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Motorola V3 Razr Review
Author: extremepc
Date Posted:06/03/2005 13:24.52
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Bottom Line:
The Motorola Razr phone brings great style and features to a cell phone, but is it worth the $500 pricetag?
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Design
Okay, straight-up, this is the best-designed phone I have ever seen. It really is absolutely stunning to look at. But, lets go through the design, shall we?
The first thing you notice about the Razr is obviously the thickness, or should I say, lack of thickness. The phone is just 14mm thick, and holds the record for being the thinnest cell phone on the market. Unfortunately, it’s width makes up for the thinness, as it 53mm wide, which does initially look somewhat awkward. However, this is accustomed to.
On the front of the phone, you find two noticeable things, one being the color external LCD, and the other being the camera. The LCD is capable of displaying 4,096 colors, and gives you basic information, such as the time, signal strength, and battery life. If you have a picture attached to someone in your address book, the picture will show up on the external LCD when that person calls. The camera is much less impressive, however. It’s just a VGA camera, and with 1.3MP phones on the market, and 2MP models coming soon, VGA just doesn’t stand out. That said, it is just a camera phone, and was never intended to replace a normal camera.
The left side of the phone has a number of things, one being the charger/mini-USB port. That’s right, this phone has a mini-USB port right on the phone, so you can charge it while it is connected to the computer via USB, or you can charge it via the included AC adaptor. While Cingular did not include a USB cable, I found that my Sony digital camera cable fit the mini-USB port, and worked when connected to my iMac G5 without issues.
Also on the left side you’ll find three buttons. These are, strangely, on the LCD part of the phone, not on the actual base, which does feel somewhat awkward. I assume this was done to keep the thickness down. Anyway, the top two buttons control the volume of the phone, and the bottom button does two different things. When the phone is closed, holding down the button activates the camera on the external LCD, and pressing it again takes a picture. When the phone is open, the button is used as a shortcut key.
On the right side, you’ll find a single button which is used for voice command/voice dialing. On the bottom, things are much less exciting. You’ll see the speakerphone speaker, as well as the battery cover. Taking off the cover reveals (surprise) the battery, as well as the SIM card.
Opening up the phone is where things get interesting. This reveals the phone’s giant 262,000 color LCD screen, which looks absolutely outstanding, and by all means looks better then my previous Motorola v80 screen. It is really no comparison. However, it only displays 64,000 colors, but more on that later. Just below the screen is the keypad, which is actually chemically etched into metal, to keep the phone thin. It looks and feels incredible, but it may take some getting used to, as it does feel different then any other phone. People who I’ve shown the phone to actually thought it was a touch-pad; however, it is not. You do need to press down on the keys to input numbers/letters. Besides the standard 10 numbers, and # and * keys, you’ll find quite a few buttons. To begin with, you’ll notice that Motorola finally has the start/end keys laid out correctly. It has been a long-standing complaint that Motorola puts these two keys opposite to other cell phone manufacturers, and Motorola has finally corrected this. Just above this are the internet and messages shortcuts, which do come in handy. Right above that is the navigational buttons, and the selection buttons. The keypad does get very dirty, however, and does require cleaning often if you like keeping your phone looking new.
It is worth noting that this phone is made with aircraft-grade aluminum. I’m not sure if the aircraft-grade part is just a bunch of propaganda, but it sure is fun to tell your friends.
Like I’ve been saying, the design of the V3 Razr is unparalleled to any other phone I’ve seen, and if you do see something that rivals it’s design, I ask you to send me a quick e-mail about it.
Any design complaints with the the V3? For one thing, it’s a big too wide for my taste. I suppose this was necessary to hold the internal antenna, the keypad, etc. in such a thin unit, but it still is bothersome. Another thing that irks me is the fact that there is no headphone port. I am thinking they took it out because it has Bluetooth, and to avoid the ugly little headphone port, but I don’t have a Bluetooth headset, and I would have liked to use my current headset. Other then those two minimal issues, the V3 is virtually flawless design-wise.
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