Like the Razr before it, the Motorola Q clearly aims to make a fashion–and technophile–statement. Slim and stylish, this silver-hued PDA/phone is just 11.5mm thick–thinner than the Razr, and significantly more compact than competing smart phones from HP, Palm, Research in Motion, and T-Mobile,. Unfortunately, the unit lacks some of the features found on the competition, such as a selection of office productivity apps.

The Motorola Q certainly knows how to make an impression. Ever since its introduction almost a year ago, this smart phone has generated a lot of buzz for its ultrathin form factor. Of course, Motorola generated a lot of the hype itself by touting the Q as the “thinnest QWERTY device in the world.” And now after a number of delays, the Q finally is here, and thankfully, it delivers in performance and style. It offers good call quality, an outstanding multimedia experience, and the tools to keep business users productive on the go, such as Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone Edition, EV-DO, and e-mail support. For the ultimate road warriors who need full functionality for editing documents from the road, however, they may want to opt for a Windows Mobile Pocket PC phone, such as the Palm Treo 700w.

By now everyone knows one of the key differentiating factors of the Motorola Q is its size. The highlight is the .45″ thickness, something that’s perhaps hard to appreciate unless you’ve spent time with other smartphone devices. By way of comparison, that’s almost exactly half the thickness of the Treo 700 family. The Q is also a little shorter than the Treo, but loses out in the waistline, coming in at .2″ wider. The other key number is weight; the Q is a full two ounces lighter, coming in 4.1 ounces. Of course, some of these size benefits translate directly into weaknesses as the balancing act plays out; we’ll get into that more in further sections.

The first time you pick up the Motorola Droid ($200 with a two-year contract from Verizon; price as of 10/28/09), you’ll notice its solid feel and heft–there’s a lot going on behind the crisp, 3.7-inch touchscreen. Making good use of Android 2.0′s new features, the Droid is a powerful Web surfing and communications tool that has a chance of living up to its hype. The Droid’s biggest flaw, however, is in its hardware design: The keyboard is shallow and flat, which can make typing uncomfortable.

At 0.54 inch thick, the Droid is slightly beefier than the 0.48-inch-thick iPhone 3GS, but it still has room for a 40-key, slide-out QWERTY keypad. At just under 6 ounces, it’s about an ounce heftier than the iPhone 3GS. When closed, the 4.56-by-2.36-inch Droid is almost the same size as the 4.5-by-2.4-inch iPhone 3GS.

The slide out QWERTY keyboard is nice to have but not necessary in my opinion. The sliding mechanism is also solid but may ware out quickly over time. There is a nice click when you slide it open or close. There are a few things I don’t like about the keyboard like the keys are all flat and it just doesn’t feel right to type on it. There is also a D-Pad on the right of the keyboard but it’s not placed correctly. I wouldn’t get rid of the D-Pad because it comes in handy when you are in Recovery mode to flash a Custom ROM. What are custom ROM’s you say? We will get to that a little later. I am by no means fast when it comes to typing on a phone (even on the Blackberry), but I was even slower when using the physical keyboard. I personally prefer the virtual keyboard over the slide out one. The physical keyboard is just extra weight in my opinion for the Droid but I guess it’s one of the reasons the Droid is so popular.

The front of the device has the 3.7″ WVGA LCD with the speaker right above it. There are the four capacitive touch buttons right below the screen for the Back, Menu, Home and Search functions. What may confuse some people is that some Android device have these same buttons in different order (they seriously need to standardize on the order). The top part of the device ends there but you can see the bottom part with a small hole for the microphone and a Verizon logo (personally I think that’s a waste of valuable space).

A perfect cell phone for anyone with the Midas touch, the Razr V3i D&G is clad in a bright gold skin and features D&G-themed wallpapers and ring tones. The feature set and basic form factor unchanged form the original gray V3i; this is a phone for fashionistas rather than gadget-fiends. As with the all D&G couture, you’ll pay a lot for the privilege–$400 to be exact–but T-Mobile offers it for $299 with service.

Design
At .55 inches thick, the RAZR V3i is virtually the same thickness as the original RAZR. And like the original RAZR, the phone’s design takes the standard clamshell form factor to the next level with an impressive, fully-anodized aluminum construction. A large 176 x 220 color display with 262,000 colors dominates the inside of the top cover. The outside cover of the handset sports a supplementary 96 x 80 full-color display that can display caller ID pictures, time, call information, battery and signal strength, and more. The 1.23 megapixel camera lens is housed above this display. Up/down buttons are placed on the left side for volume control.

Most of the phone’s features and on-screen menus are controlled by a five-way center button on the handset’s backlit control pad, which is precision cut from a single sheet of nickel-plated copper alloy. A mini-USB port is provided, which, while useful for fast data transfer, can also be used with compatible USB stereo headsets. Note that the phone does not have a standard 2.5mm headset jack.

And don’t forget, Dolce & Gabbana and Motorola wouldn’t think of offering a phone without making available a special edition gold plated Motorola Bluetooth H700 Headset. Coordinate your phone and Bluetooth headset in style.

Calling Features
The RAZR V3i’s internal phone book can hold up to 1000 contacts while the phone’s picture ID system allows you to assign pictures to your most common callers. The phone also supports polyphonic ringtones as well as MP3 ringers, allowing you to use portions of your favorite songs to alert you to incoming calls. For times when you want to be discreet, there’s a vibrating alert. A built-in speakerphone makes it easy to talk without having the phone to your ear while voice activated dialing makes calling your friends, family and associates as easy as saying their names. Speaker-independent technology allows any speaker to dial numbers with the voice dialing system. And because the RAZR V3i is Bluetooth enabled, wireless headsets can be configured with the phone for total handsfree operation.

Product Features

This is not the best RAZR we’ve seen, that honor is still held by the RAZR V3xx. Still, this phone does have a couple of advantages over the AT&T device. First, we like the updated look of the Maxx, it provides a nice evolutionary bridge between this phone and the KRZR. Second, the camera on the Maxx Ve, with it’s two-stage autofocus button, took usable pictures. Like most RAZRs, the Maxx Ve made calls that sounded great, but most other aspects of the phone were very disappointing. We’re tired of the Verizon Wireless interface and menu setup, and we quickly grew frustrated with the V Cast music store. The phone simply could not handle videos properly, a real disappointment on a 3G phone. We’d like to see the V3xx stuffed into this body, or maybe a more revolutionary update to the RAZR family as a whole.

The handset is easy to open with its well designed clamshell opening system & comes with external controls & display. The external display provides the user with all the information they desire regarding signal strength, battery life, time & more. The dual screen allow the user to view information internal & externally on either of the clear colour screens. The external screen provides 65k colours with a screen resolution of 120 x 160 pixels & the internal screen measures 2.2 Inches & provides a bright 256k colour display. The Motorola RAZR MAXX comes with a lengthy talk time which is up to 5 hours & the standby time is 380 hours approximately. The RAZR MAXX has been beautifully designed by Motorola & is a member of the RAZR family which include the Motorola RAZR V3, Motorola RAZR V3i & the Motorola RAZR V3x.

Motorola really hasn’t strayed far from the original Razr design with the MAXX. At 15mm thick, it’s still super slim, especially by the standards of 3G phones, and it retains the stylish keypad, which is made from etched metal–although this time the keys are slightly wider.

The only major design update is the hardened glass finish on the front. This covers the small external color screen and also hides three dedicated music buttons for fast forward, rewind and play/pause. Like the touch buttons on LG’s Chocolate phone, these only light up when you run your finger over them. We found they can be a bit slow to respond, though.

A comfortable respite from thin sounding earbuds and uncomfortable behind-the-neck earphones! The Motorola S805 Bluetooth DJ Headphones are a great balance of wireless freedom and captivating sound.

The DJ-style headphones moniker refers to their styling, not their functionality. The drivers of DJ headphones swivel upwards, keeping the headphones stable so you can listen to what the audience hears with one ear and preview with another, all while frantically mixing. The closest resemblance to DJ functionality these headphones have is the ability to swivel the drivers 90 degrees at the joints, flattening them for more manageable transport in the included hard case.

While the S805s are advertised as wireless headphones, they do come with a 2.5mm headphone jack and a 2.5mm to 3.5mm cable, so you can run them via a wired connection if you like. This improves the clarity a little and also removes the delay that is always present on Bluetooth headphones, but of course you sacrifice the convenience of no wires.

While the S805s are advertised as wireless headphones, they do come with a 2.5mm headphone jack and a 2.5mm to 3.5mm cable, so you can run them via a wired connection if you like. This improves the clarity a little and also removes the delay that is always present on Bluetooth headphones, but of course you sacrifice the convenience of no wires. Generally, the bigger and more expensive headphones get, the more comfortable and better sounding they are. The DJ headphones were not as comfortable as we were expecting, because the earpads are made of soft leather, which is nowhere near as forgiving as velvet and other soft materials you see on headphones for the same price. The flipside of this design is that they reduce a lot of ambient noise.

Features

• Play time: up to approximately 17 hours
• Weight: 5.5 ounces
• Circumaural ear interface
• Speakers 40mm diameter Neodymium
• Music controls: Jog dial for track/volume; push button for call answer/play and pause
• Noise, echo and wind cancellation
• Wired connection for use with all stereo MP3 players
• Bluetooth class: Class 2
• Bluetooth Stereo profiles – A2DP, AVRCP
• Bluetooth Headset profiles- HS 1.0, HF1.2