Customer Reviews

Motorola RAZR2 V9m Phone (Sprint)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Ok, this phone is definitely better all around than my MMA900 as far as call quality, speakerphone quality, picture quality, music quality, video quality, coolness, and thickness level (I have some pretty tight jeans unfortunately...I need to go shopping).

Now to the cons. When texting, I always wanted those emoticons where you can text those smiley faces to other people...either I can't figure out how to do it or the phone won't let me.

The second quirk is the placement of the speaker for use of the speakerphone. It is located UNDER the phone so if you are holding it in your hand, you have to hold it just right to get optimum quality from the speaker. And good luck setting the phone on your bed and listening to a person on the other end or to music, the quality of the noise goes from fantastic to bad when you don't put it on a hard surface (you need room for airflow to the speakers for them to operate correctly).

Third, I am kind of a camera freak so the lack of a camera flash annoyed the heck out of me. I figured that if I need to take a night shot of something, I can just turn on a flashlight or something like that.

Another thing is the vibration mode...YOU CAN'T FEEL IT!!! In order to notice it you almost have to let it sit on a plastic schoolchair!!!

Now when I call people the conversation usually lasts for a fairly long time (over a half hour and I have 3-5 of these kinds of conversations per day). Through the actual hand set, if I am in a quiet environment, I can get about 7 calls through with the lowest volume setting. For some reason, when I call a landline the call volume is lower than if I am calling a cell line. I can only get in about 5-6 calls on medium volume (setting 3-5) which is the setting I use when driving in the car. I usually don't go much higher on call volume than that but when the speakerphone function is used and you are driving in the car, I hold it in my hand or put the phone in the cupholder so I can concentrate more on the road...and believe me, I use speakerphone A LOT!!!
When I use speakerphone I have to have it on volume levels between 5 and 7. And unfortunately, that cuts my talk time down to about 1 1/2 to 2 hrs (BUMMER). I am waiting for them to come out with an extended battery but that probably won't happen at least for the next few months. I haven't done a test on music battery life yet, however.

Now for the included accessories. There is really only one that stands out and that is the 256MB Micro SD card that is included...NO USB CONNECTION...so if you don't have a memory card reader in your computer, you are SOL right now. Now there are 2 things about this memory function:
1. If you don't have a memory card reader, you can buy a micro USB (at lest I think it's micro) to USB hookup (not mini!!!) from your local tech store if you don't already have one.
2. The phone also has 65 MB of internal memory and what is nice is that you can choose where you can save a picture file you make (between internal memory or external micro SD card)

There aren't any clips or holsters that come with the phone which is also a bummer. The reason is because this phone is like the 5th gen. iPod...FINGERPRINT MAGNET (I wish I could underline this because it really is a bad fingerprint magnet). The problem is really only on the front of the phone where the touch screen is and you can buy a 8 pack of screen protectors (4 for the external screen and 4 for the internal screen) for about 5-6 bucks on eBay and they already have leather and plastic cases out there for these phones on eBay for between 6 and 20 bucks.

And just a friendly warning to current sprint users that want to switch to this phone and start a new contract from their already existing one, (as in you haven't finished your 2 year plan but want to start a new one with the same number and unless you have some sort of loyalty discount that starts at 1 year or some other discount) it ain't gonna happen if you wan't to only pay the already high price of $250. You will have to pay the full $400 for the phone and at that point, you might as well just add a line on to your plan and get the phone for the $250. What I hear is that if you want to start a family plan, the 2nd line is free but all lines after that (3,4,and 5) cost $10 a month. It might pay for itself at that point.

And here is a question that I wouldn't mind being answered. On my old MM-A900, the call quality of both the handset and speakerphone were awesome for the first month and a half I had it, but after that it all went downhill. I didn't know if this was a problem that only happened with the MM-A900 or if it happens with all thin phones (like this one). If this is the case for all thin phones, then I am going to return this and put my old phone back on service because this phone cost me 400 bones and I want to see every single one be worth it.

Well sorry for the long review (if you have made it this far) and even though there are a lot of cons that I would like to have reworked and fixed, the current pros kind of even out if not outweigh the cons by a little bit, that's why I gave it a 4 star.

Thanks for your patience and I hope this helped!!!

FIRST LOOK AND FEEL:
1. The RAZR2 is a big, luxurious slab of metal and glass that feels and drives like a luxury SUV but still thinner than the original RAZR.
2. The phone has the biggest, most beautiful external screen you've ever seen on a flip phone. The resolution is terrific.
3. They took care of getting rid of the bulk chin in the original RAZR. The RAZR 2 does not have the heavy chin and has a smooth and straight finish with is much more elegant. The unit looks a lot more streamlined in terms of mechanical design.
4. New Haptics technology. Read more in the next section.
5. Browsing is much faster and browser looks great.
6. It uses the new micro USB port which technically is same as the mini USB port but is slimmer than that.
7. Viewing TV on external display is cool. Music player can be launched right on external display. No need to open the flip.
8. Excellent sound qulaity. Great speaker for Voice, Music, TV.

NEW ADDITIONS/IMPROVEMENTS:
1. External display incorporates a virtual reality technology called haptics, which will enable the user's fingertips to receive vibration feedback when touching the phone's on-screen buttons. This is a great feature.
2. Applications like camera, Sprint TV, Music player can be run directly on the external display without having to open up the phone, directly on the flip. This prevents users holding their wrists at an uncomfortable angle in order to view the screen.
3. Browsing internet is a breeze on this handset. The new Teleca browser includes all the bells and whistles needed for a mobile phone browser.
This combined with Sprint's EVDO (Enhanced data rate) gives the user very nice browsing experience.
4. Excellent camera resolution (2 mega pixel) and it takes full advantage of the external display.
5. The external keys also use the same haptic technology. You can feel a little vibration feedback when pressing any of the external keys.
6. Although I am not sure of any technology specific improvements for the call quality but I see that it improved a lot. May be the speaker is different.

POINTS TO NOTE:
1. Only limited set of applications can be run from the external screen.
2. The RAZR 2 has a new micro USB port. This might require micro USB adapters.
3. Little more heavier than RAZR.
4. I am using a Sprint RAZR2, so some features might not apply to other carriers.

I love the look at feel of this phone...but the on-going glitches are frustrating to say the least. And this is with every razor 2, not just my phone.

1. Half of the texts i get, are shown that they are from random numbers, even though this number is saved in my contacts with a name! So if i dont automatically recognize the number, i have to look it up in the contacts just to see who it is.

2. Literally half of all texts i send will say SENT, but they will remain in my outbox until i re-send them.

3. The screen freezes about once every other day.

4. People say this about every phone, but REALLY, the battery life is amazingly horrible. 90% of the time this phone is on its charger.

5. I really wish I would have listened to all these poor reviews before I bought this phone.

I purchased this phone having at a great price and received it on time, no worries. I'd seen the phone in person and knew I would love it. Amazon's price could not be matched in store.
Amazon's purchasing system did not allow me to provide my own cell phone number to carry over. Instead I was instructed the purchase would create a new account and I would deal with customer service to have my old Nextel number replace this new one on the Sprint phone. Unfortunately, the Sprint tech over the phone was completely unaware how to do this and with his supervisor's help, messed up both accounts so badly it took 5 other people to fix it. If you purchase through Amazon I highly reccomend you take the new phone and old one into a physical store and have them do the change.

OK so it was great at first. I did the initiation routine I was told to do by agent (charge, discharge, charge, discharge) and it seemed to have a decent talk time of 3 hours. Within a few weeks I was down to one hour after a fresh charge. So I got a new OEM battery from the store. Same story! Then I got an OEM extended battery and I am trying it out now. Just ok for an extended battery so far, like 3 hours, but when I am supposed to get 3+ hours on the included battery I am very wary. We will see how long this lasts.
The mp3 bluetooth is decent, BTW (yes I include this as talk time). But because of the crap battery life I suggest you get an adapter (here on Amazon) for a headphone-to-miniUSB.

UPDATE: APPARENTLY THE PROBLEM IS WITH USING BLUETOOTH. ODD BUT IF I DO NOT SHUTDOWN THE PHONE/RESTART AFTER USING (AND SHUTTING OFF) BLUETOOTH, THE BATTERY RUNS DOWN. GO FIGURE!

i got this and not only was it unusable even if wasnt broken they sent a defect phone that could not be activated..

No review, I am not a phone junkie. This phone is the best I have had in 15 years. Easy for my fat fingers to dial. Like the heavy solid feel. Clear and bright. Must use Keyguard or phone works alone in your pocket.

After seeing this phone in the store i was excited to try it out. It had nice style and had a good aesthetic feel to it. Unfortunately 1 week later i returned it due to it feeling unfinished. The phone locked up on me trying to check e-mail. I upgraded the firmware and it kept locking up on me (4 times in 3 hours). About half the time when i opened the phone up, some random app (navigation or e-mail usually) would start up even though i had previously exited that program. It has a picture on the back of the box for sprint navigation. Was not able to successfully get this to work and the sprint help line was useless. It looks good but does not seem to fully work

I do like the phone, but I would advise everyone out there to go with a different carrier than Sprint. I had a Sprint account a few years ago and thought the service was pretty good, but not now. What a mistake it was to switch from T-Mobile.

The worst thing about Sprint is that every time I call customer service, I get sent to the Philippines. And they are so rude! Today, I asked for a phone number in North America but they said that all I could do was keep hanging up and calling back until I was connected to someone in America. I called eight times and every time I was connected to the Philippines. The representatives there could not understand me very well and I was having problems understanding them. Also, they do not have the power to adjust any charges.

Stay away from Sprint!!!

A word about Sprint: They used to be the best, and they are now the worst. The absolute worst.

If you call them today, July 15'th 2008, the system will acually tell you to call back later and HANG UP. You will get through the prompts until you are given a wait-time and then.. I'm not surprised at all. They got rid of 80 % of their customer service workforce.

Things have appeared on my bill for a year that shouldn't be there. I have made 5 attempts to fix this and finally gave up. They always say it's fixed but never is.
Plan on at least a two-hour call to get something accomplished and then prepare yourself to be utterly crazed with anger when you see that nothing was actually done (several times).
A telemarketer from Sprint called me trying to sell something and extend my contract, I laughed so hard, that she actually tried to fix my problems. She said she did and of course, it's still on my bill. They're really useless.

I'm turning off my phone today... That'll take at least 3 hours.