back to article Hands on with the Motorola Razr

Motorola let me have a play with its latest smartphone, the Razr, at the handset's launch event in Berlin yesterday. Motorola Razr I should first point out that its 7.1mm body feels incredibly thin and impresses from the start. As you can see, it bulges out a bit at the top, thanks to the 8Mp camera and flash, but it doesn't …

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  1. Arrrggghh-otron

    Razr?

    Am I the only one disappointed that this isn't like the v3 style Razr? I was expecting twin screen* flip phone goodness...

    *Or 3 screens, with two touch screens on the inside and the tiny notification screen on the outside

    1. HP Cynic

      Yeah, I actually dugout and "unboxed" my RAZR v3 last night. After 4 years in that box I was amazed how quickly it recharged and I could see my old wallpaper there on the screen.

      Alas I had no appropriately sized SIM to play with so my adventure ended there...

      1. Robredz

        I have my trusty Razr V9 charged and ready, for when my C6 battery dies far from home....

    2. FanMan
      Facepalm

      Me too

      I thought razr = cutthroat razor = flip open the cool american way

  2. NoneSuch Silver badge
    Meh

    If making direct comparisons to an iPhone...

    ...please tell people what works on the RAZR but does not on the iPhone as well. That is called balanced reporting. Let's face it there are more than a few issues with the 4S that do not exist on the RAZR. No mention of that in your article.

    Setting the iPhone up as THE standard to beat is biased reporting pure and simple. If you own an iPhone you should declare that in your article up front.

    1. Tony Smith, Editor, Reg Hardware (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: If making direct comparisons to an iPhone...

      Caleb does not own an iPhone.

    2. geekclick

      If making direct comparisons to reviews...

      Shouldn't that be the job of a full review rather than just a first hand on test?

    3. Andy 3

      But iPhone is the standard to beat. Motorola is a company; a company that makes to want a boat load of cash. They may say they are passionate about "geek stuff v1" and "sparkly geek feature v2" but at the end of the day they want to sell stuff. Same as Apple.

      Whether you like iPhones is moot. They sell. They sell by the warehouse full. In some instances companies are copying their looks and supplying software and services to compete with the iPhone and iOS which is fine but they need to be better an iPhone. What does the 4S do worse on than the Razr? Motorola should be pushing these points and honing them to perfection.

      Apple's success is good marketing, good looking products, and ensuring that the user experience is intuitive and nice. Customers want a nice easy to use device. They may not care that their iPhone doesn't support some function that only a fraction of geeks would use. Doing a core set of things well and slowly expanding seems to be Apple's methodology rather than just having every feature available but giving a poor experience.

    4. HP Cynic

      Well the iPhone is the standard by virtue of sales and ubiquity (if not quality) so virtually every article of this nature will make a comparison to that device.

      There's already several sites listing tables comparing the iPhone 4S, RAZR, Galaxy Nexus alas most copy and pasted one source complete with errors such as overstating the iPhones CPU rating.

      My own declaration: PAC code received, Smartphone decision still not made but narrowed down to 4 handsets across 3 competing OS platforms. Or maybe 5 handsets :P

    5. Chris 3

      Since you set up the question

      What *are* the issues that exist on a 4sS, bit not on a RAZR?

    6. Sartori
      Stop

      I think you must have missed something

      And i quote from the article "our in-depth review will follow closely behind. From a five-minute play-around, though, I have to agree with Motorola: this is one sexy smartphone"

      No mention of a lot of things, as the article said, it was a report based on a brief play on the phone. If you're going to criticize the article, it's helpful if you have read it first. Wait for the full review if you want every detail.

    7. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      But...

      as single* handsets go, it **is** the handset to beat. Claiming bias because a journalist doesn't share your world view is asinine.

      *not Android vs iOS, which is still pretty even.

    8. ThomH

      Check the sales figures

      The cold hard objective fact is that if you break the market down by handset then the iPhone is the gold standard. It massively outsells every single other individual handset. This isn't an article about operating systems or applications or even just user experience more generally, and the various other market factors that contribute to the iPhone handset totals - even those that a balanced journalist would likely argue relate to Apple's negative aspects - aren't relevant.

      Accusing the journalist of bias is classic pot and kettle stuff.

    9. Dave 126 Silver badge
      WTF?

      he made ONE comparison...

      It was a balanced article.

      He only compared the two phones' respective cameras, and he only did so to give the reader a rough rule-of-thumb idea of RAZR's camera's performance and output- this makes sense, as a reader can surely find many reviews and samples of the iPhone4S's camera on the internet.

      The article was comparing the phone to all other competing (ie, of roughly equivalent features and price) phones, and was clearly not written as a "RAZR vs iPhone 4S head-to-head" style review. Indeed, the conclusion was along the line of "worth considering", rather than "thrashes all others".

      The only other mention of the iPhone was to say that neither had user-replaceable batteries - a statement that can not be accused of imbalance.

  3. BenR
    Alert

    More importantly

    The screen - OLED good. But how good? Some sort of qualitative comparison to the SAMOLED on the SGS2 would be handy.

    And have Moto stuck with the God-forsaken PenTile matrix that saw service on the Atrix?

  4. Andy Farley

    One thing

    I miss from my old BB was being able to turn it off and it would turn on at a specific time. Helps when you're out and about. I wonder if these "actions" will go that far.

  5. Gio Ciampa

    Non-removable batteries...

    ...I smell another "you're copying us" suit on the way... ;^D

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Another indoor toy

    Why no IP67-certification? Dust and waterproofing is possible without added weight or size, and shouldn't affect the visual design either. Reviewers should adopt IP67 as a minimum requirement for any mobile gadget intended for outdoor use.

    1. Lord Elpuss Silver badge
      WTF?

      IP67?

      Because the overwhelming majority of customers neither want nor need IP67, unless it's free. And as Motorola exists to make money, it's not going to be free now, is it?

  7. Zog The Undeniable
    Trollface

    I've got a RAZR already!

    It cost £400 when it first went on sale although mine was about £50, unused, from fleaBay.

    Yes, I use a phone made in 2005.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Looks quite nice...

    ...and I might have even considered buying an Android phone...although I hate Google's data mining crap...but without a removable battery...just like the iPhone...not a chance. Won't own either of them.

  9. Sly
    FAIL

    no removable battery

    if the hardware locks up... you can't reboot it without a reset button (serious lock where even holding the power button won't turn it off). I've managed that a couple times with my own android phone. Trying out apps and running games... sometimes the thing hard locks. I have to take the battery out to reboot the silly thing. Without this option, power users, some devs, root types, will probably pass it up since waiting for the battery to totally drain out will be majorly annoying. Plus... what if the consumer is like me and likes to keep kit for 3-4 years. the battery will probably crater in 2 if not sooner... and even then, a two year contract means you're stuck for 2 years unless you pay extra for "upgrades" and getting a replacement battery for phones with removable batteries is easy and pretty cheap. Takes 5 seconds to swap out with fat fingers that all work like thumbs and gives the phone new life.

    I'll stick with the one I've got.

    1. Brian 6
      Stop

      DOH!!

      If your keeping your current phone for 4 years you WONT be buying this will ya ? Who says there will be no way to reset the phone ?? And finally Ive replaced the batteries in devices with "non replaceable" batteries before, not really that difficult. Just look how many companies are selling replacement Iphone batteries.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Steaming pile of ordure

    From another site:

    "Motorola Droid Razr running Android 2.3 Gingerbread will not get an upgrade to Android 4 until early 2012, according to Alain Mutricy, Motorola vice president."

    If at all..

    And - after I swore I'd never buy another Motorola after the Dext 1.5 debacle (Moto + CEO lied in public and in print that the Dext would receive an update to 2.1, but subsequently retracted...) - who'd have thunk it eh?

    1. PhilF

      +1 to that!

      I got caught the same way and there are enough clues in this quick overview (great build quality, poor camera, old software that will be upgraded) that makes me think this is going to offer the same experience we got from the Dext / Cliq i.e. worth a punt for the US market but avoid with the proverbial 10' pole in Europe.

  11. David Gosnell

    Non-interchangeable battery

    I may be wrong (I frequently am) but I thought that Google mandated an interchangeable battery if their certification, access to Marketplace etc was wanted. Or has all that gone out of the window?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The review states it's "unfortunate" that the phone doesn't come with a version of Android that hasn't been released yet?

    1. Tony Smith, Editor, Reg Hardware (Written by Reg staff)

      Re:

      Yes, but the phone hasn't been released either.

      No reason why an unreleased product couldn't be scheduled to appear as to allow it to use another unreleased product.

  13. Chris 171

    Not a bad effort

    Looks kinda nice, size & shape wise. Little lumps here & there morph into grabs when you've had a device for a while. Nothing but pain with Moto tho Still not keen on Android either. Im following the evolution of S^3 for the foreseeable I think.

    Still not the first flagship Nokia WP7 device either, thats what we really need to see.

    Kinda hope its not just a ported N9.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Doesn't look special

    I am quite certain it is a capable handset. That's not my point.

    Designwise, there is no hint of "character", or any appeal apart from tech specs.

    It is possible to make a rectangular slab with a big screen with some character.

    The original Droid had a distinctive look. Not beautiful, but distinctive. Almost all HTC devices share some "design language". The original ye olde HTC Desire is a good looking thing, and the resemblance continues on to the current flagship the Sensation.

    Take a look at the current crop of Sony devices. Though I don't like the design of the GSII (same complaint as the new Razr, only worse), the two Nexus devices by Samsung have nice, fluid shapes.

    Only the rehashing the name of an old and successful design does not a good design make.

    This is consumer electronics business. The design does matter - it reflects on sales.

    (I know the GSII sold 30million units - I'm saying if it looked anything like the Sony Arc, it would sell more)

  15. pctechxp

    Yawn...yet another touchscreen

    Some of us still like good quality keypads.

    All of these touchscreen phones are basically the same with different chassis

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