Motorola Razr V3c review (gray, Verizon Wireless)

We knew it was coming; it was just a question of when. As with any other new cell phone, the Motorola Razr V3c experienced a lot of delays, and at one point, Verizon denied to us that the company even had it. Despite the hiccups, however, the Verizon Razr is finally here, and it brings along some improvements over the original GSM version of the phone, the Razr V3. Though the V3c's design is basically the same as its predecessors', it adds a 1.3-megapixel camera and support for Verizon's 3G EV-DO network. Sure, it's not perfect, but it's still one of the sexiest phones around. As expected, Verizon's Razr V3c will take a bite out of your wallet. It's $349 with a one-year contract or $199 with a two-year contract. As part of the Razr family, the Motorola Razr V3c for Verizon casts the same slim profile that has made it the most popular cell phone of 2005. At 3.9 by 2.1 by 0.6 inches and 3.5 ounces, the V3c is a hair bigger and heavier than the original Razr, but you don't notice the difference at all. In fact, it slips so easily into a pocket that it can be difficult to feel the vibrating ring. We liked the gray coloring--a sort of compromise between the black and silver models--though the flip mechanism was rather loose. The external display and controls and the location of the camera lens are the same on the first Razr. And here again, there's no camera flash.

We were surprised that the Razr V3c supports just 65,000 colors rather than the 262,000 colors found on the Razr V3. It's also a tad smaller, at 2.25 inches diagonally instead of 2.5 inches. The differences are minor, but they're noticeable just the same. Another change is that the V3c uses the new Verizon menu interface that the carrier is standardizing on all its phones. The modification can be an upside or a downside depending on how you view it. On one hand, the Verizon interface is less buggy than Motorola's system, with fewer restarts after freezing. On the other hand, Verizon's menu structure doesn't always make sense. For instance, camera functions are inconveniently stashed in the Get It Now menu.

The keypad and navigation controls in the Razr family have generated mixed emotions from users. Though we didn't mind the design, which lays all keys flat with the surface of the phone in the manner of a touch pad, many readers said they were not user-friendly. In any case, the Razr V3c has some minor but visible improvements that make it easier to dial by feel. There are small ridges separating the navigation controls from each other and the five-way toggle. Also, the toggle has four raised arrows for each direction, and ridges separate the individual rows on the number keypad. As with the Razr V3, the V3c's keys are brightly backlit. The toggle acts as a shortcut to four user-defined functions, and this time, there's a dedicated camera control instead of a shortcut to the Web browser. You also get two soft keys, Talk and End/power buttons, and a Clear key.

The Motorola Razr V3c has the same 1,000-contact phone book as the Razr V3. As expected, you get caller groups, picture caller ID, and ring-tone caller ID; 34 polyphonic (72-chord) tones are included. Other features include a vibrate mode, text and multimedia messaging, a calculator, voice dialing and commands, an alarm clock, a notepad, a world clock, a voice recorder, and a calculator. That feature list doesn't match the V3's exactly, but it comes darn close. Business types can use the speakerphone (operable before you make a call) and Bluetooth, but in typical Verizon fashion, the carrier says the phone does not support all object file transfers, yet to our surprise, we were able to send two pictures via Bluetooth from our Sony Ericsson S710a.

The Razr V3c has an improved camera over its sibling, with a resolution of 1.3 megapixels. You can take pictures in four resolutions (1,280x1,024, 640x480, 320x240, and 160x120) and choose from a variety of editing options, including brightness and white-balance adjustments, three quality settings, a 4X zoom, a multishot control, four color effects, three shutter sounds, a silent option, and 10 fun frames. The video recorder shoots clips up to 15 seconds in length with sound. The only resolution available is 176x144, but you can adjust the brightness and white balance and use one of the four color effects available with the still camera. When finished with your work, you can save it to the phone's 30MB of memory or send it in a multimedia message. Picture and video quality are improved over the Razr V3's, with distinct edges and colors. At times, however, the images are washed out, and since there's no flash, darker conditions aren't ideal. Video quality is about average for a camera phone.