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This post is sponsored by DROID RAZR by Motorola in collaboration with Style Coalition.
One of the perks of being a Style Coalition blogger is that I occasionally get to try new products, such as getting to try out the new DROID RAZR by Motorola in purple for a week or so. For starters (after I squealed about the deep purple color — fashionable without being too girly!), I couldn't believe how thin it was — my own beloved Android looks incredibly old by comparison! The other thing that immediately jumped out to m
e was how clear and crisp the screen was, and how easy it was to type. (By comparison: my own phone's native keyboard inexplicably has the “English to Spanish” key right next to the spacebar, much to my annoyance — I was constantly accidentally switching to Spanish while texting someone. And as much as I want to like the Swype technology, it's ultimately just way too inaccurate, so I've recently started using the SwiftKey X app with my Android.) The Razr has something much closer to the iPhone keyboard, though — big, clear, easy to tell which letter you've hit, etc.
By far the most impressive thing to me about the phone was the camera. I take a lot of pictures (a lot of pictures) with my cell phone, and I loved that this one has a built-in flash. As a total amateur when it comes to photographs, I even thought it took pictures in low-light situations better than my regular Canon camera would have. For example, look at the Brooklyn Bridge at night (taken on one of my runs), or at my husband's and my martinis taken on one of our recent date nights.
Oh, and the other thing I really liked was the battery power — it held a charge for much longer than my regular Android. Now admittedly, I was using this one a lot less, and I had less applications and so forth running on it, but I still think there was at least one day where both phones started out with a full charge and primarily sat there for most of the day, and the Razr was much fuller than my regular phone by the end of the day.
I didn't do much for Fashion Week this season (honestly, I feel like I am only now coming out of the fog of new-mommydom now that we've hit the six month mark!), but as part of the promotion I was invited to the GLSEN Style Lounge, hosted by Elle and Motorola. It was great to see fashionistas of all sorts kicking back and relaxing, recharging their phones at the Motorola charging stations, and generally learning more about GLSEN's upcoming Day of Silence, encouraging teens to stop bullying.
(In the spirit of full disclosure, because I only had the phone for a week I primarily played with the camera and the Twitter app I downloaded — but I really think through those you see some of the main things I look for in a phone, including good quality pictures, easy typing, and more. All pictures in this post — but for the two showing the phone itself! — were taken with the Razr.)
Readers, what type of phone do you have? What are the essential things to you for a good phone, either from a work or play perspective?
Disclosure: In addition to getting a phone to play with for a week, I am also receiving monetary compensation for this sponsorship.
CA Atty
LOVE my Razr. I have the white version (accidentally, I thought I was buying the black but the salesman gave me the white, we didn’t figure it out until the sale was final. This was the week before the different colors came out, so I was one of the first to get it! Of course, it has a case that covers all white, so you can’t tell anyway).
I disagree re: the swype keyboard. It was a little tough to get used to, but I can swype almost as fast as I can talk now. I use it to track my runs with endomondo, for iheart radio every morning at work, for my alarm clock (and my backup alarm!) for email, twitter, facebook, etc…
The only thing I don’t like is not the phone’s fault, but where I live there is no 4g, I knew that when I got the phone and believe my area will be updated within the next year. Also, I travel a lot so get 4g then sometimes. 4g is SO much better than 3g it kind of makes me sad to come home.
karenpadi
Yay! A techie article that isn’t “Apple is the best!”. I’m on my second Android phone through Verizon and it’s great. I can’t imagine going to an iPhone.
anone
Apple is still the best!
NOLA
I have a Samsung Stratosphere (Android) and I’m really happy with it. It is heavy, because it has a sliding keyboard, but that is pretty much required for me. The touch screen makes me want to scream and inexplicably changes to Asian characters. I think it has to do with my fingernails. I’m still learning how to use the camera but it seems to work fine. I love being able to sync my work calendar (it saves me!) and I like the threaded text messages (and being to delete parts of threads).
Diana Barry
My husband misses his Droid…its map and navigation application are SO MUCH BETTER than the iphone!!! I think he will go back to a droid once the 1 or 2 years is up on the iphone.
Nevadan
I have the Motorola Xoom – have had it since June and it is a fabulous product – especially for someone like me – I like to read classic books that are in the public domain – am presently reading Scott Fitzgerald’s first novel on my Xoom. Relates to his time as a Princeton undergrad. So young, so fresh, so talented. Or maybe it was genius…
In-House Mouse
Kat, can you post where the DROID RAZR is made?
Godzilla
Yo EK (I think) – I just caught up on the weekend thread. Check out Hush Puppies at the Herald Square Macy’s for comfortable flat shoes with support. They have a whole comfortable shoes area (I think it’s the 4th floor 7th Ave building).
Plan B
I got the Droid RAZR a couple of months ago after my original Droid just couldn’t keep going any longer. I still find the phone to be a little large for my taste, although I do like the big screen. I do kind of miss the actual keyboard; I’m just not that good with Swype, and their word suggestions are not at all logical to me, so I have to edit a lot, which takes more time.
JenK
Still love my iPhone. Moved to one from a razor 4 yrs ago, freely admit the others have gotten better, but one of the things I love is the seemlessness of having phone & computer all from the same company. Years of Mac at home & pc at work have shown me the value of that. Still wish I could figure out how to combine events I enter on my iPhone 4 cal and things my son puts on his iPhone 3.