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Motorola V3 RAZR turned out to be one of the greatest hits of all times on the mobile phone market by selling out large quantities in that class of mobile phones and winning the popularity award among the users, famous people included. Not very rich on functions, the phone had a good display, a phone book and a camera in a thin stylish silver design, which turned into a form to follow by the rest of the manufacturers. Loved and popular – it now is reborn again into its descendent the V3i, which keeps the good sides and changes the weak ones of its predecessor, getting closer to perfection in the class of stylish phones. The new phone now has a megapixel camera, better display and a memory slot, so that you are not limited by the internal memory; it is offered in a darker and more serious metal color theme, which was elegantly combined with black plastic cover and metal keys, which are more comfortable then those of the predecessor. Appearance and design Motorola V3i is a middle sized clamshell phone with an internal antenna and a stylish design with slightly rounded corners. The size and the weight were kept like those of the V3, despite the more functions of the new phone. The surface is shiny, made of metal and high quality plastic, all in the color of metal, beautifully reflecting the light that falls on it. Around the external display and the mega pixels camera there is a black shiny surface, which sadly attracts finger prints and it's hard to keep clean, which makes it hard to see the display and worsens the quality of the pictures taken by the camera. Because of the high quality materials used on the phone, the surface is not easily scratched and even if you try to purposely harm it, it will keep the good look and will not affect the stylish design. A bit of a bad impression is left by the hinge on the clamshell, which is made out of black plastic like the one around the keyboard and the internal display, which takes away from the metal finish and adds a “plastic” feeling associated with cheaper models.   Displays The phone has two color displays. The external one has a 96x80 pixels resolution and even with the good sounding 65 thousand colors, the quality of it is horrible. The bad impression is backed up by the easily finger-printed surface around it, which is larger compared to the one of the V3. Although it could be used as a viewfinder for the camera, that is quite hard to achieve due to its poor quality and small size. The colors reproduced by the display are unreal as well. While in stand-by regime it shows a clock, the signal strength and the battery life remaining, as well as a few other indicators such as the ones for a powered on Bluetooth, GPRS, etc. Poorly, since the STN type of it, it is very hard to see on bright light and it has to be light up by pressing the smart button. That wouldn't be a problem if Motorola had decided to use a TFT display, which are better visible in direct sunlight. Interface The interface is the typical for Motorola with slight changes from the older models. The main menu is built by a number of 3x3 icons screens. The places of the icons can be changed and shortcuts for them can be set up. It would be more comfortable if the shortcuts were automatically programmed, so that every icon is linked to the corresponding key on the keypad (the one in the upper left corner linked to the 1, the next to the 2, etc.), which is used with other phones. The main menu could be viewed as a list as well, like some of the submenus are built. The whole menu view can be changed, using Themes. A little confusing is that the menu button not always has a function associated with it, unlike the soft keys, but overall the navigation through the menu is comfortable, logical and fast. Phonebook
By default the phone book, with a capacity of 1000 entries, shows all available numbers, saved in the phone or in the SIM card. On one name there is one number (the numbers saved in the phone have lots of fields), and besides a full address, self pictures and melodies can be attached, which will notify when there is an incoming call from that number. There is a birthday field, but there is no way to automatically add a reminder for that date. The different contacts can be divided into categories, and a personal melody can be added to that category. The phonebook can be viewed one category at a time. After entering multiple numbers for one contact the user can decide if one of them to be designated as primary. Then depending on a setting, the primary number is shown in the main menu, and the additional numbers can be viewed by pressing right on the D-pad or all the numbers are shown in the main menu. The searching in the list is easy, as you directly from the keypad enter text, for which you can search in the saved contacts. The uncomfortable part to that is, that if a name has more than one words to it, you cannot search for them and you can only search by the first word, which means that you will not be able to search for a second name for example.   
  
The phone book can be viewed as a list of names, or a list of names with pictures next to them. All entries in the list can be put in different order (by name, by email, by speed dialing number). On incoming calls, the name of the contact will show on the external display along with the type of the number (home/mobile/work). To answer you can simply open the shell (if you have the “Smartflip” option activated, which is used to answer automatically when the flip is opened), but the bad part to that is that you will not be able to reject the call in that situation. If the phone is open when a call comes in, you need to use the answer/reject buttons. If you close the shell in the middle of a call, that call will be disconnected, unless the speakerphone is turned on. Organizer (PIM) V3i RAZR does not have a very rich organizer, but it is good enough. It has up to 5 alarms and all of them can be active at the same time. Each one of them can be set up with a different hour as well as a different melody and ring level, and you can assign name to them.  
The calendar can be viewed for the week or for the month, and different to-do events can be added for each day, with a reminder. Every day that has an event added to it is marked with a check on the calendar itself.   
Internet
The phone has the standard WAP2.0 browser, and the connection goes through GPRS class 10. Sadly, the much faster EDGE standard is not supported, which would have been a good improvement in regards to its predecessor. The settings of the network are fairly easy made, and you have the option of saving settings for a number of different networks, so that when you change the SIM card, you will not need to change all settings.  
Camera On the front pane, surrounded by a black glossy surface is located the camera of the phone, just like the previous model. Underneath the lens is the sign “mega pixel” which is a clearly shows one of improvements of the i-version – the resolution is now 1.23 mega pixels, and you can also record video. By holding the smart key both when closed and opened, the camera will power on, and the external or the internal screens can be used as viewfinders. By accessing the camera menu you can browse through the pictures/videos. The pictures are with the typical for such cameras quality, where they are always slightly blurred and soft. The colors are not natural and the yellow overwhelms when there is not enough light. On the pictures taken on poor lighting there is lots of noise, which is clearly seen on indoors pictures.    
Music The phone we tested was with the standard MP3 player and didn't include the iTunes player, which is used with the Motorola ROKR and SLVR L7, which was launched with Cingular in the US. It is supposed that when the V3i is made available by Cingular, it will have the iTunes player as well.
The MP3 player is the standard one for Motorola, which allows you to create playlists and arrange music into them. A great advantage is that the phone supports multitasking and the music can be put in the background, while the phone is being used and the menu is being accessed. MP3 files are supported, which can also be used as ringtones. Besides that in the Java applications there is another player (Music Digital Player) which supports more options, such as sorting by an artist/album/genre.   
  Software The support for JAVA MIDP2.0 gives you the option of adding different applications and games, created for that platform. Included with the phone different application are available, depending on the market of purchase. In our case besides the music player, a few games were included. One of these games is Asphalt Urban GT by GameLoft, which is a popular street racing game.    
Performance
Working with the phone is pleasant – overall the browsing through the menu is fast. It takes a little longer when starting the camera or opening pictures, especially when it is a larger picture. The loading of the Java applications is normal for a phone of this class and it is neither fast nor slow. The RF performance of the phone is strong and in places where other phones struggle, the V3i has no problems. Conclusion
V3i is a proud descendant of the RAZR series – phones which do not have the ambition to gather all technical miracles, but to be stylish. The thin body is of very good quality and beautifully reflects light, and besides that is solid and there are no irritating sounds. Combined with a beautiful and large color display on the inside, which is easily personalized with different themes, the phone is one little stylish jewel, which even has multimedia capabilities such as mega pixels camera which can record video and a music player with additional memory. |
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