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Motorola Electrify M Review

Motorola is really pushing their DROID RAZR series pretty hard, and while they’re only exclusive to Verizon customers, the company has been slowly migrating their RAZR lineup to other carriers by making some minor changes to the design and branding. US Cellular already has a few Motorola devices in its arsenal, one of which is the new Electrify M, the equivalent to Verizon’s DROID RAZR M, which wetook a look at a few months ago. It’s available now exclusively on US Cellular at a price of $99 ($149 if you don’t have the carrier’s 4G LTE in your area). The phone is classified as a mid-range handset, but it proves that big things can come in small packages. However, let’s find out if US Cellular’s latest Motorola device is worth your time — and more importantly — your money.

Hardware

Despite the Electrify M being the DROID RAZR M’s brother, they look hardly alike. The Electrify M has a plain and dimpled silver backplate, while the RAZR M sports the fancy kevlar lining that the DROID RAZR series is known for. That difference alone separates the two devices on opposite ends of the spectrum as far as looks and design. Other than that, though, all the buttons are in the same place — the power and volume buttons are situated on the right side, while the microUSB port, as well as the SIM and microSD card slots are on the left, accompanied with a large flap door. Essentially, this specific layout of the buttons and ports is something we don’t see everyday, but it’s traditional on Motorola’s latest phones, and it’s nothing that users won’t easily get accustomed to.

As for the hardware that’s inside the Electrify M, it’s slightly better than what we’re used to seeing in this price range. There’s a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor clocked at 1.5GHz with 1GB of RAM — basically the same combination that we see in other high-end smartphones on the market, like the HTC One X and the Samsung Galaxy S III. Aside from performance-related specs, there’s 8GB of storage, and an 8MP rear camera with a 0.3MP VGA-quality front-facing camera. And, of course, there’s the 4G LTE chip for access to faster speeds if they’re available in your area, which is still only a few select places in the US if you’re a US Cellular customer.

The display is a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED unit with a qHD resolution of 960×540 pixels. The screen is bright and the color saturation is good with decent viewing angles, but its PenTile pixel layout makes small icons and text show up jagged and slightly blurry, rather than sharp and clear. Essentially, it doesn’t stand a chance against HD displays of higher-end phones, but it’s certainly not the worst display we’ve looked at. However, one of the key selling points of the Electrify M is its small size despite it’s large screen. The entire device is just slightly larger than the iPhone 4/4S, which sports only a 3.5-inch screen, compared to the M’s larger 4.3-inch display…

Read More: Craig Lloyd, slashgear.com

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