Remember the Motorola RAZR, the super thin flip phone from
the mid noughties? We do, and quite fondly as well. In fact a few of us Test Pitters
had that particular model, back in the days when the best you could hope for in
a phone was that it made calls, sent texts and took tiny lo-res photos of your
dog sleeping. These days our mobiles do a wee bit more, so it was with excited
anticipation that we tore open the box of the new Motorola RAZR i.
Motorola have been somewhat lacking from the shelves since
the smart phone revolution and the company’s products have hardly been on the
public radar. That is until now, however. The RAZR i is a 4.3 inch smart phone
with a few nifty features. We got to grips with it, gleefully.
The handset itself is nice and slim and a joy to hold. The
marketing is blasting on about the 4.3 inch screen being ‘edge-to-edge’, so we
were expecting something a bit more… erm… screeny. However, even though a lot
of phones have the 4.3 inch screen these days, the fact that there is very
little ‘edge’ to the RAZR i means that the whole handset seems much smaller and
neater. Even the girl we handed it to thought it was okay size-wise. A girl!
Switching it on we were especially impressed by the quality
of the nothingness. By that we mean the blackness of the screen. The Motorola M
logo burned onto the screen in bright red, while the surrounding surface
remained completely black. It was a nice introduction to what is beautifully bright
and crisp display, probably one of the best we’ve seen on an Android phone.
Android 4.0 looks lovely on the phone and everything runs
extremely smoothly – thanks no doubt to the Intel processor deep within the innards.
The presence of the processor is further highlighted by the ‘Intel Inside’ logo
on the back of the phone, which if we’re being honest, detracts from the
overall sleekness. Still, the other people on the tube will be dead impressed
while you chatter away.
Speaking of which, call quality was excellent, as was
texting and composing emails/tweets/notes etc. We really did notice the
processor working, as every operation (and we ran several at once) was quick
and smooth with no detectable lag or slowing down.
The camera is another big highlight of the marketing. The
8MP camera takes good quality shots, sure, but nothing we haven’t seen before.
The great feature of the little snapper is ‘multi-shot’ mode, in which you can
take ten shots in the space of just one second. Not really useful for capturing
the sleeping dog, but if you’re YOUNG and into EXTREME sports, you can snap your
mates on their skateboards, popping ollies and falling over on their FACES,
seeing perfectly the moment that their nose breaks.
Motorola also inform us that the RAZR i is splash and
scratch proof. This is good news, particularly if you work in a sand paper
factory near the sea. However, the sim card and SD port are located on the side
of the phone under a flimsy plastic cover, one that wobbles about a bit, even
straight out of the box. How this will stop those splashes getting into the
insides of the phone, we don’t know, and the slight of the flap did cause us to
make a sad sound, as did the visible screws on the case.
But still, these physical flaws aside, the Motorola RAZR i is
a very good phone, solidly built and enjoying its impressive processing power.
If you’re looking for a smart phone that will not only look different to all
the rest on the high street but also pack a punch in operation, the RAZR i might
be the one for you.
£319.99 – depending on where
you buy.