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Motorola Droid Razr Maxx Review

Jeffrey Van Camp
By
Motorola-Droid-Razr-Maxx-Home-PG
Motorola Droid Razr Maxx
MSRP $299.00
Score Details
DT Editors' Choice
“With double the battery life of the Razr and a much improved camera, the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx is one of the best smartphones on the market.”
Pros
  • Improved design
  • Fantastic battery life
  • Bright Super AMOLED screen
  • Android 4.0 update coming
  • Verizon's 4G LTE network rocks
  • Improved camera
Cons
  • Design is logo heavy
  • Power and volume buttons are small
  • NinjaBlur interface is lifeless
  • Lots of bloatware apps installed

UPDATE: Owners of the Droid Razr Maxx can now download Android 4.0. Read our hands-on impressions of the Razr Maxx with Android 4.0 (7/12/2012).

The Droid Razr sold well at Verizon over the holidays, but it always felt like it was missing something. It lagged behind the Galaxy Nexus when it came software, and despite being the world’s thinnest smartphone at just 7.1mm thick, it lacked many other distinguishing characteristics. How a few months can change things. With the Droid Razr Maxx (yes, two X’s), the company has managed to double the already impressive battery life of the Droid Razr by only adding 2 millimeters to the overall thickness of the phone. It’s amazing what 2mm can add to your day.

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Design and feel

For all the hype about the Droid Razr being a super-thin phone, we never found it particularly comfortable to hold. It was almost too thin, and as a result, its edges were a bit sharp. So despite being 9mm thick instead of 7.1mm, the Droid Razr Maxx is actually more comfortable to hold and use than its predecessor. The edges have been rounded off and the camera on the back of the phone, which awkwardly jutted out from the back, now blends right into the design. The phone doesn’t feel bigger or thicker, it just feels better. It’s as if this was the real design of the Razr, but a Motorola executive demanded they slice the back off with a cheese grater.

Motorola-Droid-Razr-Maxx-Design-and-Feel
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Like the original, the Maxx has a shiny dark gray frame, a big Gorilla Glass screen, and a woven Kevlar back, just for kicks. We don’t think it will stop bullets, but Motorola points out that the inner frame of this plastic phone is stainless steel, helping it feel sturdy. The large 4.3-inch screen is the perfect size, though, we do wish that the screen pushed a bit closer to the edges of the phone. As it stands, the screen could be slightly larger or the frame could be slightly narrower.

Some people seem to like the design of the Razr, while others don’t. We don’t think it’s as attractive as the iconic 2004 Razr, but perhaps only the iPhone 4S can take that title these days. Our other complaints: there are too many Verizon and Motorola logos littering the front and back, and the curved corners are an odd design choice. Overall, the backs of the Droid Razr and Razr Maxx are more attractive than the front. The power and volume buttons are also still a bit small and strangely placed. The power button is easy enough to tap, but we find the volume toggle difficult to comfortably reach. Motorola did a much better job making the volume and power buttons easy to use on devices like the Motorola Photon.

Specs and screen

The internal hardware of the Droid Razr Maxx is identical to the Droid Razr. It runs on a 1.2GHz dual-core TI OMAP 4430 processor, has 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage (11.5GB is usable), and comes with a 16GB microSD card. It’s as powerful a phone as you’re going to find. We did some benchmarking and in Quadrant, it got an average score of 2,150, which is a bit lower than the original Droid Razr’s 2,400, but still in line with dual-core devices like the HTC Amaze 4G and the Samsung Galaxy S II.

Motorola-Droid-Razr-Maxx-Screen
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Did we mention that the Razr Maxx has a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED screen with a resolution of 540 x 960 pixels? Yep, you read that right: it has a Super AMOLED screen. This means it is instantly a helluva lot nicer to look at than any other Motorola phone this year. The Droid 4, Atrix, Photon, Droid 3, Droid X2, and Droid Bionic all use an LCD PenTile display that just doesn’t display color well and has a visible subpixel grid that degrades the quality of the display, despite a high resolution. The new screen, which isn’t quite as rich as the Super AMOLED Plus display on the Samsung Galaxy S II, fixes one of Motorola’s biggest deficiencies.

Operating system

Motorola finally upgraded its screen technology, but it hasn’t yet designed a new interface to take advantage of it. The Razr Maxx runs on Google Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) with a custom Motorola user interface layered on top of it called NinjaBlur. Motorola’s NinjaBlur adds almost nothing to the Android experience, aside from some widgets, and it’s ugly dark blue and gray color palette sucks the life out of Android. Companies like Samsung and HTC have prospered by making Android more colorful and user friendly, but Motorola has yet to grasp the concept. Perhaps it is a good thing that the company has been bought by Google. It might mean the end of these custom interfaces. Motorola has promised that Droid Razr and Razr Maxx owners will get an Android 4.0 update by mid 2012.

Motorola-Droid-Razr-Maxx--Operating-system
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The typical slate of Verizon bloatware is included on the Maxx. Blockbuster, Amazon Kindle, GoToMeeting, Let’s Golf 2, Verizon services, Netflix, and NFL Mobile are all accounted for, among some custom Motorola apps like MotoCast and Smart Actions (read about them here).

Motorola-Droid-Razr-Maxx-CameraCamera

I wish we had the original Droid Razr back here to compare, but the Razr Maxx appears to have a better 8MP rear camera than its predecessor, or almost any Motorola phone on the market. Instead of lagging behind, the device snaps pictures almost as quick as the Galaxy Nexus and its autofocus isn’t too slow either. Better color correcting software appears to be in place as well. We found that almost every type of picture, and especially those using the LED flash, had fairly accurate color and lighting. Night shots came out much more accurately as well and didn’t contain the kind of blurring we’ve seen in other Moto devices. The 1.3MP front camera works well enough, though we did have some issues with over-saturation.

Talk and data

Call quality has been stable. We did a few tests with speaker and without and aside from the usual ambient noise you hear on speakerphone, everything sounded decent. On Verizon’s 4G LTE network, speeds here in Manhattan, New York City are holding up quite well. During peak hours, when the network is utilized most, we’re getting 6Bmps to 7Mbps download speeds and 1Mbps upload speeds. When the airwaves aren’t as crowded, Verizon’s network averages between 10Mbps and 20Mbps down and 5Mbps to 10Mbps up.

Battery life

One of the big selling points of the Droid Razr was its battery life, but the Razr Maxx runs circles around it, and any other smartphone on the market with a 3,300mAh battery. Most smartphones have between a 1,500 and 1,900mAh battery, but Motorola has taken it up a notch. It now touts 21.5 hours of talk time and up to 15.8 days of idle time. We don’t know if you’ll get those numbers, but after a full day’s use, we were still at about 80 percent battery life. At the very least, you shouldn’t have to worry about charging your phone before bed.

Like the Razr, if you’re using the Wi-Fi or LTE connection extensively to download a ton of data or stream movies, you will notice that the phone gets a bit hot and the battery drains a lot faster. For more battery savings, you can use the Smart Actions app to shut off functions like GPS, Sync, and Wi-Fi when you don’t need them.

Conclusion

With double the battery life of the Razr and a much improved camera, the Maxx is one of the best smartphones on the market. It has a dual-core processor, 4G LTE connection, Super AMOLED screen, great battery life, and it’s still one of the thinnest phones on the market. Though we still prefer the Android 4.0 operating system on the Galaxy Nexus, Motorola promises that Maxx owners will get it by mid-2012. As they say, good things come to those who wait.

Highs:

  • Improved design
  • Fantastic battery life
  • Bright Super AMOLED screen
  • Android 4.0 update coming
  • Verizon’s 4G LTE network rocks
  • Improved camera

Lows:

  • Design is logo heavy
  • Power and volume buttons are small
  • NinjaBlur interface is lifeless
  • Lots of bloatware apps installed

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Jeffrey Van Camp
Jeffrey Van Camp
Former Digital Trends Contributor
As DT's Deputy Editor, Jeff helps oversee editorial operations at Digital Trends. Previously, he ran the site's…
Motorola’s folding phone just had a durability test — and it’s painful to watch
Motorola Razr 40 Ultra broken cover screen.

Motorola’s latest clamshell foldable, the Motorola Razr Plus, has won well-deserved praise for its design and the functionally rewarding cover screen that occupies almost one-half of the rear panel. In my brief time with the phone, I felt that Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Z Flip 5 will have a hard time beating this one.
Praise aside, it looks like the Razr Plus' top selling point could also be its undoing. Zack Nelson of JerryRigEverything put the phone through his customarily brutal stress and bend test, and the Razr Plus failed at an unexpected point.
This has NEVER happened before...
While applying pressure on the rear side of the phone to check the hinge strength, the lower edge of the cover display breaks rather awkwardly. First, the screen shatters, and then, the glass assembly can be seen caving inside.
“Never have we ever been able to break a screen with a single finger,” says Nelson. However, it appears that the cover screen’s fragility has more to do with the gap underneath than the structural integrity of the glass itself.
It seems the area right above the hinge is hollow, which means putting pressure on the cover display could damage the screen, as there is no solid support underneath. Simply put, don’t put the phone in the back pocket of your denim jeans, and take care about putting heavy objects over the phone.
What’s really surprising is that unlike the Google Pixel Fold’s fragile frame and hinge mechanism, the Motorola Razr Plus didn’t show any such signs of damage. There was no permanent damage recorded due to the phone bending in the reverse direction, and the flexible OLED screen also remained intact.

It’s quite paradoxical that the cover display — which Motorola markets as the Razr Plus's standout feature — is also the part that is uncannily fragile. But the rest of the package seems solid.
Motorola told Digital Trends in an emailed interview that the Razr Plus ships “with an optimized inner structure stacking and stronger housing design” and that it also features “the industry’s first dual-axis tracking in the teardrop hinge.”
Compared to the previous-generation Razr foldable phones, this one can survive 400,000 folding cycles, twice that of its predecessors. It’s a great phone, and if you want to see how it stands out, Digital Trends Prakhar Khanna had some fun with its cover screen to see everything that it can accomplish. And it's great! So long as you don't accidentally shatter it like this.

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The Galaxy Z Flip 5 may steal the Razr Plus’ best feature
Galaxy Z Flip 4 closed on top of a Galaxy Z Fold 4's box.

One of the Galaxy Z Flip 5's most anticipated features is its larger cover screen, and a new report now suggests that the screen will be just as useful as we've been hoping.

According to SamMobile, most, if not all, of the Z Flip 5's apps will be usable on the rumored 3.4-inch display. This means that Flip 5 owners should have no problem using the outer screen to do just about everything they want with the phone without needing to unfold it. The report also says that Google is working on optimizing its most used first-party apps for the smaller display — namely, YouTube, Google Maps, and Google Messages.

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Samsung is done for if Motorola’s next Razr foldable looks like this
Motorola Razr 40 Ultra leaked image

Foldable phones look primed to take an evolutionary step in 2023. Google, the lord of Android, is now in the game with the Pixel Fold. Samsung leaks suggest that its Galaxy Z Flip 5 will solve nagging woes by embracing a gapless design and finally making the secondary screen more usable. But it looks like Motorola will own the year with its upcoming clamshell-style foldable phone, the Moto Razr 40 Ultra. 
Industry insider Evan Blass (aka @evleaks) has shared a fresh batch of high-resolution renders depicting the phone in a trio of shades — including black, a peppy shade of magenta, and an understated teal green shade. Motorola’s next offering looks astoundingly different from the previous clamshell foldable in the Razr series, and we're all for its aesthetic makeover. 

But what really stands out about the phone is the large secondary display at the back that also surrounds the camera lenses, plus the visibly gapless design when the two halves are shut closed. Ever since the first-gen Razr foldable arrived on the scene, Motorola has kept refining the design, paying special attention to the secondary display by stretching its screen real estate and making it more functional.
For the Razr 40 Ultra, the company has turned almost the entire top half into a cover display, giving the appearance of two camera lenses floating independently in a sea of pixels. It looks clean and geometrically sound, unlike the approach that Samsung appears to be taking with the Galaxy Z Flip 5, which has the cover display area avoiding the camera island and taking an odd shape. 
Blass' older leaks suggest that Motorola will be offering a healthy bunch of home and lock screen customization options for the cover display. Plus, it appears that these customization tricks will play to the tunes of Android’s Material You theming system. We dearly hope that Motorola also lets users run apps, or at least some of them, in their full functional glory, instead of just offering a rudimentary level of interactivity.  

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