Motorola SLVR L7: Slim cell phone tries to repeat earlier success

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Mon, 02/06/2006 10:32 AM | Life

Zatni Arbi, Contributor, The Jakarta Post

Remember when I reviewed Motorola's RAZR V3 more than a year ago? I said I liked the stylish design of this clamshell cell phone, which, as many would agree, was a design breakthrough back then. The casing was made of aircraft-grade titanium, and the use of this exquisite metal allowed Motorola to design it as one of the thinnest flip phones around.

However, I did not find the keypad particularly easy to use.

Over time, Motorola seems to have done its homework and improved the keypad substantially. I was told that the 3G-capable RAZR V3x had a much more responsive keypad.

The RAZR series has reportedly been the best-selling handset from Motorola, and it has been around for almost two years. It is now available in pink in addition to black and metallic silver.

Today, it seems that Motorola is trying to repeat the success of the RAZR series with the latest version in its candy-bar SLVR line. Courtesy of Motorola Indonesia, I got to play with an SLVR L7 for almost two weeks.

Features of the phone

Frankly, it is good that Motorola is not viewed as a linguistic authority. Otherwise there would be total confusion.

You are supposed to pronounce RAZR as ""razor"", and ROKR as ""rocker"". Now, they are telling you to pronounce SLVR as ""sliver"" -- not ""silver"", mind you!

Choice of the word ""sliver"" does tell you something about the design emphasis. Although the cell phone is larger than many of today's candy-bar models on the market, it is only 11.5 millimeters thick.

I like it as it fills my rather large palm nicely and does not slip easily out of my hand. At 96 grams, its weight is similar to most other cell phones.

(To be honest, I do not care much for ultra-lightweight handsets.)

The TFT screen is sharp enough, although the black frame around it creates the illusion that it is larger than it really is. There are 176 x 220 pixels in the panel, and together they can give you 262K of colors. Like most other handsets without a protruding bezel, the hardened glass on top of the screen gets smudged pretty quickly.

Motorola uses the RAZR 3V keypad on all of its slim SLVR models. When the phone is active, you can see the gaps between the rows of the buttons, thanks to the bright blue backlight. You'd better not cut your nails too short if you are fond of texting, though.

The five-way navigation button works great, too.

The L7 has a decent polyphonic speaker and a slot for the tiny TransFlash memory card on the right. It is one of Motorola's cell phones that comes with Apple's iTune music player, and like the ROKR it can store only up to 100 music files.

Like most of the latest cell phones, it also uses a USB cable to connect to a computer. Even the charger uses the Mini USB port.

The L7 is a quad-band cellphone, which means you can use it anywhere in the world -- as long as there is network coverage, of course. Internet browsing is available, and so is Push-to-Talk (PTT).

This IP-based feature works as a CB radio, which allows you to talk, in turns, with a group of preselected users in the broadcast mode.

Other facilities include WAP browser, picture caller ID that shows you the picture of the caller, MMS and EMS messaging, and Motorola's own SCREEN 3T that will display news wherever the service is available.

Wish list

My demo unit was black. It looked quite handsome, I should admit, but it will hardly turn heads. It is neither a business nor a fashion device; rather, it is a general purpose cell phone.

Unfortunately, the camera is so ""yesterday"". While 2MP is the current standard, this one still comes with a 0.3MP VGA camera.

On the flip side, the camera has autofocus and 4x digital zoom capabilities. Besides, it can capture and play back quite smooth video clips. The buttons for volume setting and the camera on the sides of the casing could be improved, though.

One quite serious omission from this model is the standard RCA headphone jack. Given that this is also meant to be a music cell phone, the lack of this type of jack is far from agreeable.

It really limits your choice: While it comes with a decent handsfree earbud headphone and a microphone, you will have to buy Motorola's Bluetooth stereo headphones to really stimulate your brain with MP3 music.

I am of the impression that either Motorola engineers have been too busy with sub-US$30 handset models or the company needs fresh blood in its design room.

While the mid-range SLVR L7 is a sturdy, good-looking cell phone, Motorola has fallen behind in the feature front.

Apart from the super-slim design, the feature set is almost the same as the already-familiar ones -- except the iTunes implementation is much better than we saw in the first-generation ROKR.

In the final analysis, though, I would say that, while it may fall a bit short in value, the SLVR L7, at Rp 2.5 million, will still please a lot of people.

Comments (0) | Post comment

A | A | A |