Motorola new RAZR family hands-on

Introduction

Motorola advertised its On Display event as the day’s main event, which was rather bold considering that the world’s number two cellphone manufacturer announced its WP8 lineup. However, seeing the kind of hot hardware that the Google-owned company announced, its arrogance might not be completely unfounded.

Motorola treated us to three new members of the RAZR family – the Motorola RAZR M mid-ranger, the Motorola RAZR HD flagship and the Motorola RAZR HD MAXX battery life champion. The first two of those will be available both as global GSM devices and on the Verizon network, while the RAZR HD MAXX will initially be exclusively available as a part of the Verizon DROID family.


The Motorola (DROID) RAZR HD impresses with its large 4.7″ edge-to-edge Super AMOLED display of 720p resolution. The back of the device is made of Kevlar, but this time it wraps around the edges of the headset too. The camera offers 8MP stills and 1080p video recording.

The LTE-touting Motorola (DROID) RAZR HD is powered by a Qualcomm chipset with a dual-core Krait CPU, 1GB RAM and Adreno 225 GPU. It will be running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box with an upgrade to Jelly Bean scheduled for Q4.

For the most part, the Motorola DROID RAZR HD MAXX is identical to its sibling, but it upgrades the already impressive 2,530 mAh battery to the hard to believe 3,300 mAh. It also ups the available internal storage from 16GB to 32GB. Naturally, that comes at the expense of a few extra millimeters around the waist, but the RAZR HD MAXX still measures the very respectable 9.3mm of thickness.

Finally, the RAZR M is Motorola’s answer to those asking for phones to remain as compact as possible. It packs a smaller 4.3″ qHD 540x960px Super AMOLED Advanced screen and measures just 122.5×60.9×8.3mm. It still manages to offer LTE connectivity, an 8MP camera capable of doing 1080p video and an S4 chipset with a 1.5GHz dual-core Krait CPU.

We’ll handle the Motorola DROID RAZR HD right after the break, with the DROID RAZR MAXX and the DROID RAZR M following on pages 3 and 4.

Motorola Droid RAZR HD hands-on

Motorola just finished announcing the new additions to its Android-powered RAZR family of phones, with the RAZR HD and RAZR MAXX HD leading the charge.

Before the announcement, Moto pointed out the areas where most of the R&D effort was focused – slim devices with great battery life and excellent performance. It was pretty clear from the beginning, what they are talking about.

The Motorola RAZR HD retains the same hexagon overall shape with rounded corners as the original RAZR, but brings some important updates to the design.

Motorola Droid RAZR HD’s new look

One of the biggest changes is the new screen – it has grown to 4.7 inches and is still a Super AMOLED, but it has 720p resolution now. It looks like it’s employing a PenTile matrix, but we can’t tell for sure with that kind of pixel density and under the available lighting.

Motorola calls the screen “edge-to-edge” and while the side bezel is indeed quite thin, it’s still there. The capacitive keys are gone, replaced by on-screen buttons (as the big Goog dictates).

No more capacitive keys

The phone is not as thin as the previous RAZR – the RAZR HD measures 8.4mm, but the thickness is much more uniform. There’s still a slight hump for the camera, but nothing as bad as on the previous model.

The Droid RAZR HD is still a slender device, even if it did get thicker

The RAZR HD is advertised as smaller than competing phones with a similar screen size and it does in fact feel way more compact than an HTC One X, which has the same screen diagonal.

The back uses the same soft, rubbery, grippy Kevlar material that we loved so much on the previous model. The 8MP/1080p main camera is here and it’s no longer on a separate back plate, it’s just placed on the Kevlar.

The camera is now simply lying on the Kevlar back

The RAZR HD is LTE-enabled and uses Chrome for Android, which Moto pointed out is faster than the stock Android browser and even 40% faster than Safari on the iPhone 4S (in their benchmarks, we’re sure).

The list of specs sheet highlights continues with a fast dual-core processor. The HD uses a Qualcomm-sourced chipset (bye, TI) with a dual-core Krait at 1.5GHz.

The RAZR HD will launch with Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich, but Moto made a serious commitment to Jelly Bean updates.

And to address the battery life point, Motorola put a 2,530mAh battery inside the standard RAZR HD. Officially, the battery is said to last 6 hours of web browsing even when using power-hungry LTE networks.

There are some other minor design changes over the previous RAZR. The microHDMI port is still on board, but it and the microUSB port have been moved to the side of the device. The 3.5mm audio jack remains on top.

On the other side of the phone, there are the rather thin Power/Lock key and volume rocker.

The wired ports have been repositioned • keys on the other side • 3.5mm audio jack

We didn’t spend too much time with the Droid RAZR HD, but the build quality struck us as rock solid. The smartphone felt as a really expensive device helped by the excellent choice of materials and build quality.

Motorola Droid RAZR MAXX HD hands-on

The Motorola Droid RAZR MAXX HD (that’s a mouthful) is nearly identical to the regular RAZR HD, except in a few key areas.

For one, it’s slightly thicker at 9.3mm than both the RAZR HD and previous RAZR MAXX. Yet, the difference between the MAXX and non-MAXX versions is much smaller now – less than a millimeter.

Motorola Droid RAZR HD and RAZR MAXX HD side by sided

The slight hump for the camera is gone too and this model is only 11g heavier (157g) than the regular one. This makes purchasing the Motorola RAZR MAXX HD over the Motorola RAZR HD all the more tempting.

It might have been our imagination, but the Droid RAZR MAXX HD felt even sturdier than the other RAZR HD. The RAZR family top dog might be a bit thicker, but it’s more uniform and generally handled even better than its sibling.

Motorola Droid RAZR MAXX HD

We were a bit disappointed to find out that the battery in the new model has a capacity of “only” 3,300mAh – exactly the same as its predecessor, even though this one is bigger in all directions. Nonetheless this is the largest battery you can have in a phone barring after market add-ons (like that iPhone battery pack that Moto made fun of during its presentation).

One not so important advantage of the RAZR MAXX HD is that it comes with double the built-in memory of the RAZR HD – 32GB. We say not so important, because both models have a microSD card slot and you can easily add as much extra memory as you need.

The RAZR MAXX HD will be available only in black and only on Verizon for now.

Motorola RAZR M hands-on

The Motorola RAZR M and Motorola DROID RAZR M might be the most affordable among the new members of the RAZR family, but that doesn’t mean that too many corners were cut.

The smartphone felt almost as solid as the RAZR HD in our hands and its user interface was really snappy. Not that we expected anything else, given the relatively modest qHD resolution and the powerful Qualcomm S4 chipset under the hood.

Motorola DROID RAZR M live photos

Speaking of qHD resolution, we have to say that the PenTile matrix of the screen is the only grudge we have with this phone. It’s the same 4.3″ unit we’ve come to know since the original Motorola RAZR and we liked it quite a lot back then, but it doesn’t come anywhere near the image quality of the 4.7″ 720p screen of the RAZR HD.

Yet, if you consider that this is the only area where the Motorola RAZR M is lacking compared to its more expensive siblings, it’s probably a fair trade.

Motorola DROID RAZR M live photos

The Motorola RAZR M should be the dream device to everyone who ever complained that they need to carry a huge smartphone if they are to have top-notch processing power on Android. Well, the Qualcomm S4 might be two-cores short of the Exynos 4 Quad and the Tegra 3, but it’s holding its ground in benchmarks and it certainly provides more than enough processing power to the RAZR M.

Plus, the dimensions of the smartphone would normally only fit a 3-point-something-inch screen – it’s not that much bigger than an iPhone 4S and its 3.5″ screen.

Motorola new RAZR family hands-on