Motorola Razr2 V9m on Verizon Cell Phone Review - Organizer
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Alfredo Padilla Published on September 12, 2007 Comment on this |
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Synchronization Ease of Use (0.0)
The Razr2 V9m from Verizon lacks support for synchronization with your PC, just like its cousin from Sprint. You can purchase software from Motorola that supports synchronization, however at this time we don't see any option for the Micro USB cable necessary for the Razr2 V9m's new port. Because we don't award points for extras that are not included, the Razr2 V9m will receive zero points here.
Alerts (4.0)
You can only set alerts for calendar appointments on the Razr2 V9m. Alerts can be set for one of several preset times before the appointment goes off. We were pleased to see you could choose the sound that goes off for each alert, as well as turn vibration alert on or off for each. By contrast, many phones require you to set universal tones. When an alert sounds the external screen shows a picture of the calendar, but without any information regarding the alert. We also noticed the chosen tone only goes off once, instead of repeating like most phones. You have to open the handset to manage the alert, rather than using the external touch controls. This is an example of how the Razr2 V9m's hardware is more advanced than its software.
With each alert you can choose to view the calendar appointment or "view later," which is basically a snooze. If you choose this option the alert goes off again in five minutes. We found the alert system fairly straightforward, with a good selection of options for creating alerts. We just wish there was better integration with the external screen and more control over how many times the tone sounds and how long snooze lasts.
Over the Air PIM Sync (0.0)
The Razr2 V9m does not support synchronization of your PIM information over the air.
Address Book
Adding Contacts (5.19)
| Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| Razr2 V9m (Verizon) | 19.26 | 5.19 |
| Helio Fin | 22.02 | 4.54 |
| Razr2 V9m (Sprint) | 20.74 | 4.82 |
| Razr V3m | 27.90 | 3.58 |
| LG Chocolate VX8550 | 20.50 | 4.88 |
| Apple iPhone | 20.86 | 4.79 |
Looking/Sorting/Search (2.5)
Fields (2.4)
The Razr2 V9m on Verizon offers 12 fields for new contacts, including items like a contact photo and unique ringtone. There is no support for items like an address or a note. This is less comprehensive than the Razr2 V9m from Sprint, which has a total of 16 fields and includes items like birthday and company, which this version lacks.
Speed Dial/Voice tags/Voice command (3.67)
Like the Razr2 V9m from Sprint, the Verizon version allows you to assign speed dials but does not support voice tags. There is a voice command program, which as far as we can see is exactly the same as the one found on the Sprint version. Like the Sprint's, this voice command software did not impress us. It was able to identify only one of our test contacts without trouble, and another two with several repetitions. We only awarded half points for those contacts that gave us trouble but were eventually successful.
Calendar
Adding Calendar Items (6.91)
To test how easy it is to add a new appointment to the Razr2 V9m on Verizon we timed how long it took to go from phone closed until we had added a simple lunch appointment with a reminder 15 minutes beforehand. We repeated this test five times and took the average for our score. The Razr2 V9m on Verizon took an average of 14.48 seconds to add a new calendar appointment. This is significantly faster than we saw on the Sprint version, for a couple of reasons. First, the Verizon version of the Razr2 V9m has a shortcut to the calendar application right on the home screen, which makes accessing the program much faster. Second, on the Sprint version of the phone we had to activate the 15-minute reminder manually, while on the Verizon version it is added automatically. As the table below makes clear, the Razr2 V9m from Verizon performed very well in this test. It was beat out by the LG Chocolate's outstanding time and scored just about the same as the Helio Fin's time. It cored much better than the iPhone or the old Razr V3m. | Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| Razr2 V9m (Verizon) | 14.48 | 6.91 |
| Helio Fin | 14.10 | 7.09 |
| Razr2 V9m (Sprint) | 27.18 | 3.68 |
| Razr V3m | 22.60 | 4.42 |
| LG Chocolate VX8550 | 6.48 | 15.43 |
| Apple iPhone | 18.92 | 5.29 |
Calendar Views (3.0)
The Razr2 V9m has three different calendar views: monthly, weekly, and daily. The monthly view shows the current month with the current day in dark purple and other days that have appointments in magenta. There is a small counter at the bottom of the screen that shows you how many appointments occur on that day. We would have preferred to see details about the appointments instead. The weekly view is the standard grid with days along the top and hour blocks along the left. Appointments are indicated by highlighting the time during which it is scheduled. The weekly view doesn't even have an appointment count like the monthly view, much less any information about details. We found both the monthly and weekly view to be of little utility; most users will probably spend the majority of their time in the daily view.
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| Monthly | Weekly | Daily |
The daily view is a simple chronological list of your appointments for that day with start time and title. We would have liked to see information about when appointments end, and unlike the Sprint version of the Razr2 V9m no indicators are shown for appointments that have reminders or recurrence. Although the daily view is an improvement over the monthly and weekly view, we aren't particularly impressed with any aspect of the calendar views on the Razr2 V9m from Verizon.
Fields (7.0)
When you create a new calendar appointment on the Razr2 V9m from Verizon you have a fairly basic set of fields to choose from. In addition to basics like title and start and end times, you can also set an alert for each item, including what ringtone will sound and whether the phone will vibrate. Recurrence is also present, with a selection of presets like daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly. One nice item we noticed was that monthly can be set to go off on the same date each month or on the same day (i.e. third Thursday of each month). You can also set a time zone for appointments, which is an interesting option that could be helpful for world travelers.
We'd like to note one item we found annoying. When editing fields for a calendar appointment on the Razr2 V9m from Verizon the center select key is assigned to save, while the left soft key is assigned to edit. This is backward from what we would expect, and we found ourselves saving an appointment when we actually wanted to edit a field fairly often.
ToDo/Tasks
Adding ToDo/Task (0.0)
The Razr2 V9m from Verizon does not allow you to create tasks, as such it will receive zeros in this section.
ToDo/Task Sorting and Prioritizing (0.0)
No tasks program.
Fields (0.0)
No tasks program.
Notes
Adding Notes (3.58)
To find out how easy it is to add a note to the Razr2 V9m on Verizon we timed how long it took to go from phone closed until we had added a new note reminding us to get some groceries. We repeated this test five times and took the average for our score. The Razr2 V9m on Verizon took an average of 13.96 seconds to complete this process. As you can see below, this is slightly faster than the Razr2 V9m on Sprint and stands up favorably to most of our other comparison devices. We found we were a little slowed down on the Razr2 V9m from Verizon by the fact that we had to manually switch input to T9 every time we entered the notes program. We could have done even better in this test if our setting had been saved between sessions, as is done on some phones. | Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| Razr2 V9m (Verizon) | 13.96 | 3.58 |
| Helio Fin | 15.30 | 3.27 |
| Razr2 V9m (Sprint) | 15.22 | 3.29 |
| Razr V3m | n/a - no text notes | 0.00 |
| LG Chocolate VX8550 | 13.73 | 3.64 |
| Apple iPhone | 12.66 | 3.95 |
Note Interface (1.0)
The notes interface on the Razr2 V9m from Verizon is very simple, with a simple list of notes that puts the newest one at the bottom. The left soft key allows you to add a new note, while the right soft key brings up a small menu that allows you to edit or erase notes. There is no support for search, sorting, or categorizing. When creating a new note the left soft key brings up the Text Entry menu, while the right soft key cancels out to the main interface.
Note Formatting (0.0)
There are no formatting options when you are writing a note on the Razr2 V9m from Verizon.
Voice Memo (4.0)
Voice memos on the Razr2 V9m from Verizon are a little hard to find. First you will need to launch the "Music & Tones" menu, then go to "My Sounds." If this is intuitive to you we'd like to get some stock picks from you, but we spent several minutes trying to figure it out before we gave up and succumbed to the instruction manual (yes, we are ashamed). Once in the "My Sounds" application you are shown a list, with the first item a shortcut to record a new voice note. Below this are previous recorded voice notes in chronological order, with the newest at the top. Recording a new sound is simple; just hit the center select key to start and hit it again when you are done. There doesn't seem to be any limitation on the length of clips aside from available memory on the device. Once you have created a recording you can delete it or rename it. We found the voice recorder application to be easy to use and intuitive, once you're able to find it.
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