Motorola RAZR i Pro Reviews

The Motorola RAZR i is generally a good mid-range smart phone. The camera and video functions, whilst basic, give good quality images aimed at the opportunistic holiday snappers, and the built-in photo editor gives the user a good set of editing tools and allows them to share via Twitter and facebook. Its ease of handling and user friendly functions makes navigation of the phone simple. The ‘rubberised’ feel to the phone stops it slipping easily off surfaces thus being less prone to breakage. Overall, the RAZR i is a very good attempt in the smart phone range, and given its selling price, is a well placed smart phone that will be difficult to beat by other phones in the same range.

Intel continues to march out better handsets -- the RAZR i is a more accomplished, more premium handset than the San Diego, although we're still waiting for Intel to step up and power a flagship device. Perhaps once it's got the LTE compatibility sorted, we'll see the chip maker power bigger (and probably pricier) handsets. The 2GHz Medfield processor dishes out performance that you'd be hard pressed to distinguish from many Snapdragon-powered dual-core phones in day-to-day use. Elsewhere, the RAZR i is just as accomplished as its trans-Atlantic twin. It bests plenty of existing middleweight smartphones like the Xperia P, with solid hardware, a breezy (borderline vanilla) UI and a surprisingly decent camera. Expect the greatest screen or the fastest performance and you're likely to be a little disappointed, but at this upper-middle price point -- and free on several modest contracts here in the UK -- the RAZR i is easy to recommend, especially if bigger phones are an ergonomic no-go.

So, the Motorola RAZR i is a bit overpriced at this point, but that's usually the case with smartphones that have only just arrived to the market. It might make sense to just wait a few weeks for its price to settle down or to shop around for carrier contracts. The good thing about a smartphone like the RAZR i is that it will eventually get cheaper but not show it.

The Motorola RAZR i is a smartphone that combines the best of both worlds: although it packs a relatively big 4.3-inch display, it is extremely compact by today's standards. In fact, together with its RAZR M variant, it is the smallest 4.3-inch smartphone one can currently find on the market. At the same time, it delivers the performance one would expect out of a contemporary mid-range handset, and might even rival some of the current high-ends in that aspect. But the question remains: should you get it? Well, it depends on whether you are ready to live with its rather uninspiring photographic capabilities. Yeah, its 8-megapixel snapper is very fast, but the images it captures are of average quality at best. Also, the custom user interface could not really impress us much, so keep that in mind in case you don't want to deal with third-party launchers and such. Not to be forgotten is the screen resolution, which is passable, but light years away from what your eyes would be treated to by an HD screen. Among the alternatives that you should consider is the stylish HTC One S, which is currently priced below the RAZR i. For users who demand the pure Google experience and timely software updates, there's the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, which isn't as pocket-friendly, but comes with a bigger HD display. For the same amount of cash one can also purchase the Sony Xperia SL, which is equipped with an HD screen of 4.3 inches and a very capable 12MP camera.

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

There are some things that the Motorola RAZR i gets very right: the design is solid, the battery performance is impressive, and the user interface hasn't veered too far from Android's goodness, but brings a few nice additions. But then we come back to the question about the Intel hardware. Obviously, app compatibility is a concern, especially for early adopters, and muddies the waters somewhat as you have an Android device that doesn't run all Android apps. For this, we have to knock a mark off what is a great mid-range Android handset. But the lingering question of why still haunts us: the tried-and-tested Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset seems to offer both comparable performance, battery life and guaranteed compatibility. In this context, the move to Intel doesn't bring much to phone. As long as you accept that currently (and we should stress currently) there are some app limitations for the Motorola RAZR i, then you will find that this is an attractive mid-range phone.

The Motorola Razr i is a great all-rounder smartphone. It offers a great combination of design and performance for a reasonable price. It's worth a look for its price and worthy of our recommended award.

A fast, highly-compact, and practical smartphone - a great pick if you don't want a super-sized phone