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Moto Razr2 V9

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The Motorola Razr2 V9 offers an updated, sexy design that features user-friendly controls with vibrating tactile feedback. The feature set is generous, and its performance is admirable. The Motorola Razr2 series is a complete redesign of the handsets.

It’s attractive, packed with features and, save for poor video quality, it’s a good performer as well. While the original Razr was a Cingular exclusive for the first six months of its life, Moto spread the carrier love this time around. The CDMA Razr2 V9m lands at Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, and Alltel, while the GSM Razr V9 comes to AT&T.

Though thin phones have become ubiquitous, you can’t talk about the trend without mentioning the phone that started it all: the Motorola Razr. Its slim shadow continues to loom over the cell phone world, and Moto continues to capitalize on the design with countless updated models. But it’s only the Razr2 that brings a total makeover to the design. Though it can’t qualify as the world’s thinnest phone (not like it would hold that record long anyway) the V9m is slimmer (4.05×2.08×0.46 inches) than the original Razr V3. Yet more importantly, it just looks a whole lot sexier and more streamlined. The hinge is somewhat more prominent, but the “double chin” bottom that holds the antenna is hammered almost flat.

One of the most notable features of the V9m is its external display. Measuring a generous 2 inches, it’s one of the biggest external displays we’ve seen on a cell phone. Its 65,000 color resolution gives it a bright and vivid look that’s easy on the eyes. As expected it shows the date, the time, the battery life, the signal strength, and photo caller ID. You can also use it as a self-portrait viewfinder for the camera lens, which sits just above. Yet that’s not all that’s interesting about the display.

It also features three touch controls along the bottom. Each control features vibrating tactile feedback, which is something we’ve been hoping to see on more cell phones for a long time. The feedback makes the buttons easier to use though it’s worth noting that you need to touch the control just right to make it work. Also, you’ll need to be able to see past the fingerprints that the display attracts so easily.

Completing the exterior of the phone are the aforementioned camera lens (there’s no flash), a volume rocker, and the Motorola smart key on the left spine, plus a camera shutter button on the right spine. What’s really cool is that each of these controls offers tactile feedback as well. As a result, the thin volume rocker is easy to find when you’re on a call. The Micro USB/charger port sits on the left spine while the microSD card slot rests behind the battery

The Razr2 V9m is packed with multimedia features, but we’ll start with the basics first. The phone book holds 1,000 contacts with room in each entry for five phone numbers, e-mail and Web addresses, a job title and company, a street address, and a memo. You can save callers to groups, assign them a photo for caller ID, and pair them with one of 20 polyphonic ringtones. If you want to get really creative you can assign a video ringtone as well. Other essentials include a vibrate mode, text and multimedia messaging, an alarm clock, a calculator, currency and unit converters, a notepad, a tip calculator, a stopwatch, and a voice recorder. It’s quite a decent selection overall. You get a world clock as well, and it’s one of the best we’ve ever seen on a cell phone.

Bluetooth is also onboard, and music fans will be pleased to find a stereo profile. One-the-go types can make use of the V9m’s speakerphone, voice dialing, instant messaging and e-mail, USB mass storage, and PC syncing. Sprint’s Wireless Backup is also a feature. Using the service you can transfer your contacts to Sprint’s servers for safekeeping.

As an EV-DO phone, the V9m offers full support for Sprint’s 3G services. You can connect to Sprint’s Power Vision streaming video services for a variety of content, much of which is exclusive to Sprint. Included are Sprint TV, which offers movie previews, live TV, and on-demand programming from more than 50 channels including CNN, VH1, ESPN, Comedy Central, and the Cartoon Network. And in a nice change, the video player interface shows a spiffy new design. Sprint Movies delivers full-length, pay-per-view movies, while NFL Mobile offers same-day football highlights. Furthermore, you get Sprint’s On Demand service for access to a host of information such as news headlines, sports scores, and weather updates personalized for your ZIP code.

The V9m’s music player is unchanged form other Sprint music handsets. That means the player’s interface is rather stark with album art as the only visuals. You can create playlists and there’s a shuffle and repeat mode. For your listening pleasure the Sprint Music Store offers simultaneous track downloads both to your PC and wirelessly to your phone. Just remember that you’ll need to store them to a microSD card. The airplane mode turns off the phone’s calling functions for listening to music while in flight.

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