Motorola RAZR V Hands On Review [Video]
The RAZR name these days carries some historic weight with cell phones. The Android RAZR that came out was a phenom of its time and had huge hype that it definitely lived up to. Recently there were all the announcements about the next generation of RAZR devices.
This is the review of the V model. It’s the entry level device for the RAZR, but when I say ‘entry’ don’t think it’s basic. It’ll still handle its own quite well. And at $30 on a 3 year contract that’s quite attractive when stacked against a $100 Note or $200 S3.
So let’s get to it.
Summary
Specs
- 4.3″ screen 960×540 (Gorilla Glass)
- 1.2GHz x2 TI-OMAP
- 1GB RAM
- 4GB storage
- 8MP Camera / 1.3MP
At 4.3″ it’s still larger than the iPhone 5, but isn’t incredibly smaller than some of the ‘top of the line’ phones out there. It’s got a great feel when holding it as the finger rests just well under the ‘bump’ in the back.
Outside
- no accessible battery
- nice ‘kevlar’(?) back
- Gorilla glass
- speaker at the top
- big ‘chin’, and notification light is at top
- microSD/SIM slot
Accessing the battery isn’t a huge option, but it’s something that a lot of users scream for. Well, if it’s what you want, then don’t get this phone. That aside, the battery life has been quite good for what I’ve used.
Tom’s talked a fair bit about ‘wasted space’ on the design of a phone, and with the big ‘chin’ you can see that with this phone.
Inside
- ICS 4.0.4
- Motoblur’ish
- can categorize the app drawer
- loaded with ‘office’ apps (gotomeeting, citrix, priter)
- smart actions
Although it’s not the new fresher looking UI of the Atrix (see my previous review), it’s still pretty close to a vanilla experience. The lock screen reminds me of the first RAZR, yet opening it up it seems like a stock device, with a few exceptions. I miss the ‘circles’ and gesturable icons from the Atrix.
The app drawer is pretty good how you can customize it by folders, but still look like stock.
I do love the mail app. Wouldn’t mind porting it to other devices.
You also get plenty of ‘office apps’ like Citrix, Go to Meeting, QuickOffice and a wireless printing, which works out of the box, like it did on the Atrix.
Typical of the Motorola lines you also have access to the Smart Actions (which I’ve covered in previous devices before). A very cool feature, but I haven’t yet fully dived into it yet (afraid I might start to like and it and not be able to live with out it.
Usage
- responsive – yet there is a difference
- feels large
- good battery life
- LOUD
- SmartActions
- Soft buttons
It handles quite well on its own, and I didn’t really notice any lag on any of the stuff I put it through. The benchmarking puts it either slightly ahead of, or slightly below the Galaxy Nexus. But maybe it’s just the JellyBean – but I did feel like it was slightly slower than my Nexus (and my Nexus is loaded down). Not by a lot, but enough for a notice.
Camera
Decent enough. My only real complaint with it is that the app doesn’t rotate. That’s kind of a pain.
The ‘low light’ option didn’t look all that different than having the camera on Auto (in some cases made it even darker).
hopefully Minus hasn’t changed their embedded gallery options… if so, click this to go to the album.