Motorola RAZR V3
Phone Scoop Review
Jul 11, 2005 by Eric Lin
In-depth review of Motorola's iconic RAZR V3 high-end clamshell GSM phone for Cingular and T-Mobile. read review ›
User Reviews
Average Ratings
not impressed
After being a pleased owner of Motorola for quite sometime, I decided to give one of their newest products a test-drive. I spent a pretty penny for the Motorola, and very soon after had regrets. Some pros and cons:
PROS:
-Exact same menu setup as all the other Motorola's I've owned, so very easy to use.
-Wonderful big screen, and a lot of cool graphics.
-Easy to carry around in my pocket and it be practically invisible.
CONS:
-Had about 1/3 of the standard ring tones as my other Mot's.
-I received an "error" message a few times while trying to use my camera.
-The phone is uncomfortably wide. Though the phone is THIN, it's pretty large compared to a lot of phones on the market now.
-The keypad (most likely related to the back light) made an annoying buzzing sound every time I opened it for about 10 seconds.
-I edited and deleted a few contacts from my list and the next time I turned my phone on, they magically appeared again!
-For some reason, the phone changed the settings of my ring tone. I had it on "ring and vibrate" and it kept changing itself to just "ring". It also changed my actual ring tone a few times, confusing me as to whose phone was ringing.....it was mine!
***To sum up, I felt like I was ripped off. I paid a lot of money for the phone, and finally took it back yesterday and switched to LG-which I already like 10X more than the razr...and it was A LOT less expensive. Maybe the phone was one out of many that was defective. Who knows...but if I'm going to drop that much of my hard-earned money, I expect a decent product.
MIKE!!!!
do!!! not!! buy!! this!! phone!! the memory is so so so bad! its got 5000kb and the nokia 6230i 35mb check the difference this phones charger goes weird the battry life is soooo bad and it nocks it slf off if u want a phone get the d500 or the 6230i thts wat i recomend RAZR NO MEMORY BAD! PHONE!
OMFG this is a awesome phone
For all these people that are saying that it is all in the look well its not this is s kicka ass phnone and gets perfect reception I live in Ga and it has perfect reception. I got it at wal*mart on hwy 92 for only 78 dollars apposed to the 199.00 price i have it with t-mobile and the one with cingular my best friend has does not have a video camera but from t-mobile does it is a great phone no con about it.
Yeah its small... but hey so was the Yugo
PROS:
Thin
Bluetooth
Screen
CONS:
RF SUCKS!
ITS MOTOROLA
CAMERA STINKS
VIDEO IS WORSE
PRICE
Get a SE S710a or a W600
"Positively Medieval . . ."
The RAZR may look great, but The Moto OS has to be one of dumbest hunks of junk I've ever had the misfortune to use. The menus are confusing, the phonebook is positively medieval, almost nothing is configurable, the phone will not actually sync to a PC (technically, it will but there are so many unsupported modes/data types you needn't bother). I had to spend hours hacking through SEEM files just to do anything reasonable. I think the real problem here is that Motorola has always been a captive supplier to the big, dumb, old iron Bell carriers like Verizon who consider just giving you a dial tone the height of technology. Because the old iron wants things as dumb as possible, Motorola has never had to compete on the basis of real features and performance (like most OEM's in the GSM world). So they did want comes naturally in that paradigm â wrap a piece of low-tech "iron" in a cool wrapper and market the hell out of it. As an engineer I've always demanded a lot from the devices I depend on. And I've always appreciated the work I know went into making them deliver what I ask. The RAZR simply makes me thankful I now have a have a Sony-Ericsson.
- FD
Not to Shabby
A very nice phone that gets a decent amount of attention "dude, u got a razor". I got mine at Best Buy for 100.00, how the hell do ya go wrong with this purchase. My Cingular service is very good in my neck of the woods which helps big time. Over all I felt like I stole this phone when I first bought it (even though i didnt [...]), a very good deal (paid 60.00 for the moto v551), any way now for the pros and cons...
PROS: 1.)screen is awsome, especially for gameplay 2.)style DUH !! 3.)mine has a good signal just about everywhere 4.)compatible games are sweet 5.)external display 6.)bluetooth works well 7.)menu is easy to work 8.)loud ringtones 9.)keypad feels good 10.)my son is afraid to touch it bc he knows what I will do if he does.
CONS: 1.)the damn thing powers once in a while, seems to happen in the middle of extremely long text messaging, jerk 2.)u have to make sure the battery is going to charge or not when u plug it in 3.) THIS BATTERY [...] SUCKS 4.)the 30.00 case u bought gets broken by your girlfriend and u buy another one from cellphoneshop.net bc it looks cool and in reality IT SUCKS. 5.)last but not least the napolean dynamite ringtone "Tina come get some ham ya fat lard" is not compatible for the razor, give me a [...] break, of all the things that can go wrong, if I knew that I would have slapped the Best But employee in the face, sike.
This is a cool phone especially for a 100.00 so quit whining and go buy it before it goes out of style, hup to late, [...] now I'm a loser again..
Ed. note: Removed profanity
Nice phone...lacks options from cingular
This is a great phone. Very stylish and easy to mod. If you get one from Cingular however, it will not have video recording capability.
Pros:
Stylish
MP3 ringtones
Java
Great reception
Good battery life
Large screen
Good digital camera
Cons:
Extremely hard to keep clean (fingerprints show up all over the place on this phone)
Difficult to flip open with one hand
Phonebook is stupid
No video recording if you get the phone from Cingular (you can change that though)
Overall this is a great phone if you're out to turn heads and if you're into phone modding you can do a good bit with this phone.
An overall incredible phone.
Pros:
*One of the best speaker phones I've ever used.
*Attractive design.
*Vivid, bright screen.
*Relatively detailed camera phone.
*Anodized aluminum case makes it almost invulnerable when closed.
*Gets great reception.
*Great speaker volume while ringing.
*Bluetooth /USB mini capability make it easy to download your own custom-cut ringers from your computer, saving hundreds of dollars in download fees!
*Incredibly light and small profile.
*Great battery life.
Cons:
*Screens and number pad show fingerprints and dust.
*Phone must be modded to allow for video capture (this IS possible) in a Cingular model.
*Motorola software is slightly alien to some cell phone users. It's easy to pick up.
I had to post a review, because many of the people posting about this phone seem uninformed. The camera is a very sharp one, relative to similar-cost phones. The LG 6100 and 7000 available through Verizon have much WORSE camera phones.
This phone is NOT fragile, the case is made from the same material as the hulls of airplanes! I've dropped it from 6 feet onto asphalt, and it left only a small scratch on the paint.
The phone is easy to flip open. It can be done one handed, very quickly and easily. Likewise for closing.
(To the user who got his wet:) Any phone that you get wet is going to void the warrantee and break the phone. Sorry. If you get a phone wet, be prepared for the consequences. My girlfriend worked in tech support for Verizon, and any phone that showed even a hint of corrosion damage, they would not touch.
My V3 is the only phone I know of that gets signal at my house (out of a field of LG 6100, 7000, 8000, Motorola V60, V120, V180, and several others).
Most phonebook difficulty comes from SIM card problems. Ensure that you're storing entries to your phone, not the SIM card.
EARPIECE VOLUME. If someone claims the earpice is subaudible, they're holding it in the wrong place! The speaker is near the top of the phone, and takes some getting used to.
Unlocked version on T-Mobile
Using an unlocked black version on T-Mobile. I like the latest gadgets and change phones frequently. I have used blackberys, Nokia 9300 and various other high end phones. I am sold on the Razr.
Pros;
-Very sleek
-Battery lasts full day of use. I don't mind charging every night. I am more concerned with talk time as I use 4000 minutes a month and this phone lasts.
-RF is great. Since the software is very similar to the V600 I was not expecting miracles but I was wrong. I am clearly able to pull a stronger signal then I can with Nokia phones which is always the benchmark for me.
-The phone charges when connected to the PC by USB for sync.
-slick email client. Numerous options in settings to leave email on server and check at desired frequency.
-Voice clarity is exceptional. Most phones seem to echo on T Mobile service for some reason and I have not experienced the problem with this phone.
-bluetooth headset works well and is seamless although I have heard complaints on headset of volume being too low.
-Speaker phone is useable. You can actually understand what someone is saying when using it.
Con;
-The sync software is very cumbersome and limited. You can sync with outlook but after first sync you must go through many steps to compare changes and then sync to the phone. Not automatic. Also you can only sync basic contacts, but not notes and calendar but once again not notes.
-The phone smudges easily.
-Can only search by 1st letter in contacts and then must scroll through names.
-Cannot open email attachments.
Pleasantly Surprised
Being a Cingular Wireless Tech Support Representative, I must admit that I had my fair share of inhibitions about the V3, but this phone has definitely put Motorola back in my good graces. When the phone was first released, I wanted one more than I have ever wanted any phone in recent memory. Fortunately (yes, I DID say fortunately), the hefty $500 price tag prevented me from owning one. Unfortunately, I opted for the MPX220. Let's just say that I learned my lesson. NOTE: NEVER (and I do mean NEVER) buy a phone until it has been on the market for at least 6 months. This gives the manufacturer plenty of time to work out all of the kinks, and there usually are several of them.
Some 8 months later, I decided to venture out onto that proverbial limb and buy this phone (after the software was reconfigured and the phone was re-released in black, of course). I must say that this is one of the best phones I have ever owned. Let's get on with the Pros and Cons:
Pros:
1. Obviously, the looks. This is the sharpest phone I have ever seen (no pun intended).
2. The call quality rivals most landline phones.
3. The camera quality is impressive for a phone.
4. The speakerphone is amazing.
5. The volume of the ringtones are equally impressive.
6. The screen is huge and very, very clear.
7. The messaging function has it's own button (for those of us who like to text).
8. The keypad is not only beautiful, but it was surprisingly easy to use (even for those of us with big fingers).
Cons:
1. This phone does not have video capture.
2. This phone does not have EDGE, which I would prefer over video capture.
3. The outer display is pretty dim.
4. The screen is very hard to see outdoors.
Overall, I would highly recommend this phone, especially with the low pricetag of $199 (worth EVERY cent!). The best way to make sure that you are getting one of the new and improved models is to buy a black V3. If you opt for the silver model, you may get one of the older, problematic V3s.
