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At Last The V3 Can Retire

It’s been more than 3 years since Motorola came out with its hugely popular and successful V3 Razr mobile phone. At the time it was a masterstroke in slim design and cool new looks, and it hasn’t really been beaten since. However, that’s all about to change with the Motorola Razr 2 V8.

Building on the classic design of its famous older brother, the Razr 2 V8 not only looks the business, it’s pretty feature-packed too. Design-wise it may not feel as solid as the V3 did, but that’s not to say the build quality isn’t good, since it’s solid enough. And with its combination of chrome, glass and stainless steel, it’s a good-looking handset to boot. Size-wise, it’s roughly the same diameter as the V3, coming in slightly taller and less deep.

The first thing you’ll notice is the large external screen – measuring 4cm by 3cm, it actually outshines many of the internal screens of the Razr 2 V8’s competition. A neat side feature of this screen is that it doubles up as a touch-sensitive screen, ideal for changing tracks on your media player.

 
 
The keypad buttons are a good size, and make navigating the menus that much easier. Speaking of the icons, they’re probably some of the cutest you’ll see on any mobile phone, and make working your way around them so much more fun. Using the keypad will probably come secondary to the touch-sensitive screen though, which has a funky little vibrate feature to confirm that a button has been pressed.

Sound quality is as good as the previous Razr phones, and although it doesn’t quite compare to Ericsson’s range of music player handsets, the Razr 2 V8 still has clear and impressive sounds, especially through the loudspeaker, which is a nice bonus.

One area that is disappointing is with the camera – since it’s only a 2.0 mega-pixel camera, the quality of the pictures can be a little grainy. This is one area that Motorola has generally struggled with in the past, though, so it’s perhaps to be expected. However, they do need to address this area, if they want their otherwise well-designed phones to truly compete in the multimedia arena.

Another slightly disappointing side to the phone is its inability to upgrade the memory. Yes, there is a very generous 2GB of internal memory, but it would have been so much better to have the option to supersize this with an SD card. Battery life is good, though, with just over 8 hours talk time and 280 hours standby.

There’s no doubt that the Razr 2 V8 is an excellent addition to the Razr range, and a worthy successor to the excellent V3. If Motorola can just iron some of the minor niggles out the next time, they really will have a phone to be reckoned with.

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