Motorola Razr2 V9m on Verizon Cell Phone Review - Multimedia
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Alfredo Padilla Published on September 12, 2007 Comment on this |
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Accessing Music Software (4.03)
| Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| Razr2 V9m (Verizon) | 4.96 | 4.03 |
| Helio Fin | 3.98 | 5.03 |
| Razr2 V9m (Sprint) | 11.78 | 1.70 |
| Razr V3m | 12.10 | 1.65 |
| LG Chocolate VX8550 | 2.04 | 9.80 |
| Apple iPhone | 3.10 | 6.45 |
Dedicated Music Controls (8.0)
While the phone is closed and playing back music, the three touch sensitive keys at the bottom of the external screen are assigned to play/pause, next, and previous. If you press and hold on the next/previous keys the current track will fast forward or rewind. The volume keys control music playback volume. We really like the Razr2 V9m's external touch-sensitive controls, and this is an example of how they are used to the best effect.
Music Software Functionality and Organization (3.0)
Ah, but the fun doesn't stop there. Once you choose an item to sort by, for example albums, the screen real estate is again dominated by a large picture that does nothing for functionality. If we wanted to see hip young things listening to music, we'd go hang out in Starbucks. On a cell phone, we want to use the screen to more efficiently organize and play music. The actual list you wanted only displays three items at a time. We do admit that we appreciate the search box at the bottom of the screen, but it's less than helpful given that in this case it is eating into the valuable real estate needed to actually see your list of songs. Thankfully the right soft key does turn into an Options menu here, but the left soft key is still assigned to its "Catalog" in the vain hope you might want to buy some overpriced music from its store.
Once a song is actually playing things do get a little better, with album art displayed across most of the screen and the song title at the top. The left soft key is assigned to mute, and as you would expect the d-pad controls music playback functions. Up/down moves you through your current playlists, which only appears when you need it (at last a good interface choice!). The left/right moves you to the next or previous song. The volume keys control volume, of course.
Playlists can be created on the handset, however it did not recognize any of our standard playlist files, and there is no way to create playlists on a PC or Mac. So, your lovingly crafted mix tape will have to be rebuilt for use on this phone. Although album art for purchased music is displayed, the album art we provided for our own music was not displayed. The handset was able to recognize tags for our MP3 and AAC files, and we were able to sort music by genre, album, artist, and title. You can also search for music globally or within the current view, as we mentioned above. But you cannot play music in the background and there is no equalizer. We have to characterize the experience of using the software as akin to driving while one-third of your windshield is covered up by an awful poster, all your controls are inconveniently placed, and someone in the passenger seat is trying to sell you a bridge in Brooklyn. We deducted a point off of the final score for overall lameness.
Online Song Downloading (5.0)
The music store itself suffers from some of the same problems we saw in the music software. Too much room is taken up by graphics and not enough is given to the actual content. The search function is separated from the main interface by a large graphic, and we had to scroll through long lists that didn't use the screen real estate very well. Considering you're paying more for the songs we would have at least expected a significantly better buying experience than the Sprint store, but such is not the case.
Streaming (0.0)
The Razr2 V9m from Verizon does not support streaming MP3, Windows Media, or Real audio.
Podcast Support (0.0)
The V9m does not include any software to download or organize your podcasts.
Music Sync with PC (0.0)
Although the Razr2 V9m from Verizon has a dedicated sync button in the music program, the handset doesn't ship with the necessary USB cable to enable this functionality. Because we only score handsets on what comes out of the box we do not award any points for this. If you do pick up a USB cable for the phone you can synchronize with Windows PCs using Windows Media Player.
Music Formats and DRM (2.5)
Like the Sprint version of the V9m, the Verizon version supports MP3 and AAC files. It does not support WMA or Real audio, nor does it support any form of DRM except Verizon's proprietary format. This means you can't play music you purchased from stores like iTunes, Rhapsody, or Yahoo Music on the handset.
Music Interruption (10.0)
The Razr2 V9m from Verizon handles a call while playing back music fairly well. Music is paused when the phone starts ringing and starts up again at the same point it stopped when you finish the call and cancel out of the call summary screen.
Video
Video Software Access (3.82)
To test how easily we can get a video playing on the Razr2 V9m we timed how long it takes to go from phone closed until we got a video playing. We repeated this test five times and took the average for our score. The Razr2 V9m from Verizon took an average of 5.24 seconds to get a video playing. This is significantly faster than the V9m from Sprint, which took more than twice as long due to slow loading times in the video playback software. By contrast, Verizon's version of the Razr2 V9m was very responsive, with most of the time spent navigating menus to get to the actual video file. Despite the speedier time, however, the Razr2 V9m from Verizon was still slower than the Helio Fin, LG Chocolate, and iPhone in this test. | Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| Razr2 V9m (Verizon) | 5.24 | 3.82 |
| Helio Fin | 4.20 | 4.76 |
| Razr2 V9m (Sprint) | 11.8 | 1.69 |
| Razr V3m | 6.30 | 3.17 |
| LG Chocolate VX8550 | 2.71 | 7.38 |
| Apple iPhone | 3.20 | 6.25 |
Video Controls (8.0)
The d-pad is used for most video controls. Up toggles Full Screen mode while down is assigned to stop. The center select button acts as play/pause and the left/right keys move to the next or previous videos when pressed once or fast forward/rewind when held down. The left soft key is assigned to mute and the volume keys do their usual thing. We were quite pleased with the range of controls; they were significantly better than the controls on the Sprint version of the phone.
Video Software & Organization (3.0)
As with most regular phones, video playback on the Razr2 V9m from Verizon is handled by the album software, although we were pleased to see the album is divided into photos and videos. The Sprint version combined both formats into one view. Still, because it is just basic album software for viewing the videos you record on the phone there aren't very many extras. Full Screen Landscape mode is supported, but things like automatic scanning for video files and rating of videos is not supported. Videos are presented in a simple 2 x 3 thumbnail grid, and there is no support for advanced features like playlists and search, nor can you play video in the background. Most disappointing from our perspective is that you can't play videos on the excellent external screen. This is an example of how the older software the V9m runs can't take advantage of all the capabilities of the new hardware; a problem that exists in many aspects of this phone.
Video Sync with PC (0.0)
As with music synchronization, video sync this is not possible without a USB cable, which is not included with the device. Given that videos are stored in the photo directory we're not sure if you could easily synchronize videos even if you did have a data cable. Video playback is not a focus on this device and there isn't an analogue to the sync button found in the music software.
Video Formats (4.0)
The Razr2 V9m from Verizon was able to handle all four of our 3GP encoded files, as well as our H264-encoded MP4 file. This last is very refreshing, as H264 provides for better video quality with lower file sizes. Most regular phones we have reviewed lack this support. It's also a step up from the Sprint version of the handset, which didn't support H264-encoded video. Other formats such as Real, Windows Media, Quicktime, and Flash were not supported.
Video DRM (0.0)
Like its Sprint cousin, the Razr2 V9m from Verizon does not support any form of video DRM. This means you won't be able to watch videos purchased from services like iTunes or Amazon's Unboxed store.
Video Playback Smoothness (10.0)
We were pleased to see the Razr2 V9m from Verizon was able to play back all five of our test files, each of which is encoded at progressively higher bitrates. A lot of phones choke on the 768 Kbps file, but the V9m handled it just fine, a testament to the improved hardware. The older Razr V3m was only able to handle the file encoded at the lowest bitrate.
Online Video Downloading (0.0)
The Razr2 V9m does not support any video download services.
Video Streaming unscored
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