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Motorola V3 Review

Motorola V80

Motorola has long been the dominant force in the flip or clamshell form for cellular phones. With the RAZR V3, they extended that dominance well into the 21st Century with a phone that is as features laden as it is thin.

When you first take the phone out of its stylish, sliding metal box, you notice that it is not only thin (just 13.9 mm.), but also lightweight (95 g.). When you open the flip, the thinness appears absurd—the top tapering to a “razor” like ending, which gives the phone its name.

With a VGA digital camera with 4X zoom, a flash, adaptive exposure, and video recording capabilities, the V3 has added a very nice version of a now expected feature. The camera lens is uncovered, but made of a hard, scratch resistant glass, and is located near the bottom of the top part of the flip.

The V3 has both an internal, and an external display screen. The external screen had 4,096 colors, making it more colorful than the primary screens on some phones I reviewed a little more than 2 years ago. The internal screen has over 262,000 colors, augmented with TFT technology that keeps the colors bright even in direct sunlight. The external display can appear washed out when taken outside.

Much has been made of the chemically etched keypad, which is ultra thin and perfectly flat. I personally had a hard time getting used to the buttons, as the small size and lack of a noticeable click or press made it seem like you must be doing it wrong—at first. Once I got used to it the keypad felt fairly normal, and I was able to input text at a reasonably fast rate.

The whole unit operates on the standard Motorola OS, which anyone who has owned a Motorola before should feel comfortable with. With Bluetoothä connectivity and a mini USB input as well, it should be extremely easy for almost anyone to use the data transfer features on the V3.

The Motorola RAZR V3 is an extremely well designed phone, from the inside out. With a long list of features an excellent user interface, and all the style elements that it contains, this phone is truly top of the line in every way.

The main features of the Motorola V3:

  • Quad Band: GSM 850/900/1800/1900
  • Speaker Phone
  • Digital Camera
  • Video Recording
  • Javaä
  • 32-Tone Polyphonic Ringtones
  • Video Playback
  • Predictive Text
  • E-mail
  • SMS
  • 262,000 Color Internal Display
  • 4,096 color External Display
  • Internal Antenna
  • Flip Form
  • Infrared Connectivity
  • Bluetoothä Connectivity
  • Javaä Games
  • Organizer (Compatible with Microsoft Office)

Technical Specifications of the Motorola V3:

  • Weight: 95 g.
  • Talktime: 3 h.
  • Standby time: 200 h.
  • Battery: 750 mAh
  • Memory: 5.5 MB
  • Height: 98 mm.
  • Width: 53 mm.
  • Depth: 14 mm.
  • Internal Display Width: 176 pixels
  • Internal Display Height: 220 pixels

The features that the Motorola V3 is missing:

  • MMS
  • FM Radio
  • MP3 Player
  • Touchscreen

Accessories available for the Motorola V3:

  • Extra Batteries
  • Handsfree Device
  • Car Cigarette Lighter Charger
  • Desk Speaker Stand
  • Memory Attachments