that one sank into the swamp.
So I built a third.
That burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp.
But the fourth one stayed up."
Ayy another fuzzy nerd!
It's great productions like this that make cancelling my cable tv so rewarding. Your hard work is appreciated. Thanks.
Tech tales and Thrifting are my 2 favorite segments on this channel, please never stop making these :)
No plans to stop! Hope you continue to enjoy!
I always learn something new when I watch your tech tales. I owned a Motorola Razor I felt so cool having one.
Still learning more here than I learned in school
LGR is also way more interesting
+dw6fanmanxd and sounds awesome
mate you look about 12
old photo
last time i tried updating the photo my youtube got screwed
I used to have a Motorola Razr, i used ace it at school!! And woww, the way you story tell its so captivating!! AWESOME work brother!!
Wow! I never knew Moto was so influential in the technological development of the 20th century. First car radio, 2-way radios, transistors, 8-bit microprocessors, cell phones (not once, but twice!)
Hello, Moto!
please never stop doing this series... it is so awesome... thanks
I remember Razor's being all the rage in 7th grade. Everyone had that and the Chocolate.
I love these videos!
I remember Siemens phones being very popular here when I was in 7th and 8th grade.
Now that I think about it, I haven't seen a phone from them in many many years.
They aren't making phones anymore. Sold their phone division and it was shut down briefly afterwards.
I still love my M65, a very unique device that has a magnesium exoskeleton, making it very robust. The screen was one of the best available at the time, remarkably bright and sharp for its day.
no1DdC I had a C65. It was the complete opposite. Granted I think it was a budget phone so I guess that goes without saying.
I think half my class had the RAZR (myself included)
This brought back some nostalgia. My parents both had Motorola bag phones, my mom had hers wired into the car she drove, which ended up being passed down to me as my first car. A couple phones down the road, I got my hands on silver RAZR v3 that I used for many years. It went through 3 battery packs before I ended up retiring it due to the batteries no longer being manufactured. The next one I got was a Droid MAXX that I'm still using to this day.
My warehouse/admin workplace still uses a fleet of Motorola 2 way radio walkie-talkies to exchange info between shunters/warehouse/admin.
Another amazing video in this series. Please never die, Clint.
I will forever be greatful for Motorola for making the 68000 cpu chip that made my Amiga computers possible. I also had their neigh indestructible microtac cellphone. Still have a Gp-300 radio that's survived 3 trips though water. And their Motorola Sabre "You can pound bricks with this" radio that used to be used by Navy Seals. It's rocks solid, but weighs accordingly.
I had a microtac. It could take some abuse.
It's interesting watching a video that was a good part of my career. I worked at Motorola from 1997 to 2012, through much of the peak and downfall as you documented. I worked for the infrastructure division (mobile phone networks) that went with the Motorola Solutions split. We however were bought out quickly by Nokia-Siemens (NSN) joint venture. Eventually Nokia sold off its phone operations to Microsoft and bought our the NSN joint venture. Nokia eventually went on to buy Alcatel (French telecom) - Lucent (former bell manufacturing). Now they all go by Nokia.
The Motorola tower you showed is all that is left of the "original" buildings, I live and work not to from it. The vast majority of the former campus around it has been sold off to a developer and will be some mixed use thing. Zurich Insurance also built a huge, very avaunt guard building that can best be described as a bunch of sticks put together into a vertical square on a former chunk of the campus.
Today Motorola I believe employs about 4-5000 people in the Chicago area, including the tower you showed and a new building in downtown Chicago.....a huge step down from a peak of 100,000 people around 2000!
That Zurich building is....interesting. I was kind of hoping that he'd touch on the empty campus in Harvard.
Please, do a video on NEW World Computing.
The Might and Magic Series suffered so badly, Might and Magic 9 was almost not completed.
I'd love to see that too.
+ProtoMario Yeah!
This would be awesome, they made some amazing games, Heroes of Might and Magic 3 being my favorite.
***** I don't want COD Points, I want Might and Magic X, done right, developed by New World Computing, not fucking ubisoft!
+ProtoMario hear hear!
I love this kind of mini documentaries and I would like to see more on brands who ruled their market before collapsing (or changed beyond recognition) like IBM, Atari, AOL, Palm, etc.
Damn I'd become a patreon for Tech Tales alone, regardless of the quality of all your other content. This is beyond Discovery Channel, Nat Geo or whatever, great research, good voice, just awesome.
The best of this episode: Nokia DOES make, bomb proof cellphones!
Hey LGR, just want you to know that I'm always impressed with your thorough research and really accessible presentation to what might be to most a "boring nerdy topic". Multiple thumbs up! :)
Damnit man, why are your videos so freakin' good?
This time the intro, precisely the "This is LGR Tech Tales" part, gave me the shivers, holding on for pretty long. You're awesome man, thanks for so much good content! :)
Glad you're enjoying!
I must've seen those flip phones a million times when I browsed through the Argos catalogues as a kid. They still look magic. The screens are so colourful!!
Thanks for making these! They're quite interesting and I love your attention to detail. Plus you just have a cool personality. :) Rock on, man!
I came for SIMS reviews, and stayed for the tech history lessons! Great video so fascinating!
Great addition to Tech Tales. I remember Razors being the must have phone, and I remember seeing an iPhone for the first time around then. Funny to see it all in a historical perspective, I definitely doubted the iPhone back then.
Haha my first tech job was chipping Motorola bravos back in the 90s. Great tech tales once again sir. Love it 👍
Ello Moto.
🎶
it apparently says "it moto" in English.
One of the few ''tech tales'' companies I heard about. I am happy for this video. thanks for the story-telling.
it's interesting that they kept innovating and pivoting to new tech through the years, and the minute they stopped they were gone.
The march of progress waits for no one!
My dad had Motorola's phones, I had a Motorola pager but then when I was 18 years old, my parents offered me a Siemens S6. Love it!
i love this series! just discovered it
Awesome! I hope you continue to enjoy.
Lazy Game Reviews will do, thank you!
Wow how interesting. Who knew Motorola had this long and crazy story. Great job once again Clint! Love the channel!
Pretty much the only channel I press like for before the video even starts
I honestly never knew Motorolla had such a HUGE impact on tech. That's actually really awesome. I had a Krzr back when I was younger and I was the coolest kid on the block.
One guy in middle school had the Razr Flip Phone, I was so jelly that thing was awesome. Soo stylish.
Motorola was so much more than a phone company. They played a big role in the microprocessor industry and the development of the RISC architecture. I remember many heated debates at work about RISC vs CISC. The Power PC is another story. Your videos focus on the phones does tell the financial story of Motorola well.
I remember a while back using my mom's RAZER MAXX. Feels like yesterday to me.
EDIT: 10:31 That startup brings back memories to
I never comment on RUclips videos, but I've gotta say that was an excellent video. Incredibly entertaining and informative. Keep it up!
I'm just about old enough to remember the days where if you wanted a mobile phone it was either Motorola, or something that barely worked. But here in Denmark Motorola phones more or less vanished completely at the end of the 1990s. Nokia and Ericsson completely dominated the market, along with a couple smaller local companies. The Razer phones never succeeded here - if you wanted a flip-phone you bought an Ericsson, if you wanted a brick you bought Nokia. By the time Motorola was in serious trouble, no one here knew they were still making phones since no one bothered to sell them.
This series upon rewatching is worthier of being a YT Original than anything else on there aside from Retro Tech. So worthy in fact, I’m sure they don’t deserve it knowing how RUclips treats its creators.
im watching this on a Lenovo/Motorola smartphone
gruenkragen a.z. same dude haha
gruenkragen a.z. I'm doing it with my moto 3g , hahahaha
I am watching with my Motorola Moto G (1st gen)
3 g moto here....had a krazr, RAZR, star TAC, and a grey wedge. probably best reception on grey wedge...and new moto
oBet studios me too! this celular is rugged
Had a Motorola cellphone in the past and loved it. I had no idea they had such an illustrious and turbulent history. Love Tech Tales! Sing it with me, "Tech Tales, oo-oo!"
I watched this on a Motorola smart phone just to show him the nature of his race
I really like these informative videos. On my own, I likely wouldn't have bothered to research the subject, but when its an LGR video I know I will learn a good deal about the subject in a short time, with all the bases covered.
LGR Tech Tales Black Berry?
too soon?
They're still around. They made an Android phone in 2015.
Although blackberry seems dying out from regular consumers, they got a strong backing from the government and other business companies that has high security risks. Their PGP Encryption is top notch that secured blackberry from not really going under the water.
What a mess. But they are still limping along with government solutions. Some of their low-end devices are still selling in other markets.
Sam Lol I remember those
3 seconds in and I immediately noticed your use of Loscil. Excellent.
"And it looks like they won't be rereleasing the RAZR" is a comment that aged like milk
Thank You LGR , Brought back a lot of Memories :) QC
These are awesome man, keep up the good work. I was watching game historian and i thought i heard your voice lol. Nice cameo!
Thanks, am always happy to appear in Norm's videos!
+Lazy Game Reviews hey, do you have a PO box or something? I have a little bit of oddware that I think you might enjoy
Man the Razor was a slick phone back in the day. I worked in a store that sold all this stuff back then at the height of all of their popularity. Beepers were HUGELY popular with teenagers. They were like fashion accessories to them. Most people who bought cell phones from me were adults but the beeper crowd were the teens. Most of the kids who lived in the area I worked had at least one and pretty much all of our teenage employees had one.
While I knew most of this never contemplated it all together. Man, Motorola is almost as important in the tech industry's history as IBM.
More Tech Tales please. You do it like no one else
My phone is a Motorola. It's a good phone. I dropped it a few times and it didn't brake.
Ha! :)
Thats because mobile phones arnt fitted with ABS.
I've dropped my moto g at least 5 times and it has no damage, those phones are durable.
Joshua Hudson Oh, cool. Mine is a G, too!
What gen? I've got a 2nd gen.
Bought a couple DROID2 phones a long time ago. Along with upgraded batteries. The hardware still functions perfectly, batteries are all kaput. Used them for bicycle lights.
They were basically Palm top computers for me around 2010-2013. Loved the physical KB. Used it to interact with my security cameras. Music. RUclips.
The foam at the bottom of the screen started to expand and creep up the display just slightly. I think it was just from being stored in a garage over winters.
I work at Google and went to the Motorola building today, the the Motorola sign is still there but most of the floors are Google. The droid was my first smart phone!
Fascinating that the sign is still there!
UGH
Its cheaper to keep it there
:)
that and brand loyalty is why the name still exists
If you really work at Google, can you then explain me why Google officially supports the TPP? It is obviously very bad for consumers and little companies!
publicpolicy.googleblog.com/2016/06/the-trans-pacific-partnership-step.html
Wow. It’s such a huge and interesting retrospective story. Thank you very much!
Flash forward to 2019 and they are in fact going to make the Razor again! Yay!
I've been an intern at Motorola Mobility in 2014. I started working 2 weeks before Lenovo aqcuired the company. I really enjoied working there.
At the end of the intership I have had to write an report for my college about the company history and the work I've done there, this video would have helped me a lot!
You finally made it to the top. Your video is on Android Police 😁
I saw that, very cool indeed!
+Lazy Game Reviews that's how I'm here
What is this Android police you are talking about? Never heard from them.
+JD a magazin
Great video! I got a kick out of looking at all those old commercials.
Half way through I realized that I was watching this on my Moto phone.
These are hands down my favourite videos
I've liked my Motorola smartphones so much more than any of the other brands I've owned.
I loved my motorola pebble back in the day. I only bought motorola consistently until my iphone3g.
I got the moto G3 (2gb version) a few months ago
has a nice quad core wich plays carmageddon and GTA fine, has 2 gb of ram wich is enough, and the battery lasts for 6 days of normal use
(normal use for me is making pics, using whatsapp, some calls and some sporadic browsing)
so for 200 bucks i would say this is the best phone one can possibly get!
it outperforms many 500+ dollar phones, and it outperforms pretty much everything on battery life
Which 500+ phone does it outperform ? :)
eugeeeneee
multiple iphones and samsungs etc, just look up the specs and see some benchmark tests. The specs for the g3 (2gb version) are rediculously high for just 200 bucks
If you compare the moto g 2015 to a 2015 flagship from apple or samsung it'll get wrecked
not a bad phone but not really as good as the recent flagships when it comes to most things
eugeeeneee
i didnt say it would beat the new flagships ;) i only said it beats multiple 500+ dollar phones, wich is cool for a 200 bucks phone, especially since also the battery life is stupidly long
This reminds me of when my Dad brought home his first cellphone around 2005 and my sister and I had fun recording ringtones he could use. An old heavy duty looking black cell phone with a bright orange screen. It was awesome.
But I hear the new Moto Z with the Moto Mods was supposed to be an amazing phone. I tried it at a Rogers store and it is a great phone. Motorolla isn't quite dead yet in my opinion
EpicEverythingDude75 the cell I have now is a Motorola.. It's by far the best one I've had to date.. Indestructible...
EpicEverythingDude75 the cell I have now is a Motorola.. It's by far the best one I've had to date.. Indestructible...
EpicEverythingDude75 the cell I have now is a Motorola.. It's by far the best one I've had to date.. Indestructible...
that's Lenovo bud it's only Motorola in name
LeGoogle Chrome
Ahh OK.
I have a Motorola Droid Turbo right now. I've had it about a year now. The best thing about it is that it's the first phone that I've gotten in years that didn't fail on me in the first few weeks and needed to get replaced.
They're reintroducing the Razr btw
I can come back to your videos at any point, and they are still great. Ahead of your times LGR
again great work. please please do more of this series.
keep it up man.
do u have a patrion?
Yep
www.patreon.com/LazyGameReviews/posts
+Lazy Game Reviews awesome. hitting it up now.
Thanks a lot!
Great vídeo LGR, proudly watching from a motorola droid razr maxx.
Your vídeos rock!
Tech tales on myspace and a random search engines like ask jeeves etc? Sega would be a good one along with atari and 3do
I remember the Razr being the must have in 2006 but when I went to go purchase and android phone I was surprised to see them still around crazy how things change. Good to hear you in Gaming Historians video again.