In the mid-90s, Motorola released the StarTAC, a cell phone with a revolutionary clamshell design taking the world by surprise. Years later, it became a staple in Motorola's product portfolio as North Americans everywhere became flip phone fanatics.

But as times progressed, Motorola's clamshell market share slowly dwindled as it released less popular T720, and V-series phones; unable to sustain the dominance held by the StarTAC.

Recently, Motorola attempted to appeal to lost fans by releasing a StarTAC inspired device in the Korean market. But it took a decade to re-introduce the North American market to an upgraded design.

Measuring 46 x 87 x 20 mm and weighting just 87 grams, the new StarTAC 2004, dubbed the V.I.P. 10th Anniversary Edition, will be an upgraded version of the original for the new millennium. Planned to run on the Verizon's new 3G cdma2000 1xEV-DO high-speed network, the StarTAC 2004 will be able to stream and store multimedia at broadband speeds stored on its 4 MB of internal memory. Optimal talk and standby times are 190 minutes and 185 hours respectively.

For multimedia, the StarTAC 2004 supports 64 chord polyphonic ringtones. And with at 128 x 160 px resolution, the 262K color TFT screen displays up to 9 lines of text. Five interchangeable covers are available for customization including red, gold, black, white, and blue.

Retailing at $1,600-$2,000 USD, the Special Anniversary Edition carries a hefty price tag. Currently, it's unknown if Motorola plans to make a reoccurring production model for the masses.

- Motorola StarTAC 2004 Image 1
- Motorola StarTAC 2004 Image 2
- Motorola StarTAC 2004 Colors
- Motorola StarTAC 2004 Package