The Amazing Design Of Motorola Droid Razr

Motorola claims that the Droid Razr is the thinnest phone in the world, and while we can't prove that, we're inclined to believe it's true. Measuring 5.14 inches long by 2.71 inches wide by 0.28 inch thick and weighing only 4.5 ounces, we were immediately struck by how slim and lightweight it felt, despite its large footprint. There's no denying the wow factor of the Razr's ultralight body, and it does indeed fit perfectly into our pants pocket. Yet, we felt it was a bit too large for our small hands (no thanks to the rather wide bezel surrounding the display), and the squared edges resulted in slight discomfort when held. It's also a tiny bit top heavy because of the hump in the back that houses the camera lens.

In order to accommodate such a skinny profile, Motorola sought innovative ways to construct the phone, resulting in quite the marvel of industrial design. Motorola claims the chassis is built out of diamond-cut aluminum, and the thin sheet of glass dominating the front is sculpted around the edges to fit just so. Instead of a regular battery cover, Motorola simply coated the back in Kevlar, which has a surprisingly smooth and soft texture. Of course, that means the battery is not removable, which is a trade-off that many might not appreciate. Motorola did develop a Smart Actions app to help conserve battery life, but we'll get to that later.
The Kevlar backing won't make the phone bullet-resistant, but Motorola did seek to make the Droid Razr as durable as it could. It has a "nanotechnology coating" that guards the phone against the occasional splash. We placed the Droid Razr under running water for a few seconds, and the water did seem to bead and roll off it, like on a freshly waxed car. It's not water-resistant however, so we wouldn't go swimming with it. The Corning Gorilla Glass display is also said to be scratch-resistant.
While its slim profile is certainly stunning, the Droid Razr's 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Advanced display is nothing to sneeze at, either. It's simply gorgeous, with vibrant and rich colors plus tack-sharp details; it reminds us a lot of the AMOLED screens we've seen on Samsung handsets. The Droid Razr does use a Pentile matrix display, so images are not as smooth as on those same Samsung phones. Text in particular has a very slight graininess to it. The qHD 960-by-540-pixel resolution reduces that effect considerably, but it's not quite as vibrant as the display on the iPhone 4S or the Samsung Galaxy S II By itself, however, we maintain that the display is excellent.

We were very impressed by the responsiveness of the display. Overall navigation felt seamless and snappy thanks to the phone's 1.2GHz dual-core TI OMAP 4430 processor. There was virtually no lag when multitasking between different apps.
Beneath the display are four touch sensor keys for the Menu, Home, Back, and Search functions. On the right spine are two skinny volume controls plus a silver power/screen lock key. The volume keys click satisfyingly into place, but the power key is disappointingly squishy. On the left spine are the microSD card port and a slot for a Micro-SIM card. As the Droid Razr is for Verizon, the Micro-SIM card is purely for LTE; international GSM versions will likely use it for voice as well as data.
On the top of the phone are the 3.5mm headset port and the Micro-USB and Micro-HDMI ports. A camera lens sits on the back along with an LED flash and an external speaker. Sitting above the display is a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera with 720p HD video capability.
User interface
The Motorola Droid Razr ships with Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread and a refined and lightweight version of MotoBlur that we've already seen in other Motorola handsets like the Atrix 2 and the Droid Bionic. It has up to five customizable home screens, and at the bottom row of the home screen are shortcuts to the phone dialer, the messaging inbox, the camera app, and the main menu. When you tap the Home button in standby mode, you will see a zoomed-out view of all the home screens, similar to HTC's Sense UI.
You navigate the main menu by swiping side to side, and the apps can be organized into groups. There is a very slight flicker animation that occurs when you swipe screens. The default lock screen has the usual swipe-to-unlock control, a vibrate/sound toggle, plus a camera app shortcut in case you need to get to the camera quickly from the lock screen. As for the virtual keyboard, you have the choice of either the default multitouch Android keyboard or Swype.