Motorola continues to gain momentum
with another great addition to its RAZR range
Web
The sharp, clear screen is ideal for
reading webpages on your daily commute
Large screen
The 4.7-inch screen has vibrant colors and
is clear and sharp
Memory matters
With 12G B of onboard storage and a micro
SD card slot for expansion, there's plenty of memory capacity for your apps and
content
Great battery
The high capacity battery keeps this phone
alive longer than many, which makes the device great for business users
especially
Stylish design
With tapered corners and a smart backplate
design the Motorola RAZR HD looks very distinctive
Motorola
RAZR HD
Smart apps
There are some clever apps and widgets on
board to augment Android 4.1, and Motorola's skin is generally very
consistently designed with Android as a whole
"It very, very sharp, and the
colors are extremely vibrant"
Motorola doesn’t always hit the headlines
with its handsets. They can be disappointing. But the RAZR HD shows that
Motorola really does know how to do the right thing. It is a super phone.
The RAZR HD is really nicely made. The
distinctive angled corners that Motorola uses widely these days as a signature
design feature make an appearance, and the back also has a recognizably
Motorola-style block pattern finish.
The Kevlar material means the handset is
tough, and it has a splash guard coating that helps it resist small amounts of
water. What this handset is not, though, is waterproof. Its left-side mounted
USB and HDMI connectors are not protected by a cover, and nor is the top
mounted headset slot. It’s far from Xperia Z levels of protection, then, but
may be enough for you to use the device in a rain shower without being too
worried about potential damage.
There’s more than a little attention to
detail in the build. The main power switch and volume rocker are both found on
the right edge. The rocker has two small knobbles - one at each end – which
help you find it by touch alone. You’ll want to do this to change music volume,
for example, when the phone is in your pocket.
The main power switch is ridged, so that it
feels rough under the fingers. Again this helps you find the button without
actually looking down at the phone. The RAZR HD is large, but it feels well
weighted and it is just 8.4mm thick, making it a very comfortable hold.
Things
are just as good when you start looking at the specifications and capabilities
of this handset
Things are just as good when you start
looking at the specifications and capabilities of this handset. The screen is
one of the larger ones around at present, with its 4.7-inch corner-to-corner
measurement. The 1,280 x 720 pixels put it among the previous generation of
devices, but the screen can handle plenty of detail, and crisply too, with a
pixel density in excess of the magic 300ppi mark. And the Super AMOLED
technology means it is very, very sharp, and the colors are extremely vibrant.
Not everyone likes this screen technology - some people find the colors
oversaturated for their tastes. But if it is your cup of tea, then the screen
is a treat. A clear benefit of the large screen is the ability to read many
webpages without zooming in at all, and it naturally works well for video
viewing too.
One area Motorola has put some effort into
is battery life. With a large screen to keep going and a 1.5Ghz dual-core
processor to power there’s a lot of pressure on the battery. It’s disappointing
that you can’t actually get inside the handset to remove the battery, but on
the other hand we found it did keep going rather longer than the average and
ought to get many people through a day without too much trouble.
Even better, Motorola has included its
rather clever SmartActions app on the handset. This application gives you the
opportunity to set the phone to do things automatically when certain conditions
are met. For low battery status this could be to disable some functions.
Equally, though, you could use it to turn on silent mode when you are in a
meeting or switch the music player on when you put in headphones, or a whole
range of other things.
One
area Motorola has put some effort into is battery life. With a large screen to
keep going and a 1.5Ghz dual-core processor to power there’s a lot of pressure
on the battery.
There’s 12GB of user accessible storage.
With no access to the battery area your micro SD card goes in a slot right next
to the SIM. Both are under a cover on the left-edge of the phone. The
eight-megapixel camera shoots average quality pictures, about in line with our
expectations for a device that does not sell itself on its imaging
capabilities.
Android 4.1 is built in, and the RAZR HD
has 4G support and NFC. Motorola hasn’t fiddled with Android too much, but
there are some very neat widgets. A weather/time/battery status widget displays
information in circles, each of which you can flip with a finger flick to get
to a second function. Meanwhile, swiping right from the home screen takes you
to a settings area for Wi-Fi, GPS and so on. The skin is similar to that which
we saw and loved on last year’s mid-range RAZR i. It’s subtle and light, and is
styled mostly in line with Android’s Holo theme, which means it feels like a
natural extension of the OS rather than something simply dumped on top of it.
It’s possibly our favorite skin to date.
Overall, it is hard not to come out in
favor of the Motorola RAZR HD. Inside and out, there are some very alluring
features. The specs may not be able to match up to the bleeding edge flagship
devices of 2013, but then if you’re not too concerned about that then there’s
an awful lot to like here.
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Information
§
Price $610
§
Battery life: A 2350mAh battery helps keep the
RAZR HD alive longer than the average phone
Technical Specs
§
Operating system: Android 4.1
§
Processor: Dual-core 1.5GHz
§
Memory: 12GB storage
§
Dimensions: 131.9 x 67.9 x 8.4mm
§
Weight: 146g
§
Display size: 4.7-inch
§
Display resolution: 1,280 x 720 pixels
§
Expansion slot: micro SD
Performance: 4/5
§
Smooth and sleek with good battery life. Easy
to use thanks to a great skin
Design: 4/5
§ Very
distinctive, thin, stylish looks. One of Motorola’s best devices yet
Features: 4/5
§ Nice
additions in both hardware and software that don’t overload Android
Value for money: 4/5
§ Not
quite a top-end handset, but appealing at the price point
Verdict: 4/5
§ Motorola’s
RAZR series is starting to shape up nicely. The HD is another excellent
addition - classy and reliable
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