Motorola Droid Razr Maxx, priced at $300 for a two year contract from Verizon, resembles Droid Razr completely. The noticeable difference between the two is their battery life. Motorola claims that Razr Maxx when fully charged gives a talk time of 21 hours whereas in the original Razr the battery was consumed rapidly over Verizon’s LTE, a problem among all the 4G phones. The testing of talk time is in process but we found that the claims by Motorola could be true as video streaming and gaming over LTE did not put much strain on the battery.
Motorola Droid Razr Maxx – Design
Droid Razr Maxx is quite similar to Droid Razr except that it is slightly thicker and heavier. But the difference is very slight. Razr Maxx weighs 5.11 ounces and is 0.35 inches in thickness while Razr weighs 4.48 ounces and is 0.28 inches in thickness. But still Razr Maxx is slim like Samsung Galaxy Nexus which is also on Verizon.
Droid Razr Maxx has a solid stainless steel core along with a splashguard technology that will protect the handset in rain or if something spills on the phone.
The back has a soft-touch since it is made out of Kevlar, a material used in bulletproof jackets, high-end speedboats and bicycle tyres. According to Motorola, Kevlar is around five times stronger than steel. Kevlar on phone seems weird but it has given the handset a delicate and attractive look.
Motorola Droid Razr Maxx – Super AMOLED Display
Razr Maxx has a 4.3-inch qHD, 960-by-540-pixel Super AMOLED display. Motorola believes that the Super AMOLED technology would solve the battery issue associated with LTE to an extent as it has lower current consumption.
The display has great viewing angles and visibility outdoors. Blacks appear two deep and whites too bright but colors appear slightly oversaturated. These are all the trademarks of Super AMOLED display technology.
Motorola Droid Razr Maxx – Performance
The complete test on the talk time, as told earlier is in process, but we did a few informal tests of battery life over 4G. The results were quite impressive. On playing the game Madden NFL 12 for 10 minutes the battery did not drain at all and after running State of the Union address on YouTube in HQ, the battery decreased only by 20%.
Not only the battery life but also the performance was excellent. The gameplay was totally smooth with great graphics. In a nutshell, it’s a great gaming phone. The phone has a 1.2GHz dual-core TI OMAP 4430 processor that scored a nice 1040 on the Vellamo mobile benchmarking app for Android
Call quality is excellent with full coverage almost everywhere and the person on the other end sounds loud and clear.
Motorola Droid Razr Maxx – Software
Razr Maxx runs Android 2.3.5, which isn’t a pure version of Android but isn’t Motorola’s busy custom service, MotoBlur. The phone retains a few of MotoBlur widgets. The interface is almost like that of Droid Bionic. The widgets can be resized and you can also scroll through them.
MotoCast app is available which is similar to Bionic’s ZumoCast. It allows you to access remote files on your PC without any need of uploading or syncing the files. The Razr enables you to access everything from PowerPoint files to the iTunes playlist. The handset has 1GB of RAM, 16GB of on-board storage, and a preinstalled 16GB MicroSD card, that is, plenty of memory but still it is good to be able to access photos, videos, documents and other media files without downloading them to your device or uploading them to a cloud service.
Razr Maxx portrays the determination Motorola has to solve the LTE battery life problem. SmartActions is an app that enables you to set reminders when you should charge your phone like when you go to bed. If in case you forget to plug in the charger then a Smart Action, ‘Nighttime Battery’ will adjust the settings of your phone such as to make the battery last longer the next day.
Via Smart Actions you can also create different profiles like Work, Home, Workout and set rules for every situation. Smart Actions is a clever and easy-to-use app. You’ll have to spend a little time in setting up the profiles. But once done Smart Actions will make all the necessary adjustments.
Motorola Droid Razr Maxx – Camera
Razr Maxx has a similar 8MP camera as in Razr and unfortunately, the picture quality is not great. The pictures, even those taken in natural light, have a dark cast with unclear details. The flash seems to blow out the colors as well as the details a bit, hence must be used only when necessary.
Motorola Droid Razr Maxx – Accessories
Droid Razr Maxx, like Droid Bionic and Photon, supports various accessories, such as LapDock 500 Pro that is a laptop-like portal for phone. The device has a 14-inch display and a front-facing camera. On connecting the Webtop dock, complete Firefox browser and other specially made productivity apps can be accessed. HD Station, standard dock and vehicle navigation dock are a few other accessories supported by Razr Maxx.
Conclusion
Droid Razr Maxx is a great improvement on the biggest issue of Razr, battery life. For those who enjoy watching a lot of videos or playing heavy-duty games can definitely go for the handset. But if you are planning to shave off some cost then the original Razr is a better choice with the price $100 less than Razr Maxx.