Motorola RAZR2 V8 review: New edge to RAZR

Mere 2 megapixel and video

The 2 megapixel camera with no autofocus, nor flash, is more of an ornament than an important feature in Motorola V8. The camera icon itself is not in the main menu, but out-of-the-way in the Multimedia section. There you will find the video camera icon, too. Another option to start the camera is through the Options menu on the home screen. The side select key, right under the volume rocker, serves as a shutter key when the flip is closed and the camera is active.

The camera interface is quite simple • some of the available options

When shooting, you can zoom in up to 8x, but digital zoom is not of much use. You won't get more than just smudged and blurry subjects. An Auto timer with 5 or 10 second delay is one of the programmable options of the camera. Another is Multi-Shot allowing 4, 6 and 8 shots in burst mode with a 1.5-second interval. The must-have camera settings are here, including shutter tone (can be turned off), name, auto-save, as well as four image resolutions with three quality levels. A nice extra is the option to auto-send image via email, immediately after taking it. Sounds like it could inspire paparazzi-like behavior at posh get-togethers. The camera quality is really ok. Shooting landscapes or distant subjects produces slightly out-of-focus images which lack detail.

Overcast conditions

Typically, closer subjects look better and provide more detail. The same applies for pictures taken with sufficient light. The colors are spot on and some of our shots looked as good as if a polarized filter was used.

Sunny conditions

Indoor photo tests show relatively good results.

Our test posters

Video camera mode actually uses the camera interface. Apart from the option to switch off sound recording in a video clip, the video camera setup offers resolution and quality options. Video is recorded at 30fps in QCIF resolution. The video length can be unlimited but another couple of clip length settings are available: MMS short or MMS long for the impatient to send the file immediately via MMS.

A sample video clip taken with the Motorola RAZR2 V8 is available here.

Browsing and connectivity

Besides GPRS class 10 and EDGE class 12 for fast data transfers and content-streaming, the handset offers the usual connectivity capabilities such as microUSB v2.0 and Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP. There is no Infrared port.

The integrated HTML Opera 8.5 browser offers good performance. Pages can be viewed full screen with no menus showing. The browser supports HTML 4.01, xHTML 1.0, CSS and Java script, WAP 2.0 content. The supported security protocols are SSL/TLS.

Browsing with Opera 8.5: normal mode • loading a page • full screen mode • zooming in

The 2 megapixel camera with no autofocus, nor flash, is more of an ornament than an important feature in Motorola V8. The camera icon itself is not in the main menu, but out-of-the-way in the Multimedia section. There you will find the video camera icon, too.

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In the display settings of the browser the font size, pop-ups, scrollbars, images, sound, JavaScript support, and plug-ins are customizable. Goodies don't end here - a download manager is at hand for downloading content such as pictures, clips, files, etc. There are two tabs in the download manager, one for the content downloaded through the browser and for the content received via Bluetooth. And, finally, up to five different browser windows can be opened. Switching between windows is done with the # and * keys. It's probably one of the best browsers used in a feature phone.

Download manager: another nice feature in V8 • up to 5 different browser windows can be opened simultaneously • viewing options

Motorola RAZR V8 supports Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP profile, allowing listening to music on a stereo Bluetooth headset. The Bluetooth modem profile for accessing the Internet on a PC or notebook computer is among the options, as well. Furthermore, the RAZR2 V8 cannot be set as permanently visible to other Bluetooth devices; the only option available is to set it as "Discoverable for 3 minutes". Pity, it's much like in RAZR V3.

Connecting over Bluetooth with options

The phone also supports local and remote synchronization of contacts and calendar events. The local sync is with Outlook and PC, while remote synchronization works with Exchange server. There are several USB connection modes - media sync, memory device, modem and USB print.