[Quick Review] Motorola Droid Razr

[xsylus]

Not being able to change out batteries is a major design flaw, heck that's one of the reasons I never liked the iPhone. I'm not always going to be near an outlet where I can recharge my phone and I'm not always going to have my charger with me so being able to carry a spare battery is a must. Unless Motorola has unlocked some magical new battery technology that makes the phone last for several days of heavy usage, having a phone that needs to be recharged after 12 hours because you can't switch out the battery is asinine. I guess I just need to start looking at other vendors because Motorola is no longer producing products I want to buy.

 

[WildcatRudy]

I just got a Thunderbolt this week, a hand-me-down from someone who upgraded to the Rezound. To say the TBolt runs circles around my Droid 1 is an understatement--I can't believe I lived with all that lag for so long. (Yep, I had that poor li'l phone so loaded up it wasn't funny.)

The TBolt of course is much larger than the Droid, and my buddy sent along the Seidio rubberized case as well. So it is much larger in my hands than the Droid. But...I have long fingers, so it actually fits my hands a lot better with the case than without.

At my last outside sales job, they gave us all RAZR phones, and I hated it--the phone was too narrow and too thin, and I'd actually get hand cramps trying to hold onto the silly thing. You had to hold it by the skinny edges so as not to press the buttons on the inside of the phone, and then you had to be careful as to which edges you held, as some had buttons, making it even more frustrating. I had a bulky but more hand-friendly Nextel i670 as my personal phone and it was a lot more comfortable to work with.

At least this new RAZR is wider, so I would probably be more comfortable with the width than others would. But having held the TBolt both with and without the case, I can say that I prefer holding it with the added extra bulk, and I'm not so afraid of hitting the side buttons inadvertently now.

BTW, not having a removable battery is a huge drawback, especially for those who root their phones or run a lot of stuff on it. How many times have some of us had to pull the battery in order to recover a crashed phone?

 

[trestevenson]

BTW, not having a removable battery is a huge drawback, especially for those who root their phones or run a lot of stuff on it. How many times have some of us had to pull the battery in order to recover a crashed phone?

I thought the same thing about my D1 until someone mentioned the fact that you could do a soft-reboot by pressing the 'Left-ALT + Left-Shift + DEL' keys on the physical keyboard simultaneously. I'd imagine Motorola has this functionality built into all of their devices, especially if the battery isn't removable.

 

[regkilla]

You mean the Droid 4 will have an unremoveable battery I know just a typo..

I added 'will not' on accident lol

 

[regkilla]

No, future THIN and LIGHT Motorola phones will have non-removeable batteries. Full-thickness devices will likely retain removeable batteries, extended batteries are extremely important to some customers.

Have proof of future Motorola smartphones still having removable batteries?

 

[mkemvp32]

There is no freaking way that one could be better off with an OG rather than the razr. I can say that, I have a rooted OG running Liquid. I love my phone and everything it has been able to do. But I have to admit that it has become dated concerning specs and hardware. ICS will probably never run(fully working) on the OG. Plus the processing power is no where near the Razr. The build and design of the Razr are top notch. Nothing compares to it. The only reason peeps like the Nexus is because of the software, which the Razr will get in 2012. Then the circle will be complete and the prophecy of the one who will bring balance to the Force will be fulfilled......

 

[eshef]

I humbly disagree - I'm no pro-basketball player, just a little old lady, but I don't find it too wide. I was afraid I would after reading the reviews, but, coming from the OG, I find it surprisingly comfortable. :biggrin:

 

[Dan_08]

I've gotta disagree with you on this one. I think the RAZR is a great phone. One that you can hold on too for years like the OG Droid and still be happy with it. I've had the RAZR for about a week coming from the OG and iPhone4s (no comment). I will put out my own review soon.

I'm curious about the glitches you mentioned in the bad....I haven't noticed any.

I'm really surprised at the amount of hate for non-removable batteries. I guess I'm in the minority when I live near power outlets. I do work an office job with an outlet, and drive a car with an outlet, odd that most don't. Crazy to think you own a $300 dollar phone but don't have access to an outlet. As far conducting a battery pull, only had to do that when the OG droid was acting up (speaker phone and vibrating issue).

I was also going to wait on the GNexus but after seeing the review about the plastic build quality I passed. I love Motorola's build quality and call quality. RAZR will have enough DEV support to have the pure Android feel just as the OG did, so no sweat there. Remember most of us here love android cause of the pseudo-hacks we can do.

 

[mastacox]

So for what it's worth we ended up returning my wife's Bionic to get her a Razr too. Although I didn't see much of a difference (honestly I didn't play with the Bionic much), she found that the Razr's interface seems snappier, apps launch faster, and there is somewhat less "bugginess" according to her. We found a couple of big bugs with Google Voice and the Bionic which don't appear to manifest on the Razr, and the camera seems faster too.

Basically, I'm not sure the Bionic and Razr should be considered "exactly" the same... maybe just "mostly." Maybe she just got jealous of the Razr's looks!

 

[rogerthat227]

The phone is too sexy to resist. It looks so good naked, I almost feel like a perv when I take it out of its case.

 

[regkilla]

The phone is too sexy to resist. It looks so good naked, I almost feel like a perv when I take it out of its case.

...lol