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As an HSDPA handset the MOTORAZR V3xx is capable of video calls, and there is a small VGA camera buried in the hinged area between screen and keyboard for the purpose. While the super fast HSDPA is something of a draw, in every other respect the MOTORAZR V3xx is, as I noted earlier, a shade behind the times.

The main camera shoots at up to 1.3 magapixels, which is far below the average megapixel count these days. Its lens sits on the front flip so that when the phone is opened it faces outwards while when the phone is closed it faces towards you. You can use the front screen to frame shots of yourself but with no side key dedicated to activating the camera you have to start it running with the flip open. At least this is a one-step process as the camera software responds to a softmeu button.

The lens didn’t like being too close to its subject and moving the handset even very slightly while taking a shot resulted in blurred images. Taking pictures of anything that moved was a real challenge. It took many, many tries to get the sample shot of the cat, and even then there is a bit of blurring around his face – shaky handed types take note.

There is a music player on board which copes with MP3, AAC and WMA file formats. It produced reasonable quality sound from the device speaker and really quite impressive quality music through a headset. There is 50MB of built in memory and a microSD card slot under the battery for adding more song storage.

As far as sound quality goes I could quite happily listen to tunes through this phone, but there are two problems with it as a mobile music player: the MOTORAZR V3xx has a mini USB type headset connector which means it is difficult to use your own preferred wired headphones, and the battery life is appalling. I got a shade more than four hours of continuous music played from a microSD card. Four hours 11 minutes to be precise. This is pretty poor and getting through a daily commute and lunch hour on a single charge could prove challenging.

Other applications include a Web browser (the excellent Opera browser), calendar, calculator, alarm clock, voice recorder, email, MMS, SMS and IM support.

Verdict

The MOTORAZR V3xx feels a bit like ‘more of the same’ and its only saving grace from that moniker is the 3.6Mbps HSDPA support. I’m not sure that’ll be enough to earn it a place among the top flight collection of handsets, though. In particular the camera and battery life are serious let-downs.

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