The MotoRazr V3i is the new, improved avatar of the MotoRazr V3. The changes include a 1.2 Megapixel camera instead of the VGA camera, and a 256 MB TransFlash Ram included along with a 12MB phone memory. I've noticed that there are a lot of reviews on the V3, so I'll not waste too much effort in comparing these two models. However, the V3i is currently only available in Silver-Black color,instead of the 3 or 5 shades of the V3.
The phone is a treat from the word go. The container box itself is a marvel of packaging, with two panels that slide open much like a futuristic phone. In one panel, you've got the phone itself, and in the other bigger panel, you've got the accessories, which include a data cable, a charger, a stereophonic earpiece(unfortunately not wireless :-( ). Also included is a 256 MB flash RAM, the size of which is slightly smaller than the fingernail on your little pinky. Really amazing how much they've miniaturized the RAM. Considering that the 512 MB add-on is also the same size, the mind boggles. :-O They've also thoughtfully provided a RAM adapter to allow reading the flashdisk in a card-reader.
Oh, did I mention that they're also giving a very sleek pouch with a belt clip along with all this. One phone tools CD, and a CD containing the Itunes software, also comes pre-packaged. The manual is also quite descriptive.
Now, coming to the phone... Phew!
The phone is really sleek, and weighs just 97 grams. It has 2 lcd screens,one in the front with 64k colors, and the main screen is 262k colors. The quality of the screens is very good. The key-pad is made of a single sheet of metal, which gives it a very futuristic look.
The phone took around 3 hours for the initial charge.
The menu system is a tad non-intutive. The Photo/Video mode can be activated using one button, by either using the menu to activate the video capture mode, or the smart key on the upper left corner of the screen to activate the photo mode.
The image quality at 1.23 MPx is pretty good, though definitely not as good as a dedicated digital camera. However the image size is 960 x 1280, and not the other way round. This means that you get a taller picture as opposed to a more horizontally bigger picture, unless you tilt the camera. Though this is a bit of a bother, I just use acdsee to flip the photo, once I upload the photo to my PC. However, this could be more of a problem with video capture. But then, in a video capture, it doesn't matter as much. One great feature is that while in video/picture mode, if you close the flap, then you can take a picture of yourself too, by looking in the front screen. This is a neat feature, and along with the picture timer, can come in handy when you want to include yourself in a group photo. One thing to note is that just after you take a photo, you must keep the phone steady for a second or so, as there is a lag between the click sound and the actual
photo being taken. This is common with all cell phones.
However, I noticed that the photo picture quality is a bit softer, which means you get a slightly less defined look as compared to the pictures from a Nokia 3230. Also, the phone seems to compress the image much more (typical photo 200 KB as compared to around 350 KB for the Nokia 3230. Though this saves space, I'd rather have a bulkier but sharper picture.). The video on the other hand is considerably less blocky, and looks better even in full-screen mode than videos shot with the Nokia 3230 model.
The phone comes with only one port, which acts as both a data port as well as a port for the charger. One great feature is that if you connect your V3i to your computer via USB, the phone automatically gets charged while you're copying files. You can even charge it completely this way. Really handy feature. One minus point is that because of this feature, you can't play music through your earphones while charging it. Sigh....
One more great feature is that if you have Win XP, you can just hook your phone up, and XP'll automatically show the phone memory stick as a USB drive. No extra drivers, or tools suite is necessary. These are included along with the phone, presumably for Win9x and maybe some more features.
The speakerphone has excellent clarity, and the reception is very good. However, I was confused as to why they've mounted the speaker on the bottom rear end of the phone. But later my cousin "Devil Boy" demonstrated how by cupping the bottom hand on the speaker, you can get a much more powerful volume level even while speaking in traffic. So, it's a feature, not a bug. This is even effective while listening to mp3s. One small minus is that if you don't use the leather pouch(included), then the chance of the speaker getting muted due to touching the inner pocket is higher. However, since I don't like carrying the phone near my family jewels, I compulsorily use the leather pouch. I also position the phone so that the back of the phone faces outward, to minimize the absorption of cell-radiation.
The earpiece is stereo, and the audio clarity is really something. Itunes is bundled along with the phone, and can be used to play your entire song playlist, as sorted by you. This gives the phone the features of an iPod, and you can even download songs from the net. Also, if the mp3 is above a certain bitrate, then the phone might not be able to play it. To solve this problem, export it to the phone through Itunes. It'll automatically downsample it to 128 KBps, and the phone should be able to play it with no problems at all. Fingers Crossed ;-)
It also has a browser, and some java games. I've not played these as yet, so not much to report here. My cousin was playing a car game, which looked preeeettty good in 3D.
The video quality is pretty good, though again you can't expect much from a cellphone in this respect. One thing I'll say is that the video quality appears slightly clearer than the Nokia 3230 (my friend has one). I noticed that the on-screen video playback is also very clear compared to the 3230. The 3230 video quality is much blockier, and you don't get as good a grab as the V3i. I think that the 3230 phone captures the video pretty well, but when it saves it, it seems to compress it a tad too much, probably to save space. This is the case with the V3i too, but to a much lesser extent. After all, video size is not that important when you have 256 MB available. I wonder whether there could be any third party apps which allow you to store the raw/less compressed data to RAM. Must find out more about this.
The phone also comes bluetooth enabled, so you can connect wirelessly to your PC or other phones. However, if you don't have much use for this feature, turning it off in the phone settings can save quite a lot of battery power( It is disabled by default)
The phone I've bought has a 4x digital zoom, but the new advertisements specify the phone having 8x zoom. I don't know whether it is possible to upgrade the firmware to allow this to be changed to 8x in my phone. Damn! ;-)
The battery life seems a bit short, but then I'm comparing it to plain vanilla phones. I guess the 2 LCD screens must consume some power, and I guess they concentrated too much on the other stuff to worry about power Conservation! However, I must point out that other phones of this class also seem to have a shorter battery life. My friend has to recharge his 3230 every other day. So do I.
Update: Once I did a deep discharge/charge around 5-6 times, I've found that the battery life has gone up significantly. Even while playing quite a few mp3s on the phone, and playing games daily, the battery seems to hold up very well, and I only charge it every 2 days or so.
Tip: when you buy the phone, make sure to charge it uninterruptedly for 5-6 hours. After this initial charge, make sure that the battery is completely discharged, and only then re-charge it. Do this at least 5-6 times. The battery will hold the charge much better after this. This is not something specific to the Razr, rather all batteries have this initial response curve.
A good link for those who want to mod their phones, and extend it's capabilities is here
Review Summary
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Ratings: Out of Max 10
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Looks: 9 - definitely the best looking camera out there
Features: 8 - a 2 MP camera would get it 10
User Interface: 6.5 ( too many steps to get to common features, slightly non-intuitive menu)
Battery Life: 8
Price: 8 (for the entire package, 12000 isn't too bad, though naturally I'd prefer lower :-)
Accessories: 9 (just about everything one can require is already bundled in)
Clarity: 8 for speaker phone, 7 for the internal speaker. 9 for the earphones.
Speakerphone Audio clarity is very good, but normal volume levels are slightly lower. One can hack this setting to an incredible amount, but it's not for the average user.
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