Motorola Razr V3 review

Motorola Razr V3 Review

Reviewed by: Kent German

Reviewed on: 1 December 2004

Features
The Motorola Razr V3 has a generous set of features. The 1,000-name phone book can hold six phone numbers and an e-mail address in each entry. Contacts can be assigned to caller groups and be paired with a picture (which shows up on the external screen) or any of 14 monophonic or 5 polyphonic ring tones. Other features include a vibrate mode, text and multimedia messaging, MP3 file support, a calculator, voice dialling, a date book, an alarm clock, AOL Instant Messenger, a WAP 2.0 wireless Web browser, and a voice recorder. You also get support for POP3, SMTP, and IMAP4 e-mail; full Bluetooth connectivity; a USB port; and a speakerphone. Our only complaint is that the speakerphone can be turned on only when a call is in progress. You can personalise the V3 with a variety of wallpaper, colours, screensavers, and sounds.

Snap it: The Razr V3 has a VGA camera.

The Razr V3 has a VGA camera that can snap photos in three resolutions: 640x480, 320x240, and 160x120. We would have preferred to see a megapixel camera on such an expensive handset, but it gets the job done and takes good-quality pics. You can use the 4X zoom and the self-timer, adjust the brightness or exposure setting, and choose from six lighting conditions and five shutter sounds, as well as a silent option. When finished with your shots, you can send them to friends, pair them with contacts, or save them as wallpaper. A convenient meter keeps track of how much space in the 5MB of memory is left. Though 5MB should be fine for many people, we'd prefer a bit more to play with. The handset supports video playback but not video recording -- a disappointing omission.

We liked the Razr V3's photo quality.

Performance
Call quality was generally admirable. Though we enjoyed the excellent clarity, the volume level was somewhat low, so anyone with a hearing impairment should test the phone first. Speakerphone quality was mostly good, though it sounded a bit tinny at times and also suffered volume-wise. We made calls using a Logitech Mobile Bluetooth headset. The reception came through with a bit at of static, but we had no problem pairing the two devices.

Battery life was commendable. We fell short of the rated talk time of 7 hours by 30 minutes but were still pleased. Likewise, though we managed 10 days of standby time, compared with the promised 12 days, that's still a good time.

Edited by William O'Neal
Additional editing by Mary Lojkine