Motorola RAZR Hands-On Review: Fast, Polished and One Odd Reboot Bug

The reboot problem

The reviewer’s RAZR rebooted repeatedly, but only at home, and only when it went to sleep while on WiFi. It behaved on the office and coffee shop networks. Other owners had described similar trouble on Motorola’s support forums, which pointed to the router. Turning off the “Super G” option fixed it. The reviewer did not know why the setting upset the phone and expected a software fix. If you see the same thing, check your router for features you can switch off.

Hardware

• Mini-HDMI, microUSB and a 3.5 mm audio jack along the top.
• Power and volume on the right, with microSIM and microSD slots on the bottom left.
• A rubberized back that grips well and no battery cover, which made the reviewer a little uneasy.
• Dual-core 1.2 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM and 16 GB of storage, about 13 GB usable.
• 4.3-inch Gorilla Glass screen at 540 x 960 and an 8 MP camera.
• Android 2.3.5 at the time, with Ice Cream Sandwich promised.

What the reviewer liked

• Launcher. Five home screens, a pinch-style overview, a swipeable app gallery with easy uninstall, and resizable widgets, giving a Honeycomb-like feel.
• Built-in data control. It gives a rough usage figure without a third-party app, and individual notifications can be cleared.
• Speed. Screens and widgets moved smoothly, with no lag once the reboot issue was solved.
• Email. The best email app the reviewer had used for an Exchange work account, with a scrollable resizable widget, formatted replies and a folder hierarchy.
• Screen. The icon grid stays 4 x 4, but extra pixels let widgets show more, such as more tasks in a task list.
• Lock screen. Swipe to unlock, mute or open the camera.

What could be better

• A social aggregator is baked into the Gallery, so social feed pictures appear before your own photos.
• Swype works well for typing, but selecting text needs a long press instead of an obvious button.
• The camera is good except in low light, with few settings. The reviewer wanted an ISO control.
• In near darkness, blacks looked fuzzy and some streaks showed, possibly a fault with the screen lighting.

Extras worth noting

MotoCast sends media between a computer and the phone wirelessly, a useful idea for less technical users. Smart Actions runs a task on a trigger, for example turning off the radio when data use climbs or dimming the screen at low battery. The reviewer did not get to test it fully.