Motorola Razr2 V9m on Verizon Cell Phone Review - Conclusion
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Alfredo Padilla Published on September 12, 2007 Comment on this |
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Who's It For
Business User
Business users will likely find the Razr2 V9m's lack of an e-mail client, corporate interoperability, and poor organizational functions too much to overcome. It is a conservatively attractive handset, however, and may be a good choice for those that don't need advanced business functions.
Budget Callers
The Razr2 V9m isn't for you. Wait six months and the price might come down to a level that budget callers will find reasonable. In the meantime if you really want a Razr you can pick up the V3m for $40 with a contract from Verizon.
Chatty Teenager
With decent battery life, a solid camera, excellent keypad for typing, and slick good looks the Razr2 V9m will definitely appeal to chatty teenagers. Of course the $250 price tag probably won't appeal to their parent(s).
Media Maven
Media Mavens may get excited at the potential of the external display, but its limited implementation, poor music software, and limited video playback capabilities will probably scare them off. At the price you're better off with a Nokia Series 60 handset, or grab a $300 4GB iPhone while they're still available.
Conclusion
The Razr2 V9m is a handset that could have been so much more. The external screen with its touch controls is potentially revolutionary, but the failure to take advantage of this hardware by using older software means that it's really of limited utility. We would have loved to see the V9m play videos on this external screen, and allow users to access more of the phone functions, but instead all you can do is control your music and take self-portraits; hardly revolutionary. Motorola has a newer Java/Linux platform available for the Razr2, and we wish Verizon had chosen to go with this software over it's own BREW interface. We understand the desire to provide a consistent user experience, but with phones that are looking at the higher end of the market like the V9m we just expect more.
Rant aside, the V9m isn't a bad handset, just currently overpriced. The interface is much snappier than older Razrs, and the 2-megapixel camera takes much better photos. We also appreciate the improved battery life over previous Razrs. The V9m model of the Razr2 lineup is also available from Sprint, with different iterations available from AT&T and expected from T-Mobile. At this point we've only had the opportunity to compare the Verizon handset to the Sprint one. The user interfaces are different, and this leads to strengths and weaknesses from each handset. The stills camera on the Verizon version is slightly better, while the video capture on the Sprint version is better. But really there's nothing that stands out between the two that would lead us to recommend one over the other. Fans of the Razr lineup will appreciate the incremental updates here, but we recommend you wait until the price drops to a level that is commensurate with the handset's feature set.
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