RAZR V3i
Motorola RAZR V3 Review  The Motorola RAZR V3 was one of the most talked-about phones of 2004 and is still a real head turner. Why? Because it's the thinnest phone currently available in the UK. There are others that come close, but at 13.9 mm it's dramatically thinner than your average mobile measuring 20 mm or more. And it's a clamshell, so when you open it up it gets even thinner! Motorola are clearly very conscious of the look of this phone - it's not thin by accident. A huge amount of attention to detail has been put into its design, from the beautiful anodized aluminium finish, to the unique precision cut keypad that looks good and helps to shave some extra millimetres off the V3's vital statistics. The phone is striking to look at, apart from the "thinness factor". The use of metal alloys in the construction of the V3 sets it apart from the plastic used in so many phones. It looks and feels like a very high quality phone. The keypad deserves some discussion. It has a revolutionary precision-cut design, with the numerals chemically-etched to keep the pad flat. It feels different to other keypads but is not a problem to use. In the dark, the whole keypad lights up with a blue glow giving a very cool effect. Despite its size, the V3 is a well featured phone, although not as fully featured as others in its price range. Let's start with the display. The external screen is a full colour screen, but nothing out of the ordinary. It displays useful information like incoming calls, battery life and signal strength. Inside however is a fantastic 262,000 colour TFT display that is comparable to the display used in the excellent Samsung D500. The V3 also comes with a digital camera, video playback (but not recording), full Bluetooth?6¾4 wireless connectivity, polyphonic ringtones (including MP3 ringtones), Java games, a speakerphone and quad-band capability for global roaming. The phone has been designed to be practical as well as beautiful, and is easy to use with intuitive menus, similar to the Motorola V600. The aluminium alloy case is not only lightweight, but strong too, and should survive everyday bumps and scratches. The V3 is a great phone, designed primarily for its looks, but with a pretty good specification too. As always with this type of phone, the functionality is reduced because of the phone's size, but it has a reasonably good feature set. When first released at the end of 2004, the V3 was expensive and exclusive, but now the price is more reasonable and it has become a very popular phone. Motorola RAZR V3 Review |
