Motorola Razr2 V9m On Sprint Cell Phone Review - Conclusion
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Alfredo Padilla Published on September 04, 2007 Comment on this |
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Who's It For
Business User
The Razr2 V9m is a professional-looking device that provides decent talk time and may be a good fit for business users that just need a phone. Anyone who needs more, like e-mail and organizational features found on smart phones like BlackBerries or Windows Mobile devices will find the Razr2 V9m to be significantly lacking.
Budget Callers
At $250 with a two-year contract, the Razr2 V9m is not a good choice for budget callers. The V3m is available from Sprint for just $30 with a two-year contract, and is a much better choice for those on a budget.
Chatty Teenager
The Razr2 V9m is a good choice for a chatty teenager, with good looks, solid talk time, and a very good keypad for typing messages. The only oil in the ointment, of course, is convincing Mom and/or Dad to pay $250 for a cell phone.
Media Maven
Despite the excellent external screen with its focus on media, the Razr2 V9m probably doesn't do enough to satisfy most media mavens. There is no dedicated program for handling videos, and while Sprint's software is adequate for music playback, it can be very slow to load. Serious Media Maven's will likely be better of with a Nokia N-Series device or the iPhone.
Conclusion
Motorola's success in the handset market has been inextricably linked to the success of its Razr lineup. As this lineup has aged and fallen into bargain phone territory, Motorola has seen their earnings fall despite growing sales. With the Razr2 lineup, Motorola hoped to re-enter the high end of the market. Despite some significant upgrades, including an unmatched external display and good 2-megapixel camera, we judge that the Razr2 V9m is not a sufficient upgrade to justify a price more than $200 more than the older Razr V3m. We expect this price will quickly fall to a more reasonable level, and with the fall Motorola will face the same problem that has hit the rest of its Razr lineup.
But the Razr2 V9m does bring some significant upgrades over previous Razrs. We've mentioned the excellent external display (although we wish more hand been done to take advantage of it) and the good camera. The V9m also performed significantly better than the Razr V3m on our talk time and music playback battery tests, although it's Web browsing time was worse. We also found the phone to be very well put together, with professional good looks and durable construction.
Our biggest disappointment with the Sprint Razr 2 V9m is that, despite the upgraded hardware, not much has changed under the hood. Running the same operating system we've seen on Razrs for years means the organizational and messaging features are substandard. The multimedia features, especially in the area of video, are well behind what you see on phones like the Helio Fin or the iPhone. Motorola and Sprint could have done better, and should have if they wanted the Razr2 to succeed in its role as a high-end handset. Perhaps we'll see some improvements along these lines in the other versions of the Razr2 offered by other carriers, which use different software and have different sets of features. We'll be reviewing these as soon as we can.
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