The Moto Razr is back, in a radical new form.

The new Razr is an Android-powered flip phone with a big, folding screen in the middle. Like the original Razr, the new one is priced for the elite: a $499 phone in 2004 felt as out of line as a $1,500 one does today. So perhaps more than selling millions of flip Razrs, the new phone will buoy Motorola's other lines—much as Motorola's first Razr helped lend a halo to the company's popular "triplet" lines of affordable phones.

I reviewed the first Razr for PCMag. It was the first US phone that made such a strong fashion statement, although there had been weird fashion-phone lines, such as Philips' Xelibri in Europe. But it also had great call quality and reception. Then Motorola decided to cycle through Razr colors, Razr refreshes, and Razr reboots before running the product line into the rocks on the shoals of America's transition to smartphones.

Even after that, though, Verizon's thin "Razr" Android phones were the best models Motorola was making in 2011-2012, although I don't know how many people were buying them for the name.

Now, after seven years, the Razr has returned. I'm excited to see where it goes. First, though, let's see where it's been.