Motorola RAZR 2 V8

Guide price: £239.99

Incredibly slim, flip phone re-vamped version of the original RAZR. Slimmed down with 2mm shaved off its stunning all metal profile from the first RAZR!
This mobile is beautifully made, solid and loaded with goodies including two very hi-resolution, crystal clear, large TFT displays (the largest in its class, with a 2" outer screen and 2.2" inner!), a very competent 2 megapixel camera and full music playing abilities with stereo bluetooth, the killer feature is its ability to 'shiver' letting you know you have touched the buttons with its interactive 'cutting edge' 'haptic' technology! Sadly, lovely as this feature is, I am sure this must be the main culprit in depleting the very short life of the battery! More on this later...

This phone is equally attractive to both sexes with its metallic, gunmetal grey, shiny finish, you cannot fault the build quality, it really is truly superb. Starting up the phone after 2 hours of charging is a little slow, but you are greeted with the 'hellomoto' and beautifully rendered screen themes that are surprisingly feminine. The 'plush theme' looks especially great on the razor sharp screen, with its pink orchid floating on water and the pink menu accents.

Navigation is easy with the dedicated external buttons, internal keypad and central wheel, and all the features are easy to find, with very nice, crisp symbols and simple, clear menus. I love the fact you can still read the external clock, even when the screen is dimmed and that the internal screen theme is mirrored on the external one.

The music player is very competent and when this Motorola is closed you can control your music listening from the front with touch screen enabled controls! The speaker is also of good quality and I recommend buying the funky wireless S9 MOTOROKR headphones that are a 'made for RAZR' new accessory. (They weigh less than an once!) I see that some mobile phone retailers are offering these bundled free with the phone on a contract and are well worth having, they are light, sound good and sit on the back of your head, unobtrusively.
The camera is very useable and although only 2 megapixels, I was very impressed with the photos it produced under very varied light situations, all the pictures I took were perfectly exposed, sharp and showed great colour accuracy. Bluetooth enabled printing was a snap to set up and the photos look good as borderless 4x6' prints, even against a 6 megapixel dedicated digital cameras efforts. (Please look at the sample photos taken) The video recording capabilities are also impressive, recording up to 120 minutes in MPEG 4 format and good enough for sending up to YouTube should you be lucky enough to capture some interesting footage!

Call quality throughout the test was excellent and a good signal was kept in even poor coverage areas.

RAZR 2 V8

Quick Look Pros and Cons

Pros

Solid metal construction (Stainless steel)
Beautifully made
Crystaltalk technology for clear, easy to hear phone conversations and it really works!
Two large hi-resolution, super-sharp screens
Totally flat laser cut roomy keypad
Bluetooth with Bluetooth stereo
Two megapixel camera/video camera
Standalone music player with touch screen controls
Built-in Java games
Rough Guides built-in
Fast easy function navigation
'Haptic' technology enabled (this means the mobile vibrates or shivers when the buttons are touched)
Voice controls for total hands-free use
Edge Enabled for fast web access
Messages can be read to you!
Generous 420MB or 2GB of onboard memory
High-speed USB 2 enabled
PC Data link
Full HTML Web browsing
Picture caller ID

Cons
Greasy fingerprint magnet
Lacks a card slot for upgrading memory
Poor battery life

The battery on this mobile needed charging daily (with Bluetooth on and use of the mp3 player.) Daily charging is also necessary without the use of Bluetooth, which is by far the biggest consumer of power, and I feel this is unacceptable on such a modern competent phone. It seems that if you want a fantastically slim profile you pay dearly in lack of battery life.

Hilary's Conclusion: Superbly built convergence mobile and a very capable all rounder, but crippled with terrible battery life. Sort this out Motorola and you have a winner!

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