Motorola RAZR 2 V8 review

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The Motorola RAZR V3 will be forever hailed as a design classic and one of the first true 'fashion' phones. Motorola built on its massive success and launched a variety of similar variants, none of which broke any new ground but still sold by the ton. This is the new Motorola RAZR2 V8, the successor to the V3 and new catwalk star of the mobile phone world.

As compact and smart as the V3 was, the external casing was a little busy – rocker switches here, badly mounted screens there – something that Motorola have addressed well when designing the new V8. This time the clamshell runs the complete length of the phone and the sides are not broken up with any buttons, instead features are accessed via a 2 inch external touch screen that vibrates ever so slightly to indicate you have pressed a button. From here you can operate the camera, view SMS messages and use the MP3 player.

Opening the phone reveals an evolution of the V3's famous keypad, still resplendent in futuristic silver, and the large 2.2 inch QTFT 262,000 colour screen. The design overhaul has continued here too, with a much smoother look enhancing the phones' modern feel. Using the V8 indicates that there have been some improvements in Motorola's oft-criticised software, as not only is it easier to get to grips with, it's also faster and evidently more stable than the V3's notoriously sensitive system.

A 2MP camera is mounted on the V8, which can also capture video but lacks a flash, and the aforementioned music player seems similar to that used on the old ROKR phone, but without all the sound adjustments. In fact, all there is to tweak the sound produced by the phone is a bass-boost. Naturally the V8 comes with an Opera browser and email, office tools, Bluetooth and up to 2GB of memory, which is where the V8 loses some points. There are two versions of the V8, one with 512MB and one with 2GB of onboard memory, but neither of which have an expansion slot ready for an expansion card, an oversight that smacks of cheapness on Motorola's part.

Leaving this aside, there is little else to fault the new Motorola. It looks fantastic and has kept enough of its predecessors styling cues for there to be a 'family' connection, the call quality is exceptional thanks to Motorola's CrystalTalk quality enhancement but best of all is that it hasn't succumbed to the bloating which affects other upper range mobiles these days. In fact, when compared with the V3, the V8 has a slightly smaller footprint and only weighs a small amount more, 117 grams plays 95.

Motorola could have just sprinkled some glitter over the V3, called it the new model and people would still have bought it, but instead they have taken everything that made the V3 so popular (design and size) and enhanced it with the latest features, added some interesting new touches and given the casing a bang-up-to-date makeover. Forget about the memory limitations and just enjoy owning one of the best phones to come out this year.

Motorola RAZR 2 V8 specs and features

• Quad Band
• 2 Megapixel Camera
• MP3 Player
• 512MB internal memory
• EDGE
• GPRS
• Messaging: SMS, EMS, MMS, Instant Messaging
• WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML (Opera 8.5)
• Dimensions: 103 x 53 x 11.9 mm
• Weight: 117 grams
• Standby Time: Up to 330hrs
• Talk Time: Up to 7hrs 50mins