A Fairly Decent And Good Reception But Dated Cell Phone
Written: Sep 22 '09 (Updated Sep 23 '09)
Product Rating:
Durability:
Clarity:
Portability:
Battery Life:
Pros: Excellent reception and very decent voice quality
Cons: Poor battery life with the initial battery and not very good with voice dialing
The Bottom Line: This phone is okay but to enjoy the maximum capability of this model it's probably better to get the newer model line with a better digital camera and external storage.
peterdmar's Full Review: Motorola MotoRAZR V3 Cell Phone
Here's my review on the thin flip phone, unlocked black Motorola Razr V3 quad band GSM cell phone. I've purchased this to use with the pre-paid AT&T Cingular Go Phone Service. This phone is more or less a dated design that was designed at least couple of years ago with no external memory other than the Sim card and 5 MB internal memories. The metallic keypad is blue backlighted and is visible in the dark. The signal strength and reception on this phone is excellent as well as the voice sound quality although not quite as good as a landline. This phone came with a mediocre digital camera (without flash) with only .3 megapixel, which is okay for perhaps self portrait to use on the phone or in case of automobile accidents. Which case it comes in handy to take pictures of accident scenes. Because of the limited memory, I don't think that you can store many pictures with this camera. It has a built-in voice recorder that is capable of recording up to one minute of audio. The phone is capable of web access, although my prepaid phone service doesn't include it. With Web access, checking your e-mail is possible with this phone. It has a built-in web browser that utilize Java. It comes with an alarm clock, calendar and calculator which may come in handy. It comes pre-program with 47 ring tones plus with proper software such as the optional "Motorola Phone Tools" you can have MP3 ring tones as well from your computer. The phone also has vibration and silent modes, but the strength of the vibration is relatively weak and may not be felt through a loose fitted pocket or holster. It came with a 5 volt AC charger that works from 90 volts to 250 volts. Charging the phone battery is possible by having an USB data cable that has a standard USB connection that connects to a computer on one end and a miniature USB on the other end. But in order to use the computer to charge your phone, you have to download the free charging software from Motorola. This data cable comes with most digital camera but can be purchased almost anywhere. The phone book is capable of storing up to 1000 entries, although I have doubts that you can store up to that many voice recording for voice dialing entries because of the limited memory storage. This quad band GSM phone being unlocked, would be ideal to use in a foreign country by simply buying a Sim card after arriving.
I had no problem with this phone in pairing it with my new Plantronics 330 Bluetooth headset. All I need to do was to follow the instructions in both the owner's manual of the phone and that of the Bluetooth headset. After I was done with the pairing, I made a voice recording for each of my phonebook entry. I did this so I can use this Bluetooth to make hands-free phone calls to comply with the hands-free law here in California.
Now for the negatives with this phone. The battery life on this phone with the original battery is not that good. Even on standby, the battery would run down in about a couple of days. The original battery was the Motorola model number BR 50. Maybe the problem is because it is old stock and was dated in early 2008. I went to eBay and purchased a new one. The new one is also a Motorola brand but the slightly larger capacity one. This one is the Motorola model number BR 56. This new one can go on longer before it needs to be recharged. Using this phone to make a hands-free phone call sometime results in the phone making a call to the wrong party in my phonebook. It appears that voice recognition on this phone is not quite up there in accuracy. Under this condition I wasn't able to cancel the call before it was made. Another problem with this phone in bright sunlight, is that the color LCD screens is no longer readable. That goes for both the one inside the phone as well as the outside one. This makes it impossible to read the phonebook entry or to look at the screen to see the phone number of the incoming call before deciding to answer or not. It appears that this is the major problem with all cell phones that features color LCD screens. In bright sunlight the screen is black no matter how bright you set the LCD backlighting to. On the other hand, this is not problem with black-and-white LCD screens. Black-and-white LCD screen uses reflective technology where sunlight is reflected off the silver layer behind the screen. Under this condition, the screen is very much readable under bright sunlight conditions. I read on the web, that manufactures will come out with a new type of color LCD screen that is readable in sunlight in the near future to address this problem. Using the phonebook list that has voice recordings comes in handy with the Bluetooth headset in bright sunlight. All I need to do is scroll up or down until I get to the party that I want to call by listening to my voice recordings and then push the connect button to call without being able to see the list on the screen. With the phone in my hand I can also use voice dialing without worrying that I may call the wrong party because I would be able to cancel the call before it's made and try again. Right after I tell the phone to call the party, it would playback the recording of the party. If it turned out to be the wrong party I can immediately press the hangup button before the call would be made.
I would update this review as I learn more about the capability and problems with this phone in the future.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 106 Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere!
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