Motorola Droid Razr M user reviews (black, Verizon)

Pros Fast, great battery, good size

Cons Indoor picture quality not the best (outdoor is fine though)

Summary This is my first review but I noticed that many people had the same problem I had and I felt compelled to tell you guys how to fix it. So, if you are worried about the audio quality of this phone, don't be!!

I exchanged my old phone for a razr m about a month ago and noticed the fuzzy, scratchy audio quality almost immediately and was devastated. I returned the phone and had them order me a new one...same problem. The problem was that apparently all new razr devices (my brother had this problem on his razr maxx too) come with this 'surround sound' feature that seems to do nothing but destroy the audio quality of anything plugged into the audio jack. So..all you have to do is TURN OFF THE SURROUND SOUND OPTION and its completely fine.

Detailed instructions: SETTINGS > SOUND > WIRED STEREO DEVICES (bottom of the screen) > CHANGE TO CUSTOM > TURN OFF SURROUND

I actually have the audio effects turned off completely because its a little clearer but the surround accounts for most of the buzzy, staticy distortion. This method works for all razr phones too!

Pros Light, thin, fast. Good software layout, nice new fatures. Call quality is good. If the hotspot functionality works well, that will be a big plus since I travel frequently on business.

Cons No removable battery. Voice search doesn't seem to work as well as it used to. Default ringtones a really bad.

Summary I bought this up today to replace my original Droid, so feedback is based on that reference. I will update as I use the phone more.

Phone is thin and light compared to my old Droid. It really feels much lighter and thinner in my pocket. I didn't want a "big" phone, but the additional length is fine - no issues.

Cellular reception doesn't seem to be any better than with my old phone - I'm still right on the edge of coverage in my office, but this hasn't dropped as many calls.

Call quality is good, but callers sound just a little bit muffled, almost like there is some noise reduction going on. Callers didn't have any trouble hearing me on a conference call. I didn't try out the speakerphone feature yet.

Screen size is good and easy to navigate with one hand. It will take some getting used to the location of the power button, but I think the side location makes more sense since it is out of the way of the headphone cord.

New OS is really different than what I'm used to, but I can already see some real advantages of the configuration. Many of you may be used to this, but the way you can configure widgets to show inbound e-mail, calendar, etc is really a big improvement over what i was doing before. Since there are icons on the screen for the basic functions (phone, contacts, text, and voice search), and since e-mail and calendar are my other two primary uses, I only have 3 apps on the main screen, along with the e-mail and calendar widgets. This really is much more functional, and eliminates alot of the swiping to see what's going on.

The voice search seems to be a real step backward from the previous version. In my old version it would search the internet, my contacts, whatever. In this version it seems to default to my contacts, and automatically dials it's best guess, even if that's not close to what I was looking for. I need to either find a way to change that setting, or this will be unusable.

Navigation has a new voice but still seems to work well. I tried it out on my drive home, but didn't explore it in detail. I will update once I do. I also bought the car navigation dock, since this is one of the things I really like about my old droid. The dock is a good design, but there needs to be a slot to pick the phone up from the bottom. Also, for $40 you would think they could include the USB charging cable. Cheap, and a little insulting.

All of my old apps automatically populated the phone. Don't know how this happened, but it was a nice timesaver.

I set up the location function, which allows you to create custom settings based on where you are and what time it is. For example, I set up a "sleep" function where it turns off the ringer between 10pm and 6:45 am, and doesn't notify me of e-mails, etc. i set up contacts (my wife and kids) that will bypass this function and will ring through. We'll see how this works, but it seems like a cool feature. I also set up a feature that automatically responds to texts with a message that says "I'm driving".

The ringtones are really bad, and overall a disappointment. They are all really flakey and stupid, and there don't seem to be any basic, normal "ring" ringtones or notification tones. I don't want my phone to "flutter". I want it to ring, and i don't want to have to download another app to get a basic ringtone that has been on every cell phone for 20 years. Just dumb.

E-Mail and calendar were very easy to set up. One personal account, one work account, basic settings and everything came through. Calendar synced automatically. Couldn't have been easier.

I briefly set up the Hotspot feature but didn't really test it out. My only complaint so far is that it seems like you have to go a couple menus deep to turn it on and off. It would be much better if this setting was on the main settings shortcut screen, since I don't want to waste battery life on this most of the time.

So far so good, more to follow.....

Pros Speedy performance. UI is clean with no unnecessary flesh (Touchwiz, Sense). Small profile w/ full size screen. Vibrant display despite qHD concerns. Great battery life so far (4.5 days). Smart Actions app, Premium build materials

Cons Less battery life than a few competitors (supposedly).

Summary I won't lie to you. I had the OG Droid (original Motorola Droid) when it first came out and loved it. The thing I loved most about it was the fact that it said "DROID" by default when it loaded up and when I got messages. But after switching to a Galaxy S phone I missed the consistency of the device and wanted a phone that performed equally well otherwise.

I went with the Razr M. Went into the store and became attached. Good size screen and though it isn't HD, it is "pixelly" enough. I don't take many pictures so the camera didn't matter for me. And the size in hand felt way more phone-like than the bigger rivals (Razr, Maxx, GS3). Pretty happy with my choice. User-interface is nice and the pre-loaded Smart-Actions app has its uses. The battery is also holding well for the first 4 days of use. I just charged it for the second time after charging it for the first time 2.5 days ago. I'm not a power user but I was playing around with it a fair amount and the battery was at 23% when I plugged it in.

Good buy overall. Comparatively: Same processor as Galaxy S3, bigger screen than iPhone 5 though the phones are almost the same size, better battery life than most smart phones, premium build materials (gorilla glass, aluminum, kevlar) compared to plastic of GS3

Pros Display looks great. Fast speed. Battery life ok so far.

Cons Can't remove battery. Indoor pictures look a litte washed out. Possible speaker issue?

Summary I got this phone to replace my old htc Eris Droid. I delayed getting a new phone for a long time because most newer smartphones that had the features I wanted had gotten too big for me. I wanted something small and light. Finally the RAZR M seems to fit my needs. It's still a little bigger than the Eris, but not by much and it doesn't seem any heavier.

Setup was quick and easy. My apps are all working fine. Battery life seems to be doing ok so far (but I've only had the phone for 2 days). For the camera, indoor pictures seem washed out. Outdoor pictures are great. Since I'm almost always taking pictures outside if I'm using my phone, it's not a deal killer for me, but it might be for other users.

I agree with the poster before me, the ringtones that come with the phone are truly awful. I couldn't replace them fast enough!

The only major concern I had was the original phone I got on Thursday had a problem with the earpiece. The speaker was intermittently buzzing. Veizon swapped the phone for me when I brought it back the next day, and so far no problems and call quality seems very good, even on speaker phone.