Droid Razr: Stunning slim phone, but battery lacks
— -- For the Droid Razr, Motorola reached deep into its playbook.
Motorola long ruled the flip-phone market in the mid-2000s, with its thin clamshell Razr phone. But touchscreen smartphones soon became the hottest sellers, relegating the Razr to its spot on the time line of obsolete technology.
The Razr brand is back, though, in an incredibly thin new smartphone that runs on Verizon's superfast 4G LTE network.
It's just 0.28 inches thick. That's almost 25% thinner than the Apple iPhone 4S, which looks almost bloated next to the Razr.
It comes with the same industrial machine-like styling we've come to expect from Motorola. It's a beautiful, streamlined package that includes a stunning 4.3-inch touchscreen and Kevlar fiber on the back.
Motorola says the Kevlar is for strength. It could be a gimmick, but it looks and feels nice in the hand.
The Droid Razr is $300 with a two-year contract agreement from Verizon and will be available Friday.
The almost impossibly thin build means that the Razr has no removable battery, which may be a deterrent to some.
It comes with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and a dual-core 1.2-gigahertz processor.
The phone's other specs place it at the same level as basically any other top Android phone out there: 1 gigabyte of RAM, super-strong Gorilla Glass to prevent scratches, an 8-megapixel rear camera and a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera for video chats.
The camera on the Droid Razr takes only average pictures, though, and performs poorly in low light. The manufacturers of these powerhouse Android phones appear to be complacent in allowing Apple's iPhone to retain its perch as the crystal-clear choice for shutterbugs.
Battery tests
In a streaming video battery test, the Droid Razr had mixed results.
Using the same test I use for all smartphones — a continuous streaming video using the phone's data connection — the Droid Razr lasted just more than three hours.
In the same test, the Samsung Galaxy S II from AT&T lasted twice as long, topping six hours. The iPhone 4S, also on AT&T, lasted four hours and 19 minutes.
Both the Galaxy S II and iPhone 4S, though, were connected to AT&T's lower-powered HSPA+ 3G network, which the carrier is billing as 4G.
That battery test is meant to turn on a full fire hose of battery-draining tasks as a measure of overall battery health and power.
The Razr performed better when performing the same streaming video test over Wi-Fi, lasting nearly seven hours. In that test, the Razr was on par with the Galaxy S II and the iPhone 4S.
In more realistic use — texting, calling, app downloading and casual Web browsing — the Droid Razr lasted from morning until early evening. That, unfortunately, is all we've been able to ask of these powerful 4G smartphones.
In the wings
The Droid Razr's top competition is a phone that hasn't yet been released. The forthcoming Samsung Galaxy Nexus is expected to be released this month and also will run on Verizon's 4G LTE network.
The Galaxy Nexus will ship with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), Google's eagerly anticipated new mobile operating system. The Galaxy Nexus' version of Android 4.0 also will come without the usual overlay of a manufacturer's software tweaks, which often delay when a phone can receive the latest operating system.
