Test driving the Droid Razr M, literally

Two weeks ago I started using a Motorola Droid Razr M running Android Ice Cream Sandwich. It is a sleek, bright and durable device. One immediately notices the quality of design, large screen and comfortable fit in the hand. After a few days of use, the Razr M’s exceptional power management and long battery life became a large benefit, and I stopped taking advantage of every opportunity to plug in and recharge. The experience was like trading a gas guzzler for a high-efficiency model and driving by the gas station surprised that a half tank remained.

My intent was to critically review the Razr M with definitive and quantifiable method. But a nice matrix of meaningful technical attributes eluded me. There are some very detailed analyses of the Razr M, especially comparing it to the iPhone 5 such as PhoneArena and the Chris Voss Show. These analyses left me well-informed but unsatisfied.

I took the Razr M to a meeting in one of Google’s cafeterias and passed the phone to the other attendees. After everyone had a chance to test the Razr M, one of the engineers took the phone to another table of Android app engineers with an expression that said “Motorola got it right.” Among Android users, the Razr M is a big hit.

Then I gave the Razor M to random iPhone users. Subtle differences from the iPhone were identified, such as a slight advantage to the iPhone’s keyboard and the difference in weight of a half ounce between the iPhone 5 and the Razr M, but no one cited any of the differences highlighted in the PhoneArena and Chris Voss Show analyses.

The anecdotal result of sampling the Razr M with five iPhone users was that the features, design and capabilities of Android ICS and the Razr M met their expectations and caused no friction or operational confusion. The difference may not have been enough to cause the iPhone users to immediately incur the cost to exchange their iPhone for a Razr M, though if they were to exchange phones there wouldn’t be resistance to using the Razr.

Last Friday I had a breakthrough when I decided to drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles for the weekend in a leased Fiat 500, a stylistic sporty update to the iconic, ultra-fuel-efficient European mini car. A tiny well-equipped car, the Fiat 500 comes standard with Bluetooth pairing for hands-free telephoning and a Bose stereo.

The 380-mile trip consumed a meager 9 gallons of gas and did not consume the Razr M battery. Throughout the trip the Razr M was put to an extreme power management test with four power-hungry radio signals constantly engaged.

This is a very heavy load that would drain any phone within an hour, and would drain most charger-connected Android phones in about 4 hours unless the user judiciously turned individual radios on and off based on need. During the trip to LA, the Razr M was connected to its charger but none of the radios were turned off to save power. With GPS guidance enabled, the route display undimmed, Bluetooth connected, and LTE 4G data communications operating, we drove 7 hours while I returned a three-day backlog of telephone calls and my passenger searched and used social media and email. We arrived with enough charge to last into the night without plugging it back in. The 2000-mAh battery and efficient power management were design decisions that change the user’s notion of smartphone capability and mobility.

There isn’t a corresponding case for the iPhone 4S because the CDMA (Verizon) version cannot simultaneously be used for data streaming and voice calls, and the GSM (AT&T) version – which can do those things simultaneously, albeit on 3G – can just maintain its battery level under this load while connected to a charger. The iPhone 5 with the addition of power-hungry 4G LTE might perform as well as the Razr M, but it starts at a disadvantage with a much smaller store of energy in its 1,440 mAh battery.

The Fiat 500 and the Razr M are designed to create a specific experience. The Fiat 500 is designed for the city dweller to have a sporty, larger-car experience in a small, fuel-efficient form factor. The RazrM is designed for the un-tethered mobile internet communicator to engage without friction on a device that operates within the accepted context of the smartphone paradigm, and does so with enough power to be truly mobile.

Carefully designed consumer products such as this Fiat and Razr don’t lend themselves to scaler measures because it is difficult to discern incremental changes. The pleasure of driving the Fiat 500 and using the Razr M are the sum of many well-made design decisions. One just starts to enjoy the product and when they notice the big changes, such as 40 mpg or going more than a day of normal smartphone use without recharging. When they do notice those changes, they’re hard to forget.