Every once in a while it is time to pick up a new cell phone – for me it is more or less when the old one dies. Apple’s iPhones are simply too large and clunky for me and like most other smart phones, they require a mandatory data plan. The data plans at AT&T are quite expensive compared to other cellular carriers, and given the fact that most of the time I’m within reach of a wifi network, having to pay for a data plan that I don’t really need seems unnecessary. What I really needed was regular phone that also had wifi built in, but alas, the only phones that had wifi were smartphones, and they require the data plan. As such, I settled for what I thought was the next best thing. A phone that had all the basic functions, microSD card support, a music player, and 3G support in case I really needed it, namely the Motorola RAZR2 V9.I’ve had about a couple months to play around with it, and must say that it is mediocre at best, and here is why. First of all, the battery life is probably the phone’s biggest shortcoming, lasting about only two days without charging, and this is with moderate calling and occasional Bluetooth usage. My previous phone could easily manage four days, and other than 3G support it had just about all the same features. The other problem is that even though the phone has a music player that plays music files just fine in most formats, those same files cannot be used as either ringtones or alarm tones, unless they are specifically formatted using a Motorola Phone Tools (MPT) and cut down to 20 seconds – and to top of the frustration the MPT package is not even free. The camera, even though it is a 2MP camera, only takes decent distance pictures, but try to use it to take a close ups of anything, like maybe a product number or price, and you will quickly get frustrated with blurry results. Even enabling the alarm or sorting recent calls takes more keystrokes that one would imagine.
On the positive side, the music player works quite well, and the fact that it can be accessed through the external LCD screen, is a really nice feature. The voice quality is quite good and the duplex speakerphone works well. The phones’ slim size fits perfectly into just about any jeans or jacket pocket. The LCD screens are gorgeous and so is the phone’s mahogany red finish. For once, the processor is fast enough to keep up with my key strokes and makes the phone quite responsive, which has not been the case with my last couple of phones. The support for 2GB microSD cards enables you to store plenty of songs for just about any trip. And finally, the phone ships with quite a few useful accessories, such a as a mini to micro USB adapter, and a mini USB to 3.5mm headphone adapter.
As you can see, the V9 has some nice features and also quite a few quirks. Purchasing the phone through Amazon and extending my AT&T contract, enabled me to obtain the phone for free, thus I can live with a few quirks here and there. But, if I had to pay in excess of $200 for it, I would probably think twice. There is an updated version of this phone available at this point, named the V9x. Maybe a few of the quirks have been fixed, maybe not. If you are with AT&T and get the V9x through Amazon, here, you might actually get $75 after all is said and done. The fact that the V9x no longer ship with the very useful headphone adapter is sort of a discouraging sign though.
