Motorola Droid RAZR MAXX Review

Motorola was definitely out to prove something with the Droid RAZR MAXX. Prolonged battery life with 4g LTE in a slim package. The MAXX is now available only a couple months after it's brother, the original Droid RAZR, which proved that it could be the slimmest at 7.1mm. The MAXX is only 8.99mm, but tags on a $100 premium at $300 with a 2 year contract for nearly double the rated battery life.

Here are the specs (which are identical to the Droid RAZR, minus the thickness, weight, and battery life):

• Android 2.3.4 (upgradable to 4.0 ICS)
• 4g LTE
• 4.3" 540 x 960 qHD screen
• 3300 mAh battery (vs 1700mAh)
• 21.50 hours talk time (vs 12.5)
• 15.8 days of standby (vs 8.5 days)
• 8mp rear camera w/ 1080p video
• Front facing HD camera
• Remote wipe, pin lock, & government-grade encryption for email, calendar & contacts, voice & video chat conferencing
• 16gb internal, 16gb micro sd card
• Dual-core 1.2GHz OMAP4430 CPU
• 1GB RAM
• 0.35" (8.99mm) thickness (vs 0.28" (7.1mm))
• 5.11oz (145g) (vs 4.48 oz (127 g))

I first saw the MAXX at the beginning of the month at CES. The rep asked "What do you think the average battery size is in a phone". I said "1700mAh". He replied "Yeah, actually... What do you think this has?" Me, "2500mAh?". Rep, "3300!". Me, "Whoa!".

The MAXX is definitely for those that are sick of having to charge their phones often. The 3300mAh battery is the largest available in a phone right now, making the MAXX the phone with the longest talk and stand-by time available. The battery literally had to be shoe-horned into the phone so much that they didn't have room to allow you to remove the back cover and battery. That's right, it's sealed just like an iPhone. Is being able to remove the battery a deal breaker? Probably not, given that so many iPhones have been sold. If the battery was smaller this might be a concern if you like to carry around extra charged batteries. More than likely though, you won't have this problem.



During testing I was able to use the phone heavily for a day and 3/4 of the next day before having to charge it. That's pretty incredible considering all the phones that I've had to charge daily. Sitting on standby overnight hardly affected it at all.



I would imagine that people who purchased the original Droid RAZR are a bit disappointed in Motorola. Why not release one version of the phone? The answer is simple. They can appear to two different markets (those who want a really slim phone, and those who are willing to pay more for the best battery life available) while making more money. Why didn't they update anything else on the MAXX, like the screen, camera, or make it come with ICS? Again, simple - they are saving those updates for something in the future to make more money off of. Phones turn around so fast in the phone industry, it would be silly for Motorola to put all it's eggs in one basket. Although if Motorola did update something else on the phone the sting the original Droid RAZR owners feel would've been lessened.

A couple other things to note; while the MAXX is thicker than the Droid RAZR, it's still (mostly) thinner than the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and the iPhone 4s. It still has the same 10.6mm hump on the top as the Droid RAZR. It's also a bit heavier, 5.11oz vs 4.48. Are you going to notice? Nope. Why didn't think phone come with Android 4? Don't know, but Motorola claims an update is coming. If you're deciding between the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and this, I wouldn't dismiss the MAXX because it doesn't come with ICS.




I'm going to gander that Motorola is starting a trend of longer battery life phones here. Pretty soon others will follow and prices of longer battery life phones will go down. If you're a power user, this phone is definitely for you. No longer will you be stuck sitting next to a plug as your phone charges. The MAXX offers hope of making it to a convenient time to plug it in. The MAXX definitely isn't for the casual user or the user that just purchased a Droid RAZR.