Motorola RAZR VE20 Review

Hope this is OK to post this info here. I didn't see the cell phone review forum before I posted the following in the Razr forum.

'Picked up this phone a couple days ago, thoughts so far

My previous phone was the E815, since Motorola has swapped the function of the * and # keys, takes me some getting used to as well as the * key has to be held down momentarily to switch from letters to numbers and so on. 0 is also 0.

First night using the phone after a few calls I placed another call but I had nothing in my speaker. Tried the call 4 times with same result thinking it was Alltel. Turns out the party I called heard me, I had no idea. Turning phone off and back on cured it and it hasn't done that since. Shortly after the above episode, when making another call, the phone rebooted upon pressing the dial button. This situation has also not repeated itself.

Setting up the ringer and vibes isn't as friendly IMO as it was on my E815 which is basically the same as the V3a (got the V3a as my home phone and have now converted my land line number to Alltel).

I'm not one for reading the manual, but the more I play with the phone, the more I like it. The front panel touch screen works nice. Don't have a micro SD card installed yet so I can't try out the music features (requires micro sd card to use). without the card, there are 3 options on the outer touch panel; recent call log: selecting this allows you to thumb through you recent calls and dial them, it also switches the phone to speaker phone upon dialing, pretty neat although volume isn't real loud; another choice is the music menu, but I can't use it yet, the final choice is to turn the Bluetooth on and off.

IMO the Bluetooth feature of the Ve20 is much more user friendly than the e815 (which is basically the same as the V3a). The Ve20 has the new MICRO USB port instead of the more common MINI USB, this is making coming up with a data cable a bit more difficult. I used blue tooth to transfer my phone book entries from the e815 to the Ve20, I got about 75% transferred, and the rest would not. I had use MPT to transfer the phone book from the e815 to the V3a, so I used the V3a to transfer the rest of the phone book to the Ve20 and it worked much better (guess the Ve20 likes the V3a better?).

The looks and feel of the phone is very nice. The external buttons take more pressure to activate which I like, as opposed to the e815. Once an external button is pressed, you get a small vibe for acknowledgement.

It pairs up and works perfect with my Motorola H500, as all my phones have. There is a built in icon glossary which is really neat, save from looking at the Manual.

My Alltel store just got these phone in last week, both colors, I picked mine up Thursday.

Paid 149.99 and get a 100.00 rebate. This is accurate with the Alltel website for my area. The V3a was 49.99 with a 50.00 rebate which is 10 bucks cheaper than what their website shows for my area.'

After using the phone for a few days and adding the mp3 capability by adding a 4 GB micro SDHC chip I am adding the following update to my review

'The manual doesn't say anything about the memory chip compatibility other than to say it used the Micro SD memory chip (does not specify being HC chip compatible). Doesn't give a size limitation listed. I ordered and installed a Sandisk 4 GB Micro SD HC chip and it works fine, reads just under 3800 MB of space. With the chip installed I hooked it up to my PC and the chip loads as another drive all neatly divided with folders for images, videos, music, and sounds. I loaded a few mp3's in the music directory and used the front touch panel to play them. The touch screen works very well. If the song has the album cover art embedded, the screen displays the picture, otherwise there is a generic music icon displayed and then it switches to a digital synthesizer display. The volume settings have definite steps to them and the sound output is as good as any mp3 player I have using my Sony ear plugs.

The battery life has been exceptional after the first couple of charges. Normal use (no music playing) gets me about 3 days before I lose a bar from the battery meter, about what I was used to on my old E815.

Have yet to experience any troubles with the phone beyond those two issues I experienced the very first night I had the phone. Camera quality is good with many incremental steps to the zoom ability. The 2 Mp camera allows for pictures as large as 1600*1200.'

I have to just add my 2 cents in. I'm not a big Motorola fan, but when I saw this phone come out for Sprint I checked it out. I have to say the lag on these razr's have come a long way, I'm impressed. As for what you described in your post about them hearing you and you not hearing them, this describes a similar problem most networks can have called dead air, until that device was rebooted the information to the corresponding tower was producing dead air, and the reboot refreshed it, so to speak. Rebooting, that's just Motorola. It wouldn't be uncommon to me to see a Motorola be defective right away, either way I would never rule anything out.

the moto razer is pretty good phone. i love the slimness of it. all though it is very easy to breack. it has style and it works. i would give it a 9 from 1-10

Has anyone else had an issue with the phone going off when trying to place a call? I can go to the contacts or the recently dialed and hit send and the phone will go off then come back on and say searching for network. It is very frustrating. Please help!!!
Amanda

nice phone

Any pictures?

ive always liked the Razr, didnt even know this one was out. very nice and sleek looking phone. might have to check it out sumtime. thanks for the good review. will take everything into consideration!

decent pphone for what it is... iphone all the way though.

def. need pics

cool

Good review. I've decied to get one myself, now.

dont really like it.

picture is not show.

Im thinking of getting this as a new phone.

Very good cell phone …