Droid RAZR M Review

By Rob Boggan

Ever since Motorola tried to reinvent their wheel with the release of the Motorola DROID RAZR and RAZR MAXX. Both phones were received generally well but never reached the milestones that Motorola had hoped. Even with that being said, the sales of both handsets, and their most recent smartphone the Motorola Atrix HD have re-established Motorola within the smartphone food chain. With the right device they can break into the top of the food chain as HTC sales are floundering, and the only other game in Android town is it’s current top manufacturer, Samsung. With it’s latest release, the DROID RAZR M, Motorola aims to capture some of the users from that crowd with a unique form factor and an extremely attractive price. Check out my review of the DROID RAZR M.

The first thing that I noticed about this device was how incredibly good it felt in my hand. There’s a high end, quality design feel to the RAZR M, and Motorola must have spared no expense for the design materials on this handset. There’s the now standard sealed battery cover with Kevlar plating, along with a 4.3 inch PenTile display. Me being a screen lover, I can dig that Motorola wanted to return to form in a way and make this handset more comfortable for their target audience. The thing that irritates me the most, is after the brilliant screen that the Atrix HD sported, this display feels like a step backwards.

As for the innards, the DROID RAZR M definitely sports some high end hardware to more than make up for the sub par display. With most “budget friendly” devices, manufacturers usually skip out on the higher end hardware, but Motorola did the exact opposite. For starters, the DROID RAZR M has an 8MP camera with flash, a dual core 1.5 GHz Snapdragon S4 processor, and 1 GB of RAM. I was a little skeptical about heavy use on the RAZR M, but after a few hours of use, that skepticism had all but faded. As far as performance, the S4 inside the RAZR M really makes the phone fly. There was no lag, stutter, or slowdown while watching videos, or playing games, and battery drain was minimal.

The camera on the RAZR M definitely leaves a bit more to be desired. Indoor shots came out pretty good, with light levels mostly undisturbed. Outdoor shots on the other hand, ended up entirely over saturated, and in some photos, the end result was a washed out version of what was originally in the viewfinder. Video mode worked well, but suffered from the same issues as still photos. Recorded HD video played back beautifully, although there seemed to be a bit of graininess within the video.

The phone worked flawlessly. Motorola phones seem to have really good, crisp sounding headsets and this one is no different. Calls sounded immaculate, and even on speaker I was able to hold conversation without any breaks in the action. One really unique thing about the RAZR M is that it is one of the only phones on the market that runs ALMOST a totally stock Android experience. What brings about the almost statement is of course, the ungodly amount of bloatware on this device. We know carriers tent to push their products and services more, but geez, VZW went all out on this one.

All in all, the Motorola RAZR M is a really good phone, with a really good price. I wish that the cameras and the screen performed better, but truthfully I won’t complain too much with a $99 price point. Available right now from Verizon Wireless, the Motorola RAZR M is for you if you’re looking for a powerful smartphone with a great price point, great size, and good functionality.