Motorola RAZR² V9

I have had many cell phones, the first one I had was a Motorola v180, then a MotoRAZR V3, then the V9.

First of all, they all have almost IDENTICAL programming, which you think would have changed over time. Cosmetically, however, Motorola have outdone themselves!

The V9 felt like a durable phone, much heavier weighted than any other phone I've owned.

The external display was gorgeous, however, the touch screen buttons only applied to the music player, where as it is advertised as being able to check messages, etc. The Rogers RAZR2 V9 has this feature disabled.

Though the traditional (and in need of change) layout was somewhat dissappointing, I guess it would have functioned fine.

The MP3 Player has a nice layout as well, however, the stereo headset provided sounds terrible and feels very cheap. IF this is going to be your permanent music player, I suggest spending $150 extra and get a Stereo Bluetooth Headset (MotoROKR S9 apparently sounds terrific), though I have only tried a Nokia one.

The phone has next to no ringers, the camera took decent pictures (Sony Ericsson takes much better pictures).

Overall, the cosmetically this phone was gorgeous, even though the phone was fairly large.
Functionality wise, the phone needed some serious changes.

In the end, the RAZR2 V9 was Redesigned, Remastered, and Returned... for the Sony Ericsson W580i.

this phone advertises stuff it doesn't have. This site as well as [service provider] site shows the phone as having touch screen buttons on the front, it does not unless you are in the music player. The motorola site says the phone can read your text messages to you, it cannot. And it cannot use your own mp3 files to be used as ringtones, also like the motorola site says it can. It's a rip off phone, and don't buy it! It doesn't do a lot of the functions it says it can do. It might not even be able to do video calling either since the site says it can, but the sites are already showing or saying stuff it can do that it can't, so what's one more lie? >:(

I bought this phone a few days ago, and it is pretty good, just not as good as it is implied, as well as you lose some functions if you upgrade from a Razr to the Razr2.

First off, the phone is pretty good, fast, all the programs load up really fast (except for the carrier music program, which takes eternity to finally boot up) looks great (fingerprints like crazy though, but they wipe off just as easily) LOTS of features and all that good stuff, if you were upgrading to this from any other brand of phone, I thnk you will be really happy. If you upgrade from a razr, however, you WILL be losing out on some features the Razr had. Minor, but you should know what you're getting into!

Some of the losses from the Razr are that you can no longer record your phone conversation anymore. Where the razr had the right spine button that you could simply push to record your voice or a phone call is now a camera button. You can access the voice records program from the menu while on a call, but when you try to access it, it simply says "busy" so no more recording directions, e-mail addresses or anything else your caller is giving you while on the phone, so you can now get into an accident while driving and trying to find some paper rather than simpyl pushing the convenient voice records button.

Speaker phone no longer works when you are on a voice call when you close the flip. That disconnects the call. Yet, you CAN (and have to in fact) close the flip and use the speaker phone (or a headset) to do video calling, so yeah, no idea WHAT the logic was behind that move.

and the biggest drawback of all: No touch screen buttons!! Yes, when you open up a music program, you get the standard "rewind" "play/pause" and "fast Forward", HOWEVER, that is ALL you get in the touch screen department. The pictures on the Carrier's site as well as this site AS WELL AS Motorola themselves AND Motorola Customer service ALL show (or say) that there should in fact be the touch screen buttons on the front of the touch screen showing three different functions, and the buttons change depending on what option you press after that (for example, when the phone isn't doing anything, there are three buttons on the front of the phone for three different options, but when you press, for example, the music note, the music program starts up and the three controller buttosn change to rewind, play and fast forward) however, the one on this carrier has no touch screen buttons UNLESS you manually open the phone and start the program. Just to make sure, I took my phone back to the dealer and they put my SIM card into another Razr2, and sure enough that phone didn't have any touch screen buttons either, and the deal could not figure out how to make them come on, so apparently it's not just an issue with my phone, but rather an issue with the razr2 in general on this carrier. It's aggravating because not only is it advertised as having the touch screen buttons, (both on the Motorola Canada website as well as on this AND the [service provider] website) which it does not, but BOTH major competitiors have the phone with the options: "Recieved calls" "music" and "Message" so you can actually read your text message on the outside screen without opening the phone! Why This carrier did not do that, though, is annoying. If it was simply a programming error, then I REALLY hope they release a software update soon that makes those buttons appear on the front of the phone, and MORE importantly I hope they do it so the front of the phone has the "message" center as one of the options on the front of the phone, because being able to read a text message on the outside flip (again, like BOTH competitors can do) was the deciding factor for me to purchase this phone over a less expensive phone, and I just feel ripped off that it wasn't like it was advertised at all, so just be aware!

Further, in the states the touch screen buttons on the V9 are "Radio" "Music" and "Camera" however, since the right spine button on the Canadian V9 is ALREADY a camera button, I REALLY REALLY hope that if a software update is coming, that the carrier decides to go with the "message" button because again, that would be a HUGE feature to sell a phone to be able to read your messages without opening the phone, like BOTH major competitors do already!

So basically, because of all these issues, I am only giving the phone a medium rating. If it actually had the touch buttons like it was supposed to have, and more importantly the message button to be able to read texts on the outside of the phone like Motorola advertises it to (as well as each carrier has complete control over what they decide they want the buttons to do!) then I would have been rating it MUCH higher. Other than these issues, however, it really is a good phone (when it's not telling me my [service provider] on Demand or [service provider] Music player programs are corrupted!) so if you are okay with the above rated issues, I say go for it, but if you are not, then do not get it. You don't want to spend all that money and not get what was advertised!