Motorola Droid RAZR Review - A Better Clad Bionic
by Brian Klug on December 16, 2011 2:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Droid
- LTE
- 4G
- Motorola
- Android
- Mobile
- Droid RAZR
- motorola droid RAZR
Final Thoughts
The RAZR is honestly some of the best Android hardware I’ve seen in a long time. It’s incredibly thin, has awesome build quality and an excellent in-hand feel to boot. I find it interesting that we now have Apple, Nokia (Lumia 800), and Motorola shipping their highest-end devices with sealed internal batteries - it says something about the kinds of tradeoffs that have to be made to get the slim form factors that people identify with the highest end. I remember a time when the highest performance commanded the most awkward and bulky packages - anyone remember the HTC Apache? That said, if you really do want to be able to swap out batteries, there’s always the Bionic (which is essentially the same hardware).
The unfortunate reality is that the RAZR released at quite possibly the worst moment in the Android release schedule. It’s difficult to sell the enthusiast crowd on the same hardware platform in another physical package, and at the same time running a version of Android that’s behind a handset whose release is imminent. The latest crop of Motorola phones will get their well-deserved Android 4.0 upgrade, but 6 months is admittedly a long time to wait and having a locked bootloader makes sidestepping the carrier and OEM testing period overhead impossible as well.
OEMs are starting to recognize that regular updates breed platform loyalty, and are even offering preview ROMs (like Huawei with their ‘demo’ Android 4.0 ROM) that sidestep the carrier testing process. I wager that the enthusiast crowd is willing to deal with some bugs and beta issues in exchange for faster updates, and at the same time help OEMs by providing feedback. It doesn’t make sense to hold the enthusiast crowd to the same bar if they’re willing to run bleeding edge builds. Minimizing support calls resulting from buggy OTA updates is one thing - testing for six months until the phone is nearly obsolete (there’s a running joke that handsets are now obsolete every 8 months) is something else entirely.
In any other circumstance I’d recommend the RAZR for Verizon shoppers purely because it’s the best hardware out right now. As cheesy as it sounds, the Kevlar does lend the phone a unique feel, the hardware is impressively thin, and the display is no worse at color rendering than any other AMOLED panel. It just needs Android 4.0.
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jjj - Friday, December 16, 2011 - link
It's not like you can buy any ICS devices yet ( the lack of SD on the Galaxy Nexus makes it a phone i wouldn't used if they payed me).The sad part is that it's not Krait or at least Tegra 3.As for when they'll get iCS and further updates,we'll see but it's doubtfull that any other manufacturer will be able to have faster updates that Googlerola.
zelachang - Friday, December 16, 2011 - link
How frequently do people really change out their SD cards? I have an OG Droid with 16 GB SD card from 2009 and I still haven't used up half the space. I wouldn't even consider multiple SD cards because I lose enough SD cards for my cameras, microSD cards would just fall in the couch or get eaten by my cats or something. When I first got my phone I thought I would end up swapping out cards a lot but for some reason I've never found a reason to.doobydoo - Tuesday, January 17, 2012 - link
Exactly, and even if you do run out of space you can simply plug it into a PC for 10 seconds, save all the documents, and continue.Or you could use Dropbox (on Android) or iCloud (on iOS) to completely negate the need for multiple SD cards unless you have unusual requirements.
Cali3350 - Friday, December 16, 2011 - link
I love your reviews, and I appreciate how in depth you guys go, but your reviews are getting increasingly more and more late and as a result less and less useful. This phone is over a month old at this point.I would love to see a Nexus review, but am assuming that cant occur until after Christmas, and that is not that helpful.
jeremyshaw - Saturday, December 17, 2011 - link
Quality. Anandtech beats all known in depth and thoroughness.doobydoo - Tuesday, January 17, 2012 - link
I actually agree with Cali3350, there is a point at which the quality becomes redundant if the phone was released so long ago. When a new phone is released, people don't want to wait over a month for a review, however high the quality - the most sales of any handset happen within that first month.I noticed the same thing happened with the iPhone 4S review, and made a comment to that effect at the time.
Quality is clearly excellent here, and this is definitely the best tech site - but by the time the reviews come out the article has already lost much of its value.
TrackSmart - Friday, December 16, 2011 - link
The Droid Charge review says the phone loses charge, even when plugged in, if using it as a hotspot. Same for navigating. This is a serious concern for me, especially when on-the-road.Are any of these LTE phones able to stay charged (when plugged in) while actively navigating or being used as a hotspot? I'm hoping you guys can weigh in.
I don't mind plugging in, while driving, but if I'm still going to have the phone die before my destination - that's bad news... Same regarding tethering over USB.
secretmanofagent - Friday, December 16, 2011 - link
I had the Bionic (swapped it out with a RAZR with all the data issues I was having), and I didn't have issues like I did with the original Droid. The original Droid would overheat and stop charging. I didn't have drain issues with the Bionic, haven't tried the RAZR yet.Brian Klug - Saturday, December 17, 2011 - link
The RAZR hasn't done the discharge-while-plugged-in dance the same as a bunch of other LTE phones. Navigation and hotspot use is fine on it, it'll charge while doing those activities if you use a charger that implements charging spec properly and has enough current.-Brian
TrackSmart - Saturday, December 17, 2011 - link
Thank you for the reply! This is comforting to hear. The Droid Charge article on Anandtech mentioned this problem and Engadget reported similarly on the Verizon version of the Galxy Nexus. That had me worried that this would be a more widespread problem.