Motorola Razr V3i review

Features
Like the original Razr, the Razr V3i is quad band, so you should be able to use it on your international travels with ease.

The camera resolution has been updated from the VGA of the original to a more respectable 1.2 megapixels. It's nice to be able to use the front screen for self portraits, and to be able to fiddle with exposure, 8x digital zoom and other settings using the navigation pad. With the flip closed you only have access to zoom control -- via the volume rocker.

You may have seen reviews that mention iTunes, but it's only the US version of the V3i that has the iTunes music software. The UK version of this handset is iTunes-free, so you'll have to make do with the player Motorola bundles with the V3i. It's not the best we've seen, but it is easy to get to grips with. You use the navigation key to move between tracks, pause and resume playback. You can generate playlists on the handset, selecting tracks to drop into these by checking through a complete listing. Some ID3 tag information is picked up by the player -- title and artist, as well as track length, but not album information. All in all, not a highly sophisticated player.

Coming as it does with a reasonably good camera and fairly serviceable music player, you might expect the V3i to have a generous amount of built-in memory, but you'd be disappointed. You get about 12MB, which is barely enough for some snaps and videos and a handful of tunes. Thankfully, the memory is expandable with microSD memory cards (also known as TransFlash). Sadly, the cards live under the battery cover, making them pesky to switch, but at least you don't have to remove the battery to swap them. Motorola supplies a 64MB card. Hardly generosity personified, but it's a start.

If you're a fan of voice control, you'll like the way that a tap of the right edge button that you hold down to record voice notes calls up a voice control system, which allows you to dial contacts and run some applications. You can't add application controls to those already present, though, and they only run to starting the camera, calling voicemail, redialling and viewing a received-calls list, as well as dialling contacts by name and reading out a number to call digit by digit.

Performance
Voice calls were unproblematic during testing in terms of volume and call quality. However, we were annoyed every time we used the speaker and closed the handset to end a call, only to remember that this feature doesn't work when the speakerphone is active.

Camera performance could be improved. While the VGA of the original Razr has certainly been bettered, we aren't particularly excited by the 1.23-megapixel resolution and would have preferred a full 2 megapixels. We found images had washed-out colours, and we had to keep a steady hand to avoid blurring.

When it comes to music, output from the device speaker is fairly good, though a little treble-rich. Sound quality was much improved though a headset -- certainly good enough for the everyday commute.

Battery life was pretty good -- we didn't drain the handset on any single day during testing, though use of a Bluetooth headset and music playing meant we came close once or twice.

Edited by Mary Lojkine
Additional editing by Nick Hide