Motorola RAZR V3i (with iTunes) Review

Now how did this thing of beauty came to me? I was very much satisfied with my E398 but we had to give it to my mother-in-law whose phone got stolen, just so that the pain of getting something valuable stolen from her would be eased a bit. So, back to the web I sought for a phone similar to the E398 but better.

I’ve been praising the original RAZR V3 for its visual appeal. However I wasn’t really a fan of it in terms of features and price, since it’s quite on the expensive side yet it’s got features that my E398 would laugh at. Then later the next generation RAZRs came — the V3c, which is the CDMA version of the phone, then the V3x, which is a much improved V3 complete with 3G capabilities. Engineers at Motorola might have given some thought on improving the original V3, which resulted in another version of the phone, the V3i.

The V3i caught my attention. Just released sometime late December, it has a much-improved camera, MicroSD secondary storage, 12Mb free internal memory, and a dedicated music player (for the phones sold here in the Philippines, it’s iTunes). So there I was on the phone calling a Motorola distributor and inquiring about the V3i. Fortunately they already have it in stock, so I went there to check it out.

The V3i came in a sleek black box. One thing I discovered about it is the way it is opened. It isn’t your ordinary box — it has two levels where you have to pull one on each side of the box (just like you would a drawer) to access everything inside. Quite a nifty design I think, and one that gives the impression that what you’re holding is a special, one-of-a-kind phone. It reminded me of how the iPods are packaged.

The upper level of the box contained the accessories, which are as follows:

- 256Mb MicroSD card with adapter
- Travel charger
- USB data cable
- iTunes CD
- Motorola Phone Tools CD
- Stereo earphones
- Leather case
- Leather Strap
- Screen cleaner
- Warranty card
- Manuals

The lower level of the box held the V3i, in all its glory. I must say that upon opening the phone I wasn’t really appreciative of how it looked — you can open it  and turn it on, but it’s totally wrapped in plastic protectors! This may have been to prevent scratches and dents while it’s not yet sold. I tested the phone for a while — maybe it took an hour, but fortunately the salespeople were kind enough to let me make sure that I’ll be getting what I want before making the purchase. Needless to say, I have made the purchase — or else I don’t have anything to make a review for right now!

The phone has the following features:

- Slim clamshell profile
- Quad band (850/900/1800/1900)
- 176×220 256K TFT Primary Screen
- 80×96 64K CSTN Secondary Screen
- 1.23MP Still Camera with 8x zoom
- H.263 Video capture with sound at 176×144
- Alarm Clock
- Calculator
- Datebook
- iTap predictive text
- Speakerphone
- Voice Recording
- PC Sync using included Motorola Phone Tools software
- SMS, EMS, MMS, IM, Email capabilities
- MIDP 2.0 support
- Polyphonic and MP3 ringtone support
- Video Playback
- iTunes music player
- GPRS Class 10
- WAP 2.0 support
- mini-USB connector for data, handsfree, and power
- Bluetooth Class 1
- Speaker-independent name and digit dialing

Quite a lot of features, huh?

Still Camera

At last! After getting myself used to a phone having a decent VGA camera, I got on my hands one that captures more than a million pixels for every image. Honestly, the camera included in the V3i maybe quite disappointing — depending on the lighting condition, the CMOS sensor produces low to decent quality photos. When using this phone I have to constantly remind myself to take pictures at well-lit locations, or else I’d get grainy photo output. The camera does have several photo functions available, like Lighting conditions (Auto, Sunny, Cloudy, Indoor-Home, Indoor-Office, Night), Zoom (up to 8x), Photo Style (Color, B&W, Bluish, Antique, Reddish, Greenish, Negative), and Exposure (+/- 2). When taking pictures, the fullscreen viewfinder shifts from the primary to the secondary screen and back whenever the phone is opened or closed.

Video Recording and Playback

My wife took a video of my son while preparing him for a good night’s rest that I later played on the phone and uploaded to my PC. The resolution at 175×144 is enough for posting videos in websites. I’d say that the video recording function of the V3i is better than its photo capture function with regards to quality. The sound recorded is monaural, so no left/right panning sounds for videos taken from this phone. Playback is excellent too, it’s not choppy when playing my wife’s recording. With the V3i’s large screen, I’m being tempted to try to convert a full-length movie to 3gp format and watch it on my phone while commuting to and from work.

Voice Recording and Playback

I’m not really into taking voice notes as I go along with my daily tasks, but I did a bit of testing with this feature by letting my wife record her voice. Sound capture is clear enough when played through the inbuilt speakers.

Media Player

According to the Motorola product sheet, two versons of the V3i are available, depending on the market: one is installed with the Motorola native music player, and another (which this phone has) has iTunes installed. I installed the included iTunes 6.x and connected my phone to my PC. Just like a regular iPod would behave when connected to a computer with iTunes installed, it automatically launched iTunes and started syncing audio data. Compared to my E398, the V3i transfers files roughly twice as much faster. The iTunes software in the V3i does have a 50-song limit though, but reasonable enough with the included 256Mb MicroSD card (about 50Mb was left free after putting 50 songs in it). Sound quality is superb, though not as bass-y as the walkman phones from Sony Ericsson. However, sound playback is not as loud as that of the E398 when listening to music using the included handsfree stereo headset.

Added Applications

The Motorola applications present in the E398 are here — the datebook, alarm clock, and the calculator. I won’t be talking about these in detail, since they are very much identical with that of the E398’s. It’s enough to say that I’m as satisfied with these as that of what’s in the E398.

Connectivity

Two methods are available for connecting the phone to a computer — through the supplied USB 2.0 cable and Bluetooth. I get to appreciate performing data transfer using the cable more now than before, since it is much faster. Another plus is that the phone gets to charge its batteries when connected this way, unlike the E398 which doesn’t.

Bluetooth connectivity is typical motorola. It won’t be able to find devices, rather it makes itself discoverable after clicking on the “Find Me” option in the Bluetooth connectivity settings. Data transfer is faster here (again) as compared to the E398. An added security would be that this phone requires you to ‘pair’ it first with another device before allowing data transfers. This is not present with most Nokia phones (hence the Bluetooth trojans easily spreading through Nokia phones).

Customizability

The V3i has 3 preinstalled themes and skins. However, when you get bored of them you cannot change them (legally), you have to use a third-party program to tweak the filesystem of the phone and insert the theme or skin. Ringtones and wallpapers may be changed, but for the tones to be seen by the ringtone settings they have to be stored in main memory. MP3s and polyphonic ringtones may be used. Wallpapers and screensavers may be in GIF or JPG file format.

Call Quality

Call quality has been superb with this phone. I tried placing a voice call while riding a train (with all the noise of the train itself and the boisterous people you occassionally encounter when riding public transport), and I could still clearly hear the person I’m calling. I’d also like to note that the speakerphone function is very much usable, the voice from the other side of the call can be heard clear enough on a moderately noisy environment.

Battery Life and Talk Time

My daily routine of using the phone as an MP3 player (about 1-2 hours a day), sending about 20 SMS messages and placing a call or two took the battery roughly 3 days before signaling empty. If some people would be using the phone as a music player for a longer time the battery life would significantly be shorter. I wish Motorola would have an option for a ’stronger’ battery — I could have used this as my own iPod if I could get 4 or 5 days out of it while using it as a music player for 4 hours a day. But then I might be dreaming.

Gotchas

- I tend to press the wrong button at times when making a quick SMS message. It might have been the flat keypad, which takes a bit of getting used to when composing a text without looking on it.
- The rubber ’separators’ of the keypad tends to smudge the screen of the phone — I recommend buying a screen protector to prevent scratches.
- It seems that I cannot delete a song from with the phone — I still need to connect it to my computer and sync it to delete the desired file.
- Since the iTunes songs are in a separete directory, it cannot be accessed from the phone.
- The screens (main and back) easily gets dirty
- You can play or pause a song while the phone is closed but you still need to open it to skip the currently playing song.
- When in USB drive mode and connected to a computer, the phone would periodically display a warning message. This is quite annoying when you try to access the phone’s menu system while it is connected to the computer.
- You cannot set a separate display image for the back display when the phone is closed. It would always follow the wallpaper in the main display.
- There is no way to determine from the status bar when Bluetooth is on.

Conclusion

The phone is a worthy successor to the original RAZR phone. It makes up for all the shortcomings of its predecessor. Not meant to put down the developers of the ROKR, but this should have been the phone that Motorola advertised as an iPod phone. It has all the features of the ROKR, and it does it much more efficiently. The UI may be quite antiquated as compatred to other phones, but old time Moto users would appreciate the fact that what they have been used to is still here. The price is quite affordable, and I recommend this to those looking for a phone with style and more than decent feature set.

(NOTE: I have tried to verify the tests I made by performing several trials, but I may have missed some details. Please let me know if I have committed some errors. If you have other questions, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment. Thanks!)

First time at a child care center

After taking a bath and having lunch, my son and I went to the mall. We had our merienda at jollibee (his favorite fastfood since his birthday) and afterwards roamed around like crazy.

Seeing three child care centers inside the mall, I remembered my idea of taking my son there to have him experience playing with other kids in a playground where I can be sure that he won’t easily get hurt.

We spent two hours in one of the child card centers, playing inside the ball pool, riding the small cars, watching bigger kids play video games, and lots more. It’s also my son’s first time to play in a slide. Fortunately he loved it after twice letting me hold him from the top to the end of the slide.

How I wish my wife is around to see the look on our son’s face as he was playing.

Babysitter mode

My son’s babysitter is out to attend his son’s recognition day today. Since yesterday she’s on vacation and won’t be back until next week to make preparations for his son’s graduation.

Fortunately things have been settled, and we’re taking turns to take care of my son. Yesterday it’s my wife, today until the weekend it will be my turn, monday it’s my wife again, and on tuesday my mother-in-law willl be here at home.

We might be going out later. Time for a little father-son bonding.

Early Birthday Gift

It’s midnight sale starting friday until sunday at the Ayala malls, and my wife was insisting that we go there after work hours to see if she could buy something for herself. I’m at my normal routine, going to several athletic shoe boutiques to scan whatever new basketball shoes have arrived.

And then we saw it in Athlete’s Foot — the T-Mac 5 black and red colorway at 30% off! That’s a good Php2,500 off its regular price! It turns out that it was their last pair, and it’s a size 10, just right for me!

Too bad my birthday is still 2 months off, as I’ve been badgering my wife to get me a new pair of basketball shoes for my birthday. But then she decided that we get the shoe now, and save herself some money in the process.

So here I am like a child with his new toy — my T-Mac 5 sitting in front of my computer monitor as I type this entry in my blog.

I promised not to wear it until my birthday, though… So I guess I’d be staring at it for quite some time…  

Ballin’ a bit better now

It’s been a week since I last played ball. I admit I was so disappointed at how I played that I swore to bring myself back to basketball shape.

I just finished playing basketball earlier, and I admit I may have been too harsh on myself last time. I was hitting several open threes right now (I was able to correct the way I hold the ball while in the act of shooting), several assists here and there, and twice I was able to do my usual drive to the basket. I was still a bit slow compared to that of 5 years ago, but notably faster than last week. I wasn’t huffing and puffing after several trips up and down the court.

I hope things continue to be better as I play by the week. 

Practice badly needed…

I played basketball again last night. At last, after almost a year of skipping the weekly schedule our company is reserving for the male employees.

How was it? Sort of disappointing.

I was shooting straight during the shootaround, but the ball kept bouncing off the rim of the basket. I huffed and puffed along while my officemates ran on fastbreak plays. I missed a lot of easy shots. I had to get myself contented with trying to make good passes to cutters near the basket. Got a few rebounds, but all in all I wasn’t able to defend well.

I know that if I had the time to practice the way I used to, I won’t look like a slug inside the court. Until now I still feel disgusted with myself.

I miss the days when I could slash to the front of the rim to make a pass or try to make a layup, or throw a 3 when my defender leaves me, or run a really quick fastbreak with one or two guys on the wings.

I want to avoid calling myself a ‘has-been’, but the word kept creeping into my mind since last night. Maybe I ought to get my butt off and try to get myself back in shape. To reclaim lost glory, you say?

No. I want to be able to play well so that when my son grows up, he’ll have a chance to experience playing with his father.

I didn’t know how that feels. I never experienced it when I was a kid. I know that for a time he will be proud of it as much as I would if I had the chance to — and I won’t just sit here and deprive him of that chance.

Dear Supervisor

Dear Supervisor:

You see me everyday… with many faces…
In many jobs… possessing many skills…
I am your subordinate.

I am employee number 584756,
Occupying a full-time position,
Allocated to cost center 4938864.
But I have a name and distinct personality too,
Just like you.

If I complain about a petty thing,
Maybe I am saying more than you hear:
That I am human being, with feelings.
And just like you,
I want attention too.

When I belabor a point that seems unimportant,
Maybe what I am really saying
Is that I consider my opinion important.
And I am just like you,
I want someone to listen to me too.

And when a new policy is announced
And I rebel against the change
Maybe I honestly don’t know why.
You see, I am just like you,
I want my questions answered too.

Some days you smile and some days you frown.
And I understand;
Your life is full of good days and bad days.
Do you understand I have good and bad days too,
I am just like you.

And when I gripe about this or that,
Please don’t write me off as a “troublemaker”.
Haven’t you ever griped before?
I am just like you,
I need to let off steam too.

And if I ask something of you
And you know it cannot be done,
Please don’t try to “con” me,
Remember, I’m just like you,
I’d rather hear a no than a maybe that never comes true.

If sometimes I do not show initiative, there may be a reason.
Maybe I’m confused and really don’t understand
what you want me to do.
I am just like you,
At times I need direction too.

Sometimes I rebel when you criticize me
For something I have done wrong - and you’re probably right -
But that tone of your voice can destroy my day.
Remember, I am just like you,
I want respect too.

If this letter sounds like I placed all the blame on you,
Then I’ve failed to say what I mean.
I just wanted to tell you,
From my point of view,
All in all, I am just like you.

Mulling a Cebu Getaway

I found out last friday (through INQ7.net) that Cebu Pacific is offering a special discounted rate for flights to Cebu in celebration of their 10th anniversary. I asked my wife to confirm it with her friend who works as a ticketing agent in Cebu Pacific’s Galleria branch, and indeed, flights to Cebu now costs 220 pesos! Now that amounts to about 1650 pesos including the flight back to Manila!

Talk about opportunities. I’ve been to other countries, yet I have never had a tour of my own. Maybe this is a good time for my family to to take advantage of it.

Riddle

Ginawa ng gumawa, pero di niya nagamit; Binili ng bumili, pero di niya ginamit; Nagamit nung gumamit, pero di niya alam…

Ano ito?

I’m on Friendster!

I just ate my words and took the plunge — now I’m registered with Friendster!

I still don’t have anything to do with it — I’ve started looking for officemates who are already registered. I’ve added some to my friends’ list.

Maybe it’s time to engage my wife on a friend counter contest.