Unboxing:
The Motorola Razr I arrives in a simple box, it's merely wrapped in red colouring with some images of the device around the outside, but it's really quite an unspectacular box. The box is pleasant enough, but it doesn't scream premium in the same way that HTC's boxes or even Samsung's faux-wood effect do.Design:
The Razr I isn't very similar to any devices which we've had the pleasure of playing with lately. It doesn't feel cheap in the same way that the Samsung Galaxy S3 does, instead the device is made of metal, Kevlar and you get a reassuring industrial feeling with the exposed screws down the side of the device.
The Kevlar is actually a really interesting addition; it's soft, feels slightly rubbery, but you know that it's the same stuff which they make bullet proof vests out of, which just makes you forget how it feels in the hand. Strangely the area where the camera and speaker are housed on the rear is made of glass and it does feel as though Motorola has mixed and matched their materials a fair bit with this phone.
One of the things which Motorola is keen on peddling with this device is the 'edge-to-edge' display. It's a fair description of the display, but it's not quite as edge-to-edge as the American firm would have you believe. Instead, there are textured bezels on the sides, which are slightly raised from the screen, but they are notably thinner than the bezels we've handled on any other device. That thinness might have been taken off the sides, but it does feel as though Motorola has just stuck them right onto the bottom of the screen instead, with the phone having quite a notable 'chin'. The 'chin' blends well with the on-screen buttons of the phone, so you're never too sure where the screen ends and the bezels begin.
Motorola have chosen to put all of their buttons on the right hand side of the phone, as you hold it. That means the on/off switch, volume rocker and the physical camera button are all on the same side. The Micro-USB port is stuck on the left-hand side, so it's not too much of an inconvenient placement.
Display:
The display is always going to be central to your smartphone and Motorola's choice to equip this device with an Amoled display is a great choice for this device. The screen is qHD, that's 960x540p, which is more than a good enough resolution for the 4.3" screen. Colours are oversaturated, as you would expect on this sort of display, and the only complaint which we would have is that the screen doesn't have the same brightness levels that some of Samsung's amoled displays have and it certainly isn't anywhere near as bright as some of the recent LCD displays.Performance:
With Intel's single-core Z2460 processor clocked at 2Ghz running the show, many people were slightly concerned that the device wouldn't be able to keep up with the quad-core monsters of today. That couldn't really be further from the truth and instead the phone has no problem flicking between apps, web browsing or playing back video. The only times when the phone didn't stay perfectly smooth was when you flick across to Motorola's quick toggle features page and the picture seems to stutter onto the screen, but the phone doesn't come close to grinding to a halt, it just means things aren't perfectly smooth when you swipe to this screen.
Because this device is running on one of Intel's chips, there will be some concerns that people won't have access to all of their favourite Android apps. When Intel's processors were first optimised for Android, this was the case, but now there are very few apps which won't work with the processors and all of the apps which we tried worked flawlessly on the architecture.
All in all the combination of a solid processor, Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean and the relatively low resolution screen, make for all round good performance from this little phone.
Storage:
The Razr I is a little light on storage initial with the 8GB internal memory card only having 5GB of space available once Motorola has taken 3GB to keep the phones software contained. So 5GB will be more than enough for people's apps, but if you're thinking about taking your music collection with you on the fly then you might want to consider picking up an SD card to make the most of the SD slot on the device!
Battery:
This is perhaps on of the few points which we can criticise the Razr I in. If you're a heavy user then you won't be able to make it through a full day in the office, but if you use your phone for occasional texting, a few videos and phone calls and a bit of browsing or social networking then you can probably make do with nightly charges out of the 2000mAh battery pack. It's worth bearing in mind that the battery in non-removable so if you're planning on keeping the device for a long period of time then things will only get worse. It's by no means a bad battery pack, but it's not ideal for the heaviest of users!
Camera.
The Razr I is blessed with a relatively good pair of cameras for a mid-range device. On the front there's a VGA camera which will meet all of your needs if you need to use Skype on the go, but you probably won't want to be taking selfies with this camera.The rear 8MP camera on the other hand is a great addition. The pictures have enough detail when blown up and the ability to take full HD video at 30 frames per second is a great addition. There aren't any complaints with the sensors on the device given the price of the phone!
Conclusions.
We're pretty taken with this little thing, yes the battery isn't quite big enough for our liking, but for the majority of standard users and for most other people it will be more than suitable. As will the cameras, storage and screen and if we're honest you could pick one of these little guys up and be completely content, especially if you're not too taken with the larger devices at the moment!Rating: 8/10! There's a solid screen, great industrial design and a recent version of Android, there's not much to dislike here at all!
