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Motorola Razr i review

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Verdict

Exceptional battery life and an enviable turn of speed make this a tempting buy if high-end phones are out of reach

Review Date: 24 Sep 2012

Reviewed By: Mike Jennings

Price when reviewed: Free, on a £21.00 per month, 24 months contract.

Buy it now for: £290
(see more store prices)

Overall Rating

Features & Design
5 stars out of 6

Value for Money
5 stars out of 6

Performance
5 stars out of 6

PCPRO Recommended

The inclusion of an Intel processor in the Motorola Razr i marks the first time we’ve seen one of its Medfield-based Atoms in a big-brand smartphone. The chip of choice is the Z2480, and it’s a significant step up from the Z2460 we saw in the Orange San Diego – the first handset to include one of these parts – thanks to a headline-grabbing clock speed of 2GHz. It’s still single-core, but it’s borrowed Hyper-Threading from Intel’s full-fat processors, so the Z2480 can address two concurrent tasks using one core.

That’s the highest clock speed we’ve seen on any handset, period, but performance was mixed. The Motorola’s Quadrant score of 3,784 lags behind many top-end phones and mid-range handsets: the Samsung Galaxy S III scored 5,413, and the HTC One S scored 4,717. In SunSpider, however, the Intel chip excelled with a class-leading score of 1,052ms.

Those results give slick Android navigation, and the minor juddering in Reckless Racing 2 and Dead Trigger won’t stop us playing top-end games. Performance also bodes well for the eventual move to Android 4.1 from the 4.04 the phone ships with – an upgrade Motorola says is coming, although there’s no firm date yet.

More notable than all these results, however, is the phone’s battery life. Although Intel hasn’t made much of the current range of mobile processors’ battery life, contenting itself with claiming the chip is merely “competitive”, we found the Razr i blitzed our 24-hour battery test. In combination with a 2,000mAh power pack, the Motorola finished with 76% remaining on the battery gauge, the best result we’ve seen from any smartphone in recent memory, with most modern smartphones achieving 50 to 60%.

Physically, it’s a little less exciting. It has a 4.3in, 540 x 960 screen, which is a little smaller than top-end handsets, both in terms of size and resolution. While that does mean pixels can be seen with the naked eye, the Motorola’s Super AMOLED panel has plenty going for it, with brightness level of 219cd/m2 – reasonable for an AMOLED panel – without hitting the retina-searing heights of the Samsung Galaxy S III’s 300cd/m2, and the perfect contrast makes for punchy, vivid colour reproduction. Critically, despite the 4.3in display, the Razr i feels compact, lightweight and highly pocketable, much more so than the first Android-based Razr.

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Comments

User comments

Battery Life

At last a phone with a decent battery life.

On the other hand the reason is a smaller, lower resolution screen compared to the top of the range models. Ho Hum.

If only it had a keyboard I could get excited.

By tirons1 on 26 Sep 2012

Good price

A newly released, high spec smartphone, free on a £21 per month tariff? What will they think of next?

By KevPartner on 26 Sep 2012

Which will happen first?

Intel become a serious mobile phone processor supplier, or they finish the building site next to the PCPro office?

By milliganp on 26 Sep 2012

Building site.....

AMD are better suited to finish the building site than Intel.

They have the Bulldozer core!

I'll get my coat...

By synaptic_fire on 26 Sep 2012

Good value

This looks like excellent value for the prices being quoted online. Difficult to see how it could get anything less than 5 stars really. Reviews don't fully take costs of 2-year contracts into account in my opinion. It would be good to see a 'real' comparison of phone running costs, so that there is no temptation to make silly comparisons between a device costing £500 over 24 months and high-end phones which will cost nearly £1k over the same period. This sort of comparison would never happen when comparing laptops with a similar price difference.

By stefani on 27 Sep 2012

Showing my age...

... but does anyone actually use mobile phones for making calls any more? Notable by the complete absence of any mention to such in this review, how long will it be before the word 'phone' disappears from the name of such a device. Formerly 'mobile phone', now 'smartphone', in a year or two I suspect it will be termed 'MPG' or Multi Purpose Gadget.

By hungryhendry on 27 Sep 2012

Wrong Information

It does not have the best battery life of all phones it's own Razr Maxx beats it hands down. My Razr has that percentage of battery left after 2 days of normal use. Normally only needs charging every 4 days even then it is only down to 40%.

By curiousclive on 27 Sep 2012

Strange complaint

Not long ago it was said it was bad the razr only came with ginger bread. Now it comes with the latest widely available Android it is still disappointing.
Motorola would never get high marks on this site even though it has better battery stronger build and fastest CPU.

By curiousclive on 27 Sep 2012

What makes this not a high end phone?

It has just as good specs as the SG3 but is not classed as a high end phone?
On that basis there is not a high end phone on the market yet.

By curiousclive on 27 Sep 2012

@curiousclive

Display resolution and processor performance.

It isn't bad and would have been high-end 8 months ago, now it is mid-range.

By big_D on 28 Sep 2012

bigg boss 6

It is good specs as the SG3 a high end phone? Physically, it’s a little less exciting. It has a 4.3in, 540 x 960 screen, which is a little smaller than top-end handsets, both in terms of size and resolution.

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By Christherials on 29 Sep 2012