Motorola Droid Razr Maxx HD (Verizon Wireless)

Wouldn't it be nice to just pluck your phone off the charger in the morning and not have to worry about it again until the end of the day? That's what you get with the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx HD, which turned in the best battery results we've ever seen on a smartphone. It also features a large 4.7-inch 720p display, along with a powerful dual-core processor and fast data speeds on Verizon's 4G LTE network. At $299.99, it's $100 more than the near-identical Droid Razr HD, but the Maxx gets you double the storage capacity and a few extra hours of battery life. If you need a phone you can use all day, it's worth it.

Editors' Note: The Motorola Droid Razr Maxx HD and the Motorola Droid Razr HD are extremely similar, so we're sharing a lot of material between our reviews. That said, we're testing each device separately, so read the review for your carrier of choice.

Size and Design
The Droid Razr Maxx HD looks almost identical to the Razr HD. Both phones measure 5.19 by 2.67 inches in height and width, but the Maxx is just a little thicker, at .37 inches compared with the Razr HD's .33 inches. It's also a little heavier, at 5.54 ounces compared with 5.15 for the Razr HD. To the naked eye, this difference is virtually imperceptible. Even when holding the phones it's hard to tell which one is which. So if you're worried about the Maxx being much larger, don't.

The phone is made using the same Kevlar material as the original Droid Razrs, which gives it an expensive, luxurious feel. Compared with the plastic?Samsung Galaxy S III?, the Razr Maxx HD feels much more solid. And it's protected by a water-repellant nanocoating, which doesn't make it waterproof, but a little more durable than the average smartphone.

The angular corners of the original Razr have been smoothed out for a sleek new look. Those colors only appear around the display; the back of each phone is the same gray and black patterned Kevlar, with an aluminum band running around the middle. There's a 3.5mm headphone jack up top, a Power button and volume rocker on the right, and a charging and micro HDMI port on the left, along with a hidden microSD card slot.

Design aside, keep in mind that this is still a very large phone. I have average size hands, and when I hold the Razr Maxx HD in one hand I can't reach high enough to drag the notifications bar down with my thumb. So if you have small hands or tiny pockets, you may want look at the 4.3-inch Droid Razr M, which is significantly smaller and easier to hold.

True to its name, the Razr Maxx HD is packing a 4.7-inch 1280-by-720 HD Super AMOLED display. It gets very bright and colors look super saturated, but I'm not a fan of the PenTile pixel layout, which, despite the 312 pixels per inch,?causes text and images to look a bit fuzzy upon close inspection. Function keys are displayed onscreen, and the large display means there's plenty of room for a big software keyboard that's very comfortable to type on.

Call Quality and Battery Life
The Razr Maxx HD works on Verizon's 3G and LTE networks, and can roam across the globe on GSM. It also integrates 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi on the 2.4 and 5GHz bands.?Verizon's 4G LTE network is very fast, and received top honors in our?Fastest Mobile Networks?tests earlier this year. The Razr Maxx HD has good reception, and averaged 5.5Mbps down and 6Mbps up in our speed tests.

Call quality is good. In my tests, voices sounded rich, though a little bit muddy, in the phone's earpiece. I do wish the volume level went just a little bit higher; it was difficult to hear everything outside on a busy city street. Transmissions sound clear, with good noise cancellation. Calls sounded fine through a?Jawbone Era?Bluetooth headset and Motorola's voice command system worked well over Bluetooth. The speakerphone also sounds fine, but isn't loud enough to use outdoors.

The most important feature here is the battery, and to that end, the Razr Maxx HD delivers. The nonremovable 3,300mAh battery was good for 18 hours and 51 minutes of talk time, which is the best result we've ever seen from a smartphone. Compare that with the Razr HD, which got 14 hours and 48 minutes, and the Galaxy S III, which was good for 10 hours and 43 minutes, and the Razr Maxx HD is well ahead of the competition.

We also tested battery life while streaming a video over 4G. The Razr Maxx HD lasted for just about 9 hours, with the Razr HD coming in at 7 hours and 1 minute, and the Galaxy S III at 6 hours and 57 minutes. All of these results are respectable, but if you need a phone that's guaranteed to make it through the day, the numbers speak for themselves.

Processor, Android, and Apps
Powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 processor, the Razr Maxx HD is built around the same processor you'll find in the Razr M and the Razr HD. It's starting to become somewhat standard among the upper echelon of smartphones, but that doesn't make it any less powerful. The Razr Maxx HD turned in similar benchmarks to the Galaxy S III, which is powered by the same chip. It's powerful enough for any apps or games you throw at it, and should keep things moving at a steady clip for some time to come. Keep in mind that gaming frame rates are actually higher on the Razr M, because its lower-resolution display means it's pushing fewer pixels.

The Razr Maxx HD ships running Android 4.0.4 "Ice Cream Sandwich," which is nearly a year old at this point. That's kind of crazy considering Google now owns Motorola, and Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" brings a host of improvements over ICS. An update is planned before the end of the year, but it should be there to begin with.

(Next page: Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions)

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