Motorola DROID RAZR (Verizon) review

Score

4.4 stars
"Great"

(How we score)

Amazingly thin and strong design, fantastic qHD display, blazing LTE speeds, solid camera, good Motorola-developed software touches

Awful battery life with LTE enabled, runs very hot, non-swappable battery

Summary

The Motorola DROID RAZR is the first 4G LTE^(INFO) smartphone for Verizon Wireless that can compete with non-4G devices in a spec sheet battle. With a crazy-thin 7.1mm profile, a dual-core processor, and an 8 megapixel camera that can record 1080p HD video, the DROID RAZR has the nuts.

But like all of Verizon's other LTE handsets, the DROID RAZR gets hamstrung by awful battery life, even though it comes equipped with a respectably large 1780mAh battery that boasts up to 12.5 hours of talk time. It is, quite simply, a fantastic phone that just can't be used for long enough to be a daily driver for most people - unless you eat, work, and play near to a micro-USB sized charger or completely disable the LTE data. With LTE disabled, the phone performs quite well in terms of battery life, but that somewhat defeats the purpose.

That's a real shame, since the RAZR is otherwise likely the most desirable phone I have come across in 2011. It's an absolute gem of a phone, with severe LTE-shaped flaw. That the phone can suck down data at 15Mbps or faster is great, but it's not worth much if doing so only lets you use the phone for a few hours. Still, for the data hungry and those with the need to have the latest and greatest available, this phone is it.

You'll find a video of the Motorola DROID RAZR for Verizon Wireless in action after the Table of Contents, below.