Motorola RAZR M reviewed: the “M” is for “Mini”

But we did have problems in other places, as the RAZR M isn’t quite the master stroke that its brother almost manages to be, making some enemies in a few key places.

One of these damn near killed us: the battery life.

Even though the Motorola RAZR M is rated for 2000mAh, you’ll probably only pull a day of life max, and that only happened to us once.

Most of the time, our regular day was checking social networks, calling people, receiving messages, dealing with emails, and playing a game or two, and with that test, our handset ran out of juice before the end of a day.

According to Google’s battery settings, the Super AMOLED screen in use here was a major killer of the battery, and we don’t think the 4G helps that much.

It can also get mighty hot, and if you make use of the graphics for any mobile gaming, you’ll find the phone is a touch warm, like having a summer in your pocket. Not the greatest of results, but it does cool down relatively quickly.

Despite having a near identical camera (from what we know) to the RAZR HD, the performance feels weaker, with focus that doesn’t always work, and images that appear slightly soft. It’s not terrible, but the one-touch focus that you expect from a touchscreen smartphone just isn’t always here, and we found it struggled especially with close-up details.

One thing has us completely confused, and that’s what happens when you write “I” with the Android built-in keyboard.

Type a message to a friend like “I didn’t see you at the bus stop” and the automatic spellcheck system will try to make you type “in” instead of “I”, resulting in some very strange messages to friends and on social networking.

Likewise, an intermittent error seemed to be found in the data connection, which would occasionally terminate itself and not allow a connection with anyone or anything for a period of minutes.

Conclusion

With a smaller display and comfortable body, Motorola’s RAZR M would be an excellent pocketable handset, if it weren’t for a battery life that jumps around .

For the most part, Motorola has created a device that performs, and is more comfortable than you might expect, but with barely a day of juice expected from the battery, just be aware that you will need to charge it often.