We have been one of the people who waited for long to put our hands on the Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE and Motorola RAZR. Well, finally it happen and we had our hands on these two devices for the past 48 hours from Rogers Canada. While other providers devices might be a little different or a bit different naming, both the Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE and Motorola RAZR should be mostly similar by all providers to the one from Rogers and reviewed here.
Before we start its worth giving a warning or a message that our review might be a bit biased toward the Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE. The reason behind that is not political or being paid for the review by Samsung, but because we had decided to dump the Motorola RAZR for the superior Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE in our team for the below reasons:
– The battery life on the sets we had of the Motorola RAZR was miserable. A full charge did not last over 6 hours with a normal usage with 3G, few phone calls, & e-mail. We believe Motorola is aware of the problem in their Motorola RAZR device and that why they have worked hard on resolving the problem in the software by offering an extra power management software that stop non used programs, disable none used services and so on, but that did not seems to cut it for the compromise they have took on the battery size to meet being the thinnest device in the market.
– The weight distribution on the device was kinda missed up. Too much weight on the top side where you actually hold the device from the bottom side, made the device handling being not for our taste.
– Many applications did not work probably on the Motorola RAZR. We are sure this probably will get fixed as with time application developers will fix their applications to work with the Motorola RAZR. We actually can not blame this one on Motorola, but definitely Samsung has took advantage of this device being the third generation of the same series where most of the application we had tried had run without a problem. One of the application which was a must for our team and did not work well on the Motorola RAZR is Viber for Android. The voice will start but very noisy and will cut right after 5 seconds, we did not face any similar problem with the Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE. It might be worth mentioning that Motorola RAZR still does not appear on the Viber for Android Compatibility list.
– The Motorola RAZR headset has a bit of obvious head when doing a long calls from the top screen size, where your ears normally sit. Maybe being too thin is the cause for this one again.
Ok now we have took our reasoning why we like the Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE, lets look at how these devices compare head to head as the Motorola RAZR still got advantages over the Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE and every one has his own preferences. Below is our detailed Comparison.
Look & Feel Comparison for Motorola RAZR vs Samsung Glaxy S2 LTE
While in most cases look & feel go hand in hand for most hand sets, it worked totally differently in this one. Actually we have liked the look of the Motorola RAZR much better than the Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE. The KEVLAR fibre look as well Corning Gorilla Glass looked both stunning as well help the device handle more hits. Further the splash guard coating that can protect the electric boards inside from water and coffee spilt was such a great idea. Both devices had the power port in a convenient location where you can still use the device while charging it. The Samasung Galaxy S2 LTE had it just with all other Galaxy phones to the bottom of the device where Motorola again were innovative with this one and placed it to the bottom of the device. Last thing about the look, both devices sizes was very similar when we stack them up, which kinda surprised us as the Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE suppose to have a larger screen with 4.5″ where the Motorola RAZR has only 4.3″, but it seems the spaces between the screen and the edge of the phone were larger in the Motorola RAZR than the Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE. Click on the images below to enlarge it & see how these phones sizes compare.
On the feel side we had liked how the Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE feel in our hand better than the Motorola RAZR for two reasons. The weight distribution and the rounded edges on the Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE has made holding it a pleasure comparing to the Motorola RAZR where more weight is sitting to the top of the device with squared edges.
Hardware Comparison for Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE vs Motorola RAZR
Both the Galaxy S2 LTE and the RAZR are sporting a dual core processors, where the Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE is running a faster 1.5Ghz processor in compare to the Motorola RAZR 1.2 GHz processor where both devices have 1GB of RAM. Though its important to note that both device has performed quite well and without any lag during most of our tests. The Motorola RAZR had slown down a bit once after 30 minutes of a 3D game running by our member after it heated up a bit. We don’t believe that should be of a problem for most users, but if you are a gamer on your Android phone then that is something to test for when trying it out. It might be just an extensive game what one of our crew decided to try. Both phones we had tried has 16GB of internal storage and the ability to install up to 32GB additional SDCard. Although rogers does not seems to provide SD card with neither phones, it seems some US suppliers will be providing a 16GB SD Card pre-installed in the Motorola RAZR. We are not aware if others will do the same for the Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE as this will depend per provider.
As far Display go, the Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE has 4.5-inch Super AMOLED Plus Gorilla glass display that may give a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels with about 207 pixels per inch (ppi) pixel density, while Droid Razr comes with a 4.3-inch qHD screen paired with Super AMOLED touchscreen that may give a resolution of 960 x 540 pixels with about 256 ppi pixel density. Both displays were stunning in our opinion where the Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE has a bit superior display in our opinion with less of pixelation effect as seen with the Motorola RAZR.
As far weight and dimensions go the Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE weighing 130.5 grams, has a dimension of 129.8 x 68.8 x 9.5 mm. On the other hand, Droid RAZR measures 130.7 x 68.9 x 7.1 mm and weighs 127 grams. As you can see the Droid RAZR is a bit thinner and lighter but some how still of a larger width and height than the Samsung Galaxy S2 which is odd as the Samsung Galaxy S2 has a larger display and we expected it to have a larger face size than the Droid RAZR. Although Motorola has done a great job in getting the device to be thinner and lighter as per image above with Motorola RAZR on top, they had missed up when they had made the device face larger with less display size. Further the thin size of the Motorola RAZR seems to come at the compromise of the battery life and a bit of heating issue.
Both devices has great 8MP back cameras and 2MP front cameras which can record high-definition videos in 1080 pixel resolution. We have enjoyed both Cameras and did could not really make our mind which one is better than the other.
Connectivity wise at the Rogers network the Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE will have a faster connectivity with it supporting LTE where the Motorola RAZR will not support LTE but a max of 4G. I am not sure if other providers versions will be different than that, but for here we will stick with the versions we had seen. Both devices has bluetooh and Mini USB connection. The Samsung Galaxy S2 use a normal SIM card, where the Motorola RAZR require a Micro SIM just like the iPhone which we thought it was a disadvantage to the RAZR specially if you keep switching your line with other phones.
In our test the Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE actually has topped the Motorola RAZR in the battery test, which is was kinda to our expectation as it has a larger standard Li-ion 1850 mAh battery, while Droid Razr only has a 1780mAh battery. Further the battery on the Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE is replaceable where its not on the Motorola RAZR. Further, we were not impressed at all with the battery life on the Motorola RAZR, where we were OK with the one on the Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE.
Voice Quality & speakers quality was quite high on both devices with no complains on both party the calling & receiving after all it must be a good phone before anything else :). Only we had problem with Viber voip calls on the Motorola RAZR, but not Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE. Though the problem was only Viber related where other VOIP programs like Skype & vbuzzer worked well for us which means the Motorola RAZR has no VOIP problem, its just up to the Viber team to fix their software to work well on Motorola RAZR.
Motorola RAZR has HDMI port where the Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE does not.
Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE has NFC(Near Field Communication), but not the Motorola RAZR
Software Comparison for Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE vs Motorola RAZR
Both devices are running Google’s Android Gingerbread 2.3.5 operating system and they should get the Ice Cream Sandwich, Android 4.0 mobile OS upgrade, early next year as per both vendors announcement. We have noticed the OS to be more customized on the Motorola RAZR which has caused more Apps to fail at least for the time being till Apps developers pickup and fix it. Though we should mentioned that we had definitely enjoyed the Motorola MotoCast and we think Motorola should make it available for a fee on other Android devices as away to make money specially being acquired by Google just recently :). The Motorola MotoCase will ensure that you are not worried any more than you have forget to copy the last updated file to your device or that you don’t have enough space on your SD Card as your full PC will always be with you on the go. We believe this was one of the biggest advantages for the Motorola RAZR.
Price Comparison for Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE vs Motorola RAZR on Rogers Canada
Well, as each provider control his phones pricing differently we will provide the comparison based on the provider we had the hand sets from which Rogers Canada in this case(Yeah I hear you who want to use Rogers, their customer service sux not the one at the store but the centralized one who answer the phone and has even control over the poor store reps), but hey they were the first to have the devices over here so no other option :). Ok prices as per roger were as follow:
Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE No Term Contract: $649.99 With Three Years Contract: 179.99
Motorola RAZR No Term Contract: $649.99 With Three Years Contract: 149.99
We know what you are thinking, why does the three years contract on the Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE is hire than the Motorola RAZR although they hold the same tag price. We have no clue why, but it seems Rogers know that the Galaxy S2 LTE has a higher demand and wanted to shell more money of it by discriminating against it in the price :).
Well we hate to say this, but if after all this still not sure which device you want to get then go and grab the one you like a bit more take it home and try it for up to two weeks but don’t make over 30 mins of calling and if you discover you like the other one better then go back to store and replace it. Its the policy with Rogers store :).
At last unfortunately, we still have not implemented our own blog or forum where you can leave your comments and respond to you, though we have agreed with ITComparison.com to host a post for us where we can get your comments and reply to it. You can find the post at: Motorola Droid RAZR vs Samsung Galaxy LTE on Rogers Canada Post. Please leave your comments on there and we will reply to you as soon as possible. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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