Cingular, T-Mobile Get RAZR Burn

Wireless operators Cingular and T-Mobile have temporarily halted sales of Motorola's popular RAZR phone due to a glitch which causes shutdowns and dropped calls.

Cingular Wireless and T-Mobile USA have halted sales of Motorola’s popular RAZR thinline mobile phone due to a technical problem which can cause the phone to drop calls or shut down when the handset is flipped open.

The problem is apparently a defect in a particular batch of GSM-compatible RAZR phones, rather than a problem with the entire phone line. Cingular and T-Mobile have pulled the phones from retail sale to identify handsets in the bad batch. Motorola hopes to begin selling the phones again later this week. According to Motorola, the bad handsets were shipped to operators between January 16 and February 28; Cingular stopped selling the phones March 6 and T-Mobile followed suit on March 8. Motorola does not currently plan to recall any phones, but will take faulty phones back from wireless operators.

The RAZR was introduced in 2004 and quickly became Motorola’s most popular phone, with sales of more than 12 million RAZR handsets propelling the company from an “also-ran” in a mobile phone world dominated by Nokia and Samsung to a leading handset manufacturer.