Motorola Droid RAZR

[Go Coogs']

I have to say, I'm a little intrigued by this smartphone.

It was obvious to me the first wave of true 4G smartphones had some glaring issues such as battery life, functionality, and some small other quarks along the way. When I first read the Bionic was delayed back in April, that told me the hardware isn't keeping up with the technology.

I was going to wait and see what was out there when Apple released its first 4g phone (most likely summer of 2012) and compare their Verizon phone vs what android based phones were available on the market. When the Bionic came out, I wasn't impressed. It was basically the same as the HTC Thunderbolt, but it came with the docking slave which has ended up being a colossal failure due to unforeseen glitches when connecting the dock. Also, the performance of the Bionic hasn't live up to the hype. These next have of processor chips are supposed to trump the chips that were put in the Thunderbolt, Galaxy SII, and Bionic.

I wasn't even going to bother reading about the Razr 'cus I figured we'd see the same issues with these other 4G phones, but I just couldn't resist. I started reading reviews at c-net, pcworld, and engadget. I have to say, I'm impressed by this phone. It is super thin, although a bit awkward when using with one hand because it is so wide, but this new SmartAction technology is the first work around I've seen from developers when trying to squeeze more battery life out of these phones. SmartActions allows a Razr owner to set up certain commands for background running apps to stop when he phone is on idle. It also allows the user to setup the phone to only use its energy for specific programs that they use all the time. From what I've read about this new technology, its completely different than Advanced Task Killer or any other App killing Apps you download from the market. This App actually conforms to what you use most when using your phone. And here is the hook; the RAZR is the only phone that has SmartActions right now. The heavy testers said SmartActions increased battery life from 6-8 hours to upwards of 14 hours. That is out-fucking-standing.

I was also impressed with the side-by-side testing done with the RAZR and iPhone 4S when both phones were using the same Wifi connection. The RAZR outperformed the iPhone on YouTube loads, speech commands, and web browsing. iPhone was a little smoother on scrolling on web pages at first, but once the scrolling was locked in on the RAZR, it was equal to the smoothness of the iPhone. The other big ++ on the RAZR when web browsing was the pinch and zoom would readjust the text to fit the screen so the user did not have to do any side to side scrolling to read the text. The iPhone did not have this feature. When the iPhone pinched and zoomed, the text would get bigger, but it did not readjust to fit on the screen for up and down scrolling only.

This is Motorola's finest phone in its lineup of 4G smartphones. I may have to take the plunge and not wait for the Summer of 2012.

Check it out.

[ElTaco]

Based on the DroidX, which is now way outdated, I have to say, I like Moto phones. I do think that Samsung is sexier and they do come with some really nice screens, but the Samsungs do tend to have a bunch of issues and shitty GPS built in. My Droid X is awesome, no real issues, even after updates and Motorola makes a decent effort to put out accessories you may like, such as the car dock and built in HDMI which some phones still don't have.

With that said, I am very excited to see the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Seems like it might be the phone to beat and it should be out soon. Besides coming with Android 4 (Ice Cream), it will have an NFC chip, in addition to the usual stuff. From what I understand, the camera will be one of the better ones available on an android phone as well. Its gotten some decent reviews.