T-Mobile Razr2 V8 Cell Phone Review - Multimedia
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Mark Brezinski Published on December 10, 2007 Comment on this |
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Accessing Music Software (3.41)
It's time once again for a good, old fashioned, WirelessInfo.com timing test. The starting line is the closed, unlocked standby position, and we stop our clocks as soon as a song starts to play.
The Razr2 V8 struggled a bit, but was able to get a song playing in 5.86 seconds. In the large scheme of things, under six seconds isn't a long wait, but if you check out the table below, you can see the V8 isn't quite up to snuff. The smart key is also a dedicated media player shortcut when the phone is open, a feature which usually gives phones times under three seconds. The media player took a while to open up, however, and the song took about a second to load as well.
| Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| T-Mobile Razr2 V8 | 5.86 | 3.41 |
| Helio Fin | 3.98 | 5.03 |
| Samsung Juke | 2.72 | 7.35 |
| Sony Ericcson W580i | 1.56 | 12.82 |
| LG Chocolate VX8550 | 2.04 | 9.80 |
| LG Venus | 3.62 | 5.52 |
Dedicated Music Controls (8.0)
The main feature the Razr2 V8 boasts is its touch-sensitive external screen. There are three keys along the bottom of the screen: reverse skip, play/pause, and forward skip. Holding either skip button will either rewind or fast-forward. The volume key will also control playback volume. The media controls definitely shine as some of the better uses of the phone's hardware.
Music Software Functionality and Organization (5.4)
The music software on the V8 supports automatic library update and background play. It did not support our test album art, and there were no options for visualizations. While there was no true equalizer, you could control things like bass boost from the options menu. The phone supported tags for all our test files (Idv3, iTunes, WMP). We were actually surprised our iTunes tag-bearing file even played, because when we dragged and dropped it onto the phone a dialogue box popped up that said it wouldn't support the file, only store it. We received the same pop-up window when we tried to dump a .m3u playlist onto the device. Strangely, however, neither the .m3u or the .pls file showed up in the playlist folder. We could make playlists on the phone, though doing so was a bit awkward. Once you've decided to make a playlist and named it, adding and removing songs is handled by a checkbox system. You can select a song or album and use the Apply To > Playlist option to add tracks to a playlist. Adding songs from the playlist itself provides you with a list of all the songs on the phone with check boxes for each.
The music folder contains multiple sub-folders of your music, such as all, recent played, playlists, artists, albums, genres, and composers. These folders are bookended by the currently playing song (when applicable) at the top and a search at the bottom. The search can be narrowed down to song title, artist, album, genre, or composer, or it can be left at the default "all". You then type in a keyword or two and hit the left soft key to start looking.
Online Song Downloading (0.0)
The V8 doesn't support direct music downloads.
Streaming (0.0)
The V8 doesn't support streaming audio.
Podcast Support (0.0)
The lack of podcast support gives the V8 a hat trick of zeroes.
Music Sync with PC (7.0)
The Razr2 V8 doesn't waste any time with a proprietary knock-off software. Instead synchronization is done with Windows Media Player, or by a simple drag and drop. Just connect the phone via USB and sync, no software required. We really appreciate the simplicity, as some phones like the LG Venus make you jump through all sorts of hoops to get your music or video files on the phone.
Music Formats and DRM (5.0)
The V8 will support Mp3, WMA and three distinct flavors of AAC: regular, plus, and enhanced plus. In addition, it will support Windows Media DRM, so songs you buy off Yahoo! or Napster will play on the phone.
Music Interruption (10.0)
This section scores based on how the phone reacts when it's playing music and receives a call. Ideally the phone should stop playback and automatically resume once the call has ended, perhaps with a fade-in. The Razr2 V8 did just this, minus the fade-in.
Video
Video Software Access (2.74)
Our video software access test is conducted like our music timing test. We start with the phone closed, in standby; we stop as soon as a video begins to play. This trial took 6.99 seconds to complete. This is very slow, and for good reason: getting to the video software is hard work. It took nine button presses to get the video to start loading. In order to get to your video, you'll have to access the file manager, which itself is buried under two menus. From here, you have to choose the appropriate folder, which was extended memory. Then you have to scroll down to the video folder, and finally open up the video. Of course, like all phones, the Razr2 V8 lagged slightly when launching the video.
| Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| T-Mobile Razr2 V8 | 6.99 | 2.74 |
| Helio Fin | 4.2 | 4.76 |
| Samsung Juke | N/A | 0.00 |
| Sony Ericcson W580i | 3.42 | 5.85 |
| LG Chocolate VX8550 | 2.71 | 7.38 |
| LG Venus | 9.12 | 2.19 |
Video Controls (7.0)
The video controls are simple, but encompass all the functions we like to see. The d-pad dandles most of the actions: left and right will skip and rewind/fast-forward appropriately. Up will play/pause, and down will stop. Center jumps to full screen. In the settings you can set the orientation of full screen: normal or landscape in either direction.
Video Software & Organization (2.5)
The video software doesn't include an album of any kind. Videos must be accessed via the file browser. You can sort by name, date, size, or type, and opt to view by list, details, thumbnail, or preview pane. You can also create folders to help organize your files, move them around, or rename them. This is the same functionality the phone gives to all its files; videos don't get any special treatment.
Video Sync with PC (7.0)
Video can be synchronized the same as audio: either via Windows Media Player, or by dragging and dropping the files with the file browser. Again, the simplicity of synchronization is much appreciated. Thank you, Motorola and T-Mobile.
Video Formats (2.0)
The Razr2 V8 supports MPEG4 and H263 files, but only if they're encoded with AAC. If they aren't, the phone won't play them.
Video DRM (5.0)
Real video files are the only DRM the Razr2 V8 supports. Considering most phones don't support any DRM-encoded video files, this is more impressive than it sounds. Of course there isn't much Real DRM protected video out there as none of the popular video download sites support it, but hey if you do find something at least you can watch it on your phone.
Video Playback Smoothness (6.0)
We test video playback smoothness by attempting to play a series of videos on the phone with varying bitrates. The highest bitrate file we were able to play was 160kbps. It wasn't able to play our 360 or 768 kbps files at all. Typically phones will try to play our higher bitrate files, but they'll skip a bit (or a lot).
Online Video Downloading (0.0)
The Razr2 V8 doesn't support any video downloading service.
Video Streaming unscored
We don't score this section because there isn't a set standard for online streaming video. As such, we simply test a few sites out, such as Youtube.com, Zoovision.com, and Windowsmedia.com. The V8 didn't support any of them, so the lack of reliable standards saved it a zero score.
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