The Razr smartphone is Motorola's latest revival of the Razr line and has been called the thinnest and most powerful smartphone to date. ITWeb investigated to see whether the device lives up to its claims.
The Motorola Razr is very slim and lightweight despite packing a 1.23GHz dual-core CPU.
The microSIM card and memory card tucks into the side of the device. The battery cannot be accessed at all, but the upside of this is that it makes the device slimmer and less bulky.
Military grade
The stylish device is visually appealing and features Corning Gorilla Glass, which makes the screen damage-resistant.
The back of the phone is encased in strong, yet lightweight, Kevlar fibre, the same material used in the aerospace industry. This strengthens the phone, makes it robust and also protects it against water damage.
Vibrant screen
The feature that stands out the most is the Razr's 4.3-inch super amoled display, which knocks its competitors out of the race in terms of screen vibrancy and image sharpness.
In summary:
Pros: Excellent, intuitive touch-screen; extremely fast and responsive; thin and light to the touch
Cons: Pricey, poor battery
Rating: 9/10
Software platform: Android 2.3.5 (Gingerbread)
Dimensions: 130.70 x 68.90 x 7.1mm
Connectivity: 3G, WiFi, GPRS, Edge
Display: 4.3-inch, amoled screen
Weight: 127g
Camera: 8MP, 1.3MP P2P video, LED, geo-tagging, face detection
CPU: 1.2GHz dual-core Cortex-A9 CPU, PowerVR SGX540 GPU, TI OMAP 4430 chipset
RAM: 1GB
Storage and memory: 1GB RAM x 16GB ROM, 11.5GB user available memory, microSD up to 32GB
Price: R6 999
The screen is completely touch-sensitive and Motorola has done away with traditional buttons. The screen is slick to the touch; however, the keyboard took some time getting used to, as the keys are quite small and it doesn't feel the same as other touch-sensitive smartphones, such as the Sony Xperia or Samsung Galaxy S2.
The built-in 8MP HD camera impressed and provided sharp and clear images. It also has auto-focus that performed well, as well as facial recognition and geo-tagging.
User interface
The user interface is exceptional, and takes you to the familiar Android home-screen with apps and widgets. Navigating between apps is extremely easy, and it took very little time to learn the functionality of the phone. It comes preloaded with social networks, YouTube, Google Navigation, Places, music, news and weather apps, Google Talk, Gmail and QuickOffice. It also comes with a handy task manager that lets users programme which apps and tasks need to perform at a particular time. For instance, a particular ringtone can be set during work hours, or news can be set to stream in the mornings only.
An interesting feature is the MotoCast media server, which users can run from their desktop PCs or Macs. Content can be streamed to the device using 3G and WiFi networks, and can be downloaded to the phone for offline usage. It's a great way to store videos, images and music without hogging too much storage.
Lightning fast
The Motorola Razr gets full marks in terms of multi-tasking and speed when carrying out high-performance tasks such as downloading apps, viewing videos, streaming and uploading content. The screen is also large enough, though not too large to be considered a tablet device, to view videos as if I were watching an HD movie at home.
The biggest disadvantage was its battery life, and I found doing many high-performance tasks drained the battery in a matter of hours.
Overall, the Motorola Razr is well-suited to those who are looking for a powerful multimedia phone that offers exceptional quality, good looks, fast performance, great video playback and social media content, but at a costly price.
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