Motorola RAZR2 V9 Review

Performance:

While we’re not crazy about the design of the Synergy UI itself, it does run smoothly. There is no menu lag present, and we did not experience a single lockup or crash. Sound quality was nothing short of excellent, especially for a GSM phone. The Crystal Talk voice enhancement used on the GSM RAZR2 variants is very noticeable, and voice quality was on par with the CDMA V9m. Bluetooth performance was not quite as good, and though we used three different headsets (Plantronics 510, Samsung WEP200 and Motorola S9) callers said we sounded “robotic” and slightly digitized. Even still, there was no echo or background noise so conversations did not suffer.

The battery is rated at three hours of talk time, and in our tests we were able to achieve that . Even still, the battery life is very short, even for a 3G phone. We were able to get 3.7 hours out of the CDMA V9m; even 3G GSM phones are usually more power efficient than CDMA. However, they’re usually smaller too, so the V9 is a bit of an anomaly all around. The standby time is rated at a more than respectable 295 hours.


Conclusion:

The Motorola RAZR2 V9 is a good phone, though we can’t help but feel underwhelmed. When it comes down to it, there just isn’t much to get excited about. It’s larger and heavier than its CDMA brother, and the build quality isn’t quite up to par. The outside display is nice and large, but it just doesn’t do anything to set it apart from other phones in AT&T’s lineup. The 2mp camera is good, but lacks advanced features such as autofocus or a flash that would bring it up a notch. The software is quick and stable, but bloated and disjointed. Even the burgundy finish takes away some of the sex appeal found in other RAZR2 variants, and at the end of the day we can’t find a reason to get excited about the V9.