Motorola Razr review

Motorola has resurrected the Razr brand with its latest Android handset, aiming to attract buyers with a thin and light, eye-catching design.

The device also packs some unique business-friendly features, including MotoCast remote and MotoPrint wireless printing, and Smart Action programmable functions.

As thin as a supermodel
In the looks department the Razr is fairly plain from the front, apart from the shiny Motorola logo at the top. The shape is similar to the firm's Xoom 2 tablets with cut off corners. Unfortunately there's a small hole in among the buttons that spoils it slightly, looking like a DIY accident has occurred.

However, flip the handset over and you're presented with something quite different. You can't help noticing how thin the device is at just 7.1mm - thinner than a ballpoint pen. This is outstanding engineering and makes it the thinnest smartphone we've seen. The phone isn't this wafer thin from top to bottom, but only a small section at the top around the camera is slightly thicker.

Of course, the fact that the phone is thin means that it's light too. It tips the scales at 127g, which is impressive for a smartphone with a large 4.3in screen. The device is quite comfortable to hold, if a little wide at 69mm.

The back also looks stunning with the woven Kevlar, which feels good as well as looking cool. It's nice to see something different and it's definitely a phone you will want to show off to your mates. The design is built for overall toughness with a stainless steel core, a Gorilla Glass touch-screen display and a Splash Guard coating to fend off rain or accidental spills.

There is no rear cover so you can't get access to the battery. Instead, the microSIM and microSD card slots are on the side of the Razr underneath a fold-down cover.

Usual high-end specifications
You get the kind of specifications that you would expect from a high-end, flagship smartphone. The Razr comes with a Texas Instruments 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage.

This is about standard for the chip and RAM, and there's a decent amount of internal storage. The phone's performance is far more impressive than the specifications are on paper. The touch screen is responsive without being over the top, and transitions between home screens or menus are smooth and lightning fast.

We found 16GB enough internal storage to have onboard, and you can bump this up by a further 32GB by using the microSD card slot.