Each week Adam Frucci takes a closer look at the latest gadget buzz in his column, Shift.

As gadgets and technology have become more mainstream in recent years, how a device looks has become just as important as how it functions — if not more so. Now that it's commonplace to see people walking around with a cell phone, MP3 player, and PDA, people want to make a style statement with their gadgets of choice. You only have to browse the archives of this very blog to see that many pieces of technology garner attention just for the way they look. Take the iMac — sure, its guts were all right, but people were more interested in having a computer they didn't want to hide under a desk.

Which brings us to two of the biggest "fashion gadgets" of the past few years: Apple's iPod and the Motorola RAZR phone. They both sold millions based on their aesthetics, but did form outweigh function too much in these cases? Let's take a look.

When originally released, the slim RAZR was strikingly different than other cell phones on the market. Extremely stylized and one of the first phones to come with a relatively large 2.2-inch screen, the RAZR immediately grabbed people's attention. Motorola capitalized on the slick design, charging a whopping $500 for the phone with a two-year contract signing. However, were people paying for a top-of-the-line phone or just a mediocre one in fancy clothes?

The phone, while it looks slick, had all sorts of design issues, including a slow, ugly interface and crawling data transfer rates. While the phone is Bluetooth equipped, the Bluetooth functions were limited in most versions and might as well be there only to hook up to an optional Bluetooth headset. Oh, and there's no headphone jack, so you'll need to buy a Bluetooth headset if you want to use any hands-free earpiece. Additionally, the design was arguably not user-friendly, with its straight lines making it less comfortable than other models that featured more curves.

The iPod, as pretty much everyone knows, revolutionized portable audio and how people listen to music. Despite having fewer features than many competing digital audio players, it continues to outsell every other player on the market by an astounding margin. The instantly recognizable design and white earbuds have become a fashion statement and a must-have for people who listen to music on the go. But unlike the RAZR, the iPod is not a mediocre player shoved into a slick package.

So how does the iPod succeed where the RAZR fails? First, the iPod integrates how one uses the device into the design seamlessly, making everything on the player easy and obvious. Beyond the austere styling, the functionality of the iPod is what makes it so beautiful and iconic. The click wheel makes browsing and selecting music an intuitive snap, and there wasn't a bunch of bloated crap on it that you would never use. The iPod is made to play music, and it does that well. If you want to listen to the radio, check your appointments, or play games, you'd probably be best to look elsewhere (although those things aren't impossible on the iPod).

The RAZR, on the other hand, stood out when it was first released only because of its size and shine. How it worked had little or nothing to do with how it was designed, and the interface and other features ended up feeling like an afterthought. Basically, the iPod's designers said, "Let's create a killer, user-friendly digital music player, and cut away everything else." A great design came out of such a clear focus. The RAZR's designers, on the other hand, seemed to say, "Let's create a really sexy-looking gadget and put the phone stuff in later."

What makes the iPod a genre-defining gadget is focus, and what makes the RAZR just another nice-looking, ultimately forgettable gadget is the lack thereof. While the RAZR is a best seller now, it's not something that's going to have the influence and staying power of the iPod. Soon enough another slick phone will come along with a buzz-generating price tag, probably with better features, and it'll steal the spotlight. It might be here already — what phones and gadgets do you, dear reader, think serve as great examples of design following function. And what disasters are out there? I await your comments…. — A.F.