If you are thinking that the RAZR brand of mobiles from Motorola has been overused, then your thinking is not in line with Motorola's. The new MOTORAZR2 V8 is yet another take on the RAZR phone. And because the MOTORAZR2 V8 is a quad-band handset without 3G, there is probably scope for yet another incarnation at some point in the future.

This new RAZR is a clamshell mobile with attractive looks and a superb front screen. In the hand and pocket the MOTORAZR2 V8 is comfortable and stylish. It is thin at 11.9mm, and somewhat tall and wide at 103mm and 53mm. This means that inside the flip there is plenty of room for a large number pad which makes it easy for those with larger hands to work quickly with the phone.

The flip side (pardon the pun) is that if you have smaller hands you might find it a bit of a challenge to stretch across the number pad and other keys one-handed.

The inside also has space for a sizeable screen, yet at 2.2 inches it is barely bigger than the vast 2-inch outer screen. Both display 262,000 colours and both offer 320 x 240 pixels.

The outer screen is this handset's key selling point. It can display all of an incoming text message and, thanks to some buttons on the phone's sides, you can choose between a range of pre-defined responses and fire one off without opening the phone.

Even cleverer, when you are listening to music the screen offers up not only track information but also some touch buttons allowing you to control playback. When you tap these the phone vibrates slightly giving you some welcome feedback that many phones with touch-buttons don't offer.

With such strong usability features it is a shame that the phone has a couple of big let-downs. The music playback capability is severely hampered by the fact that there is 512MB of internal storage memory but no memory card support.

This means you can't carry too many tunes around, and that is doubly annoying as playback quality is good. Synchronisation with Windows Media Player helps mitigate the problem a little bit as it is easy to manage tracks, but flash memory card support would have given this mobile a big boost.

The camera, too, is mixed. At 2-megapixels it is towards the low end of what is acceptable for a phone these days. The lens is on the front of the casing, and another use of the front screen is to frame photos that include yourself. When you open the flip the lens faces away from you and the inner screen is used for framing shots.

This is all fine, but during testing the camera delivered nondescript performance indoors, although it was much better outside.

Verdict
The front screen is superb, and the thin, sleek design of this mobile is also appealing. But without flash memory support, 3G or a decent camera, the MOTORAZR2 V8 may lack wide appeal.

Company: Motorola

Contact: 01256 790790

Tags: motorola motorolarazr windows media player flip (form) handset telephone razr mobile phone