Motorola Razr M review

Does Telstra's latest 4G handset perform like it looks?

Motorola Droid Razr M review
TechRadar reviews the Droid Razr M

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Messaging

Text messaging is simple on the Razr M, thanks to the keyboard with haptic feedback and the nicely sorted contacts in the People app.

Droid Razr M review

Incoming text messages are not displayed on the lock screen. Instead, you get a little icon in the notification bar and the text is then displayed on Motorola's Circle widget on the home screen. While this does make for extra privacy, we found it easy to miss a text message, especially when the phone is on silent.

In the Text app itself, messages are displayed in the order they were received. Each one is displayed with a contact's photo icon, giving it the appearance of an instant messenger conversation.

Ice Cream Sandwich also supports Google's Talk app, which lets you IM your Gmail and Google Plus contacts, and a separate Facebook chat application. As you would guess with a Google product on Google's OS, it's extremely well integrated.

Internet

Droid Razr M review

Browsing the web on the Razr M is a bright, snappy experience thanks to the phone's able processor and Telstra's 4G network.

On or off of WiFi, websites loaded quickly and the page didn't jump around as text and images rendered.

As we mentioned, Telstra's 4G LTE network didn't disappoint. Videos and music loaded quickly and streamed smoothly. Using the Speedtest.net app, we recorded average speeds of just under 20 Mbps. In less crowded areas of North Sydney, speeds were sometimes in excess of 30 Mbps.

Google Chrome

Droid Razr M review

In addition to Chrome, Ice Cream Sandwich and the Razr M supports several browsers, including Mozilla Firefox and Opera. But, we prefered Google's own mobile browser.

We really liked the way Chrome handles multiple tabs, displaying them like folders in a filing system. Also, each new tab that's opened starts with icons for your most visited sites.

Chrome also has a great Widget, which shows your browser bookmarks on a home page for quick, easy access.

Of course, there's no flash support for Chrome or any other Android browser, which is standard most mobile devices these days.