Motorola Razr2 V9m On Sprint Cell Phone Review - Multimedia
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Alfredo Padilla Published on September 04, 2007 Comment on this |
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Accessing Music Software (1.70)
To test how easy it is to get a song playing on the Razr2 V9m we time how long it takes to go from phone closed until we have a song playing. We repeat this test five times and take the average for our score. The Razr2 V9m took an average of 11.78 seconds to complete this process using the external interface to launch the music player. We also test the phone by opening it up and launching the music player, but this took several seconds longer. The Razr2 V9m is extremely slow. The Katana DLX and Razr V3m were also as slow, but the Fin, N75, and iPhone show how quickly a phone should get a song playing. The Razr2 V9m was slowed down by the fact that the Java-based music player used by all Sprint phones takes forever to launch. | Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| Razr2 V9m | 11.78 | 1.70 |
| Helio Fin | 3.98 | 5.03 |
| Sanyo Katana DLX | 11.86 | 1.69 |
| Razr V3m | 12.10 | 1.65 |
| Nokia N75 | 4.04 | 4.95 |
| Apple iPhone | 3.10 | 6.45 |
Dedicated Music Controls (8.0)
The Razr2 V9m allows you to use the touch-sensitive portion of the external display to control music playback. In addition you can control music volume using the volume keys. We appreciated these controls, as they allowed us to control music while keeping the phone closed. This is significantly better than the Helio Fin, which has no external music controls. It should be noted that the Nokia N75, which has external music keys, provides much more functionality than the Razr2 V9m's touch controls. On the N75 we could go through playlists, for example, which you can't do on the V9m.
Music Software Functionality and Organization (5.0)
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| Playlists | Sorting |
The Razr2 V9m uses Sprint's standard Java-based music interface. This player provides basic music playback functionality and gives you access to Sprint's music store. It recognized our test playlist, and you can create playlists on the device, however it did not recognize our album art. It does show album art from music purchased from the Sprint music store, though. It recognized tags for our test files, allowing us to organize music by title, artist, album, or genre. There is no search functionality however, nor is there an equalizer. All in all it does a decent job, but we prefer the music player on the Nokia N75 or the iPhone.
Online Song Downloading (8.0)
Streaming (0.0)
The Razr2 V9m did not support streaming Windows Media, MP3, or Real audio.
Podcast Support (0.0)
The Razr2 V9m does not include any software that allows you to download or organize your podcasts.
Music Sync with PC (0.0)
Because the Razr2 V9m does not ship with a USB cable you cannot synchronize music on the device with your PC. Instead you will have to remove the memory card and use a card reader to move music onto it. If you have a data cable, it can be synchronized with a Windows PC through Media Player 10.
Music Formats and DRM (2.5)
The Razr2 V9m supports AAC and MP3 music files. The only form of DRM it supports is Sprint's proprietary format. We would have liked to see support for a more widely available format like Microsoft's Plays For Sure. Music you purchase from iTunes is not supported by the V9m.
Music Interruption (9.0)
The Razr2 V9m handled interruption to music playback by a phone call fairly well. Music was immediately paused when the ringtone sounds, and once you are finished with the call it goes back to the song at the same point you left it. We did notice, however, that you have to hit the end key twice to get back to music, and there is a slight pause before playback resumes.
Video
Video Software Access (1.69)
Like the Razr V3m, the Razr2 V9m uses its album software for video playback. To test how easy it is to get a video playing we time how long it takes to go from phone closed until a video begins. We repeat this test five times and take the average for our score. The Razr2 V9m took an average of 11.8 seconds, which is not a good time. You can see below that almost all our comparison phones took less time, with the exception of the Nokia N75. Even the older Razr V3m took almost half as long as the Razr2 V9m, which surprised us. | Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| Razr2 V9m | 11.8 | 1.69 |
| Helio Fin | 4.20 | 4.76 |
| Sanyo Katana DLX | 8.54 | 2.34 |
| Razr V3m | 6.30 | 3.17 |
| Nokia N75 | 13.12 | 1.52 |
| Apple iPhone | 3.20 | 6.25 |
Video Controls (4.0)
When video is playing on the Razr2 V9m the center select key allows you to control play/pause while left/right on the d-pad allows you to move forward or back in the video. The left soft key is also assigned to play/pause for some reason, while the right soft key opens a menu where you can stop the video or mute it. The volume keys control volume. We were not very impressed with the controls, as the assignment of play/pause to the center select key and left soft key seems redundant.
Video Software & Organization (2.0)
As we mentioned, the album software on the Razr2 V9m is used to organize your videos. This means there is no support for things like playlists, sorting, or filtering your videos. Worst of all there's no support for viewing videos in landscape orientation. Instead you have to watch video in a small postage stamp portion of the screen or in a slightly larger box when you choose "full screen." We thought this was a poor solution on the Razr V3m and we haven't changed our minds in the interim.
Video Sync with PC (0.0)
As with music synchronization the Razr2 V9m receives a zero in this section because no USB cable is included to allow you to sync content with a computer. You will need to manually add it to the memory card, instead. If you have the data cable, Windows Media Player 10 can be used to sync and convert videos for viewing on the Razr2 V9m
Video Formats (3.5)
The Razr2 V9m supported all three of our test 3GP files, and also supports Vanilla .MP4 files. It does not support .MP4 files encoded in H264 however, nor does it support other formats like Real, QuickTime, Windows Media, or Flash.
Video DRM (0.0)
The Razr2 V9m does not support any form of video DRM.
Video Playback Smoothness (10.0)
To test video playback smoothness we play five video files at increasing bitrates. The Razr2 V9m was able to handle all five of our files without a problem, although we have to wonder why anyone would want to watch high quality video given the limitations of the software.
Online Video Downloading (0.0)
The Razr2 V9m does not support any direct video download services.
Video Streaming unscored
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