The long-awaited successor to the near-revolutionary Motorola V3 RAZR has finally arrived and is guaranteed to acquire plenty of attention considering the popularity of its predecessor; the question is whether it is a worthy heir.
The V8 RAZR2 is no different to your average new mobile phone these days, as plenty of glossy materials have been used, but perhaps not to as good affect as could have been had. In my personal opinion the V8"s box is more attractive than the phone itself (though that isn"t saying much.) What does deserve a little credit is the excellent protection the V8 offers against fingerprints" a common bugbear with modern mobile phones these days.
Measuring in at 11.9mm thick, the RAZR2 is adequately proportioned in that aspect, but is let down by the insistence of sporting a large screen. The 2.2" screen clearly is a dominant factor in the phone"s design as it takes over when opened up. The difficulty with fitting a large screen to a flip-phone is in the weight distribution. When opened up and held with one hand, the V8 is very difficult to hold as the weight on the top half exceeds the weight of the bottom part of the phone, making it hard to type or hold the phone open without dropping it.
A welcome addition is the implementation of touch-sensitive keys at the bottom of the external display. These are for use with the music player to obviously avoid having to open the phone when changing tracks etc. As Haptic-feedback is enabled, the usability of these keys is on a good level and is one of the best features of the RAZR2.
The level of technical updates is a major letdown, when you realise that over 3 years have passed since the release of the V3 RAZR. The camera module is 2MP but both autofocus and flash have been omitted. Although the lack of these restricts the usage of the camera, the image quality is better than I was expecting putting it at above average for a camera of this type. As the RAZR2 V8 is meant to be a Motorola flagship, a better camera was needed for it to stand any chance of competing alongside competitors in its price level.
A major point that needs to be mentioned is in the V8"s memory capabilities (or lack of.) When first announced, there was going to be one version with around 400MB of on-board memory and another with 2GB. Unfortunately only the 400MB version has been released but Motorola have neglected to include the possibility of upgrading the memory via a card slot. As part of the marketing campaign focuses on the V8"s front music-controls, the lack of expandable memory is a bizarre (and potentially damaging) omission.
The data connectivity options again have a whiff of averageness about them as well. All you get is GPRS and EDGE, no HSDPA, not even 3G which is fast-becoming a necessity for most, leaving the V8 horribly exposed in that area.
Considering what the RAZR2 had to live up to as the replacement of the much-loved V3 RAZR, it always seemed destined to fail. The biggest shock however is when the fancy appearance and promotional hullabaloo are stripped away; you"re left with an average mobile phone that has only its title and associated history to paper over the cracks the insufficient features create.