Motorola RAZR V3I- GSM Cell Phone Reviews

Audio Quality: Playback of songs is impressive through the cell phone’s speakers and if you don’t have a music listening device nearby the Razr V3i is a fine substitute. If you want to listen to songs in full stereo, you can’t just plug in a normal stereo headset since the phone lacks the appropriate jack. However, on the plus side, you can use the included headphone converter, and just plug your own headphones into the 2.5mm jack. Additionally, if you don’t want to deal with that Motorola includes a stereo headset, which sounds great.

Another bonus is that the Razr V3i supports printing. You can print a picture, photo, message, datebook event or address book entry. You can print via Bluetooth to a Bluetooth-compatible printer or using the included miniUSB cable hooked up to a computer and use its printer. You can also send contact info to other cell phones either via Bluetooth or a message.

Camera/Video: Like the Motorola Razr V3m the V3i sports a 1.3-megapixel camera. There’s an unmarked dedicated camera key, just above the volume keys (when the cell phone is open). As expected, pictures look OK on the cell phone, but when we viewed the same image on a computer screen the picture looked slightly pixilated. Unfortunately video didn’t fair much better, if we moved the camera while recording too much images were extremely blurry. However, on the upside, the audio we recorded with it sounded OK.

Music: Like the Slvr L7, the Motorola Razr V3i comes with iTunes. You can playback MP3s or AAC files (songs purchased from the Apple iTunes online store). The cell phone’s player supports playlists, as well as shuffle and repeat songs. To get started, you’ll need to install the included software on the computer or if you already have iTunes (version 6.02 or later) you can use that too. It will work with Windows 2000 or later and Mac OS 10.3.6 or later. You can then transfer songs either via the included USB cable.

We should note that you can not use Bluetooth to transfer songs and you can’t save any songs from the iTunes application as a ringtone. Bummer! However, we were able to transfer 40 songs (and we still had room to add at least another 80 tunes) from our computer to the Motorola Razr V3i’s included 512MB memory card in about 20 minutes.

Connectivity/Bluetooth: As expected, the Motorola V3i offers Bluetooth connectivity. We easily made connections with a Motorola H700 Bluetooth headset and found call quality to be sufficient.

Perhaps one of our favorite elements is the ultra-bright, colorful screen. It definitely stands out when it’s opened and is highly visible in most lighting situations. In fact, occasionally we’ve even used it as a flashlight for guidance through dark rooms. We also really liked the blue-lit Motorola icon on the front of the screen. Our only quibble with the cell phone’s design is the screen easily attracts face grease. That said, many cell phones suffer from this flaw.

Keypad: About that trademark flat keypad: Yes, it’s definitely beyond cool. With its blue backlit numbers and lines, it looks like something out of the movie, Tron. While you might think it would be hard to dial on a flat keypad, we found it pretty easy to do. It’s probably because the actual keys are so large, making it difficult to misdial. We should note that the keys may be a bit slippery for some users – especially if you like the feel of raised keys. We were even impressed with how well the four-way navi-key worked. Once you get the hang of it, using the navi- and soft-keys (the two dedicated buttons at the top of the keypad that correspond to screen commands) become second nature.