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- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 73 reviews Back to product review
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Full user review
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24 out of 29 people found this review helpful
1.5 stars
"Cingular ruins the RAZR"
Pros: tech specs speak for themselves. good features.
Cons: Cingular has had virtually every customizable feature disabled. When closing applications, you're sent to the standby screen istead of back to the application menu. Much Much more
Summary: I got this phone today and had it unlocked for use with Tmobile. Unlocking was quite easy, as I know people who can get the codes...
The phone itself is a gem. It looks great, has high speed internet, fast operation, and a great camera. Compared to previous RAZR's... all plusses.
What Cingular had done to it? Unforgivable. The device is so locked down that there is very little customization to be done. The left and right soft keys are now fixed to "options" and "main menu". These can only be changed via modding programs. Some people like to be able to have the alarm clock be a soft key. I do, for sure. The data connection profiles are locked, uneditable, and undeletable. One can copy and edit, but can not replace the original. This means that I can get the device to access and tether to the web, but I cannot get the java email and IM programs to connect. There is also no way to change which profile the java applications use to connect.
Worse of all... Cingular has implemented security certificates for java downloads. Pretty much anything that came preinstalled or is purchased from Cingular is trusted and can have full access to the internet. All other 3rd party programs can only have the options of "yes, ask always" or "no, never". "ask always" means that EVERY time an application that is running tries to fetch data from the web, you'll be prompted to approve it. In the case of Google Maps, one would need to approve about once every 5-10 seconds of map loading. Highly inconvenient. Similar behaviour for the Opera Mini Browser and mobile Gmail as well.
These faults in functionality are a result of the Cingular affects of the phone software design. If making changes through modification software, one can unlock the softkey restrictions and even change the java internet permission settings (at the rist of losing access to any of the formalized Cingular applications).
Just last week, I had a Sony Ericsson w810i unlocked from Cingular for use with the old AT&T Wireless. A few settings easily changed and we got full functionality across the board.
It should never be as hard as Cingular has made it for the newest, lastest, and greatest RAZR phone. It seems that their desire to control is seeping out from the internal hell and onto what customers can and cannot do. Such a shame.
- 5 replies to this review
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what software would you use to unlock or get back all of the restricted features?
And where would you find the software available for download?? -
As is typical, a "gem" can be ruined by the viewer. I have this phone and I have full functionality over it... Cingular is not at fault here... be careful next time where you purchase your phone. Cingular can't garantee something you purchased somewhere else, therefore, should not be blamed for your shortcomings in the matter. This article is about the v3xx not Cingular's take on it.
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Buy the phone from Motorola next time!
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When ever you buy a carrier branded phone it will always be limited with their own software and restrictions. If you want total freedom then you should check out ebay or other 3rd parties where you can easily get the same phone that is direct from the factory, All the software on it is from motorola, no carrier brandings and everything is open and you can configure it as you please.
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I find it interesting that you use SIM cards for carriers that either will never carry UMTS or HSDPA or wont have it for about another year (i.e, T-mobile and ATTWS). With that said and done, lets move on to the whole customization theory. What is so difficult to go into the menus and set up an alarm? I always laugh at people who give things terrible ratings do to the fact the phone does not allow them to do everything the previous phone did. I still like the phone the way it is. But someone do check back when I find any little aspect that the previous razr did not have to gripe about.
Where to buy
Motorola Razr V3xx - gray (AT&T):
$99.99 - $163.37
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$119.99 | Yes |
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$99.99 | Yes |
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$119.99 | Yes |
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$163.37 | See Site |
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