Motorola Stature i9 (black, Nextel)

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Motorola i9 Stature

In the back of our minds we knew that the Motorola Razr, at least in some form, would make it to Sprint Nextel. Though the original Razr V3 is more than five years old, and Motorola has pumped out dozens of revamps, it has made it to every other carrier. And even though Nextel tends to shy away from thin, flashy devices, we just couldn't believe that Moto would pass up the opportunity to make an iDEN Razr. While the cell phone in question, the Motorola i9 Stature, does not carry the Razr name, it bears all the hallmarks of the venerable handset. Its thin, boxy profile takes us back to the V3, while the glossy skin, expansive external display, touch controls, and flat keypad remind us of the Razr2 V9m series.

Remarkably, the i9's feature set doesn't improve very much upon recent Razr models, but it remains a solid midrange model for communication and multimedia. It offers push-to-talk, a 3.1-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, and a music player. Call quality was decent--voices sounded a bit robotic, but we could carry on a conversation without any real problems. Besides Nextel, you also can get the i9 with Boost Mobile. The Nextel price is $199 with a contract, while contract-free Boost charges $299.

Design
As we mentioned already, the i9 is another branch of the Razr family tree. Yet, while the styling is old, the trade-off is that it is one of the most stylish Nextel phones ever. Razr fans, if there are any left, would recognize the sleek lines and trim, angular design. At 4.1 inches tall by 2.1 inches wide by 0.59 inches thick, it slips right into a pocket or bag, so it's easy to take on the go. And though it's a tad heavy at 4.7 ounces, it also has a sturdy and comfortable feel in the hand. We liked the soft touch material and the shiny front face, even if the latter shows fingerprints and smudges.

The 262,000-color external display is large and vibrant (two inches, 320x240 pixels). Colors are bright and graphics are sharp, provided you can see through the aforementioned smudges. It shows the date, time, battery life, signal strength, and numeric caller ID. It also shows photo caller ID and it works as a viewfinder for the camera lens. What's more, you can navigate through the i9s full menu structure and all applications without ever opening the phone. You can add wallpaper, but the short backlighting time isn't adjustable. You can always light it again, however, by pressing the volume rocker.

Like the V9, the i9 has touch music controls on its front face, but they're not part of the external display. Instead, they're set into the mirrored frame surrounding the display. Like most touch controls, the keys are slippery, but they're easy to use and they have vibrating feedback. Besides the play/pause, skip, and rewind buttons, you also can cycle through different player views. You even can delete music files thanks to a Trash control.

Other touch controls come into play depending on which feature you're using. For example, when in video mode, new player controls will appear on the left side of the display (or on the bottom if you're watching videos in landscape mode). And when you're snapping photos, even more touch controls appear to let you manipulate the shooter. The concept is similar to the ModeShift keypad on the Motorola Rokr E8 in that the controls appear only when you need them. Otherwise, they'll vanish to avoid a cluttered look.

As for physical exterior controls, the i9 has a few. On the left spine you'll find a volume rocker, the PTT button, a speakerphone/voice-dialing control, and the Micro-USB/charger port, while a handset locking switch, a camera shutter, and a control for activating the menu on the external display are on the right. The microSD card slot sits behind the battery cover. That's not the most convenient location, even if you don't have to remove the battery. We also didn't love the location of the camera lens and flash on the top left corner of the i9's rear face. Not only is it a natural place to rest your finger, but also it makes vanity shots difficult.

The internal display has the same size and resolution as the external display. Yet, you can change more options, including the text size and backlighting time. Three menu designs are available--list, tab and icon--but all are relatively easy to use. Our only complaint was that it takes a few too many clicks to perform such basic functions, such as shooting a picture and sending it in a multimedia message. Also, if you exit out of submenus you go back to standby mode rather than reverting one step to the main menu.

Like with most Razr phones, the i9's controls are hit and miss. Though they're spacious, they're also flush and rather stiff. Tiny silver bumps, similar to those on the Rokr E8, give the controls some tactile definition, but it's not enough to dial by feel. The navigation array consists of a four-way toggle with a central OK button, two soft keys, a dedicated menu control, the Talk and End power keys, and a Web browser shortcut. That's not a bad design, but we'd prefer a dedicated back key. In standby mode, the OK button will open the settings menu while the toggle doubles as a shortcut to four user-defined functions. The backlit keypad buttons are also spacious, but flat and stiff as well.

Features
The i9's 600-contact phone book has room in each entry for seven phone numbers, an e-mail address, and notes. You can save contacts to groups or PTT Talk Groups and you can pair them with a photo and one of 28 polyphonic ringtones. Other basic features include a vibrate mode, text and multimedia messaging, a memo pad, a speakerphone, call timers, an alarm clock, and a datebook.

The i9 also has a few higher-end features: stereo Bluetooth, voice dialing and commands, an application manager, USB mass storage, PC syncing, access to Sprint Mobile e-mail, and a voice recorder. There's also a GPS application, but it's used for finding your position by longitude and latitude rather than by mapping or directional services.