Motorola PRO Review

Introduction:

To any self-respecting business professional, their smartphone is a versatile tool before anything else. It has to be reliable, straightforward to use, and to excel at its primary function, namely connecting the individual with the rest of the world. This is the kind of device the Motorola PRO is portrayed like. Just like its name suggests, it is aimed at the suit types and is equipped with a full QWERTY keyboard.

However, the Motorola PRO is but a late arrival to the European market. It just recently landed on The Old Continent even though its US version has been on sale for almost a year. Since it is so late to the party, the smartphone doesn't boast any cutting edge tech specs; a single-core 1GHz processor, 5-megapixel camera, 3.1-inch HVGA display and Android 2.2 Froyo is what you would find on its specs sheet.

But specs aren't as important as the overall user experience, right? Well, here is the impression that we got after playing with the Motorola PRO for a while.

Design:

When we picked the Motorola PRO for the first time we noticed how solid and heavy it felt. With size and weight of this scale, we can safely say that this smartphone is anything but a lady's device. Guys, however, should find no difficulties using it comfortably as it feels nicely in the palm of your hand. Besides, its width allows for your thumb to reach even the furthest edges of its display.



You can compare the Motorola PRO with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

The edges of the Motorola PRO are surrounded by a chromed metal rim, that gives it some premium looks and feel. Furthermore, the well-exposed physical buttons around its sides are an example of attention to detail.

What has not been engineered that well, however, is the row of capacitive Android buttons, which sits in between the display and the smartphone's portrait QWERTY keyboard. Their unresponsiveness spoils the whole experience, and it boggles the mind how such a flaw could have ended in the final product.


As far as the full-QWERTY hardware keyboard goes, it isn't that bad, but it leaves a lot to be desired. At a glance, it resembles a keyboard that one would find on a BlackBerry, but once you try it out it becomes apparent that it doesn't come close to the ones RIM crafts for its smartphones. Typing on it feels kind of awkward as its keys are simply too cramped. And although we gradually got accustomed to using it, the smartphone's hardware keyboard is a stand-out feature and it should have been engineered better.


And finally, the 3.1-inch display on the Motorola PRO packs a decent resolution for its size, namely 320 by 480 pixels, but its colors look quite yellowish and unpleasant. On the plus side, it is quite responsive to the touch and shines bright enough to be easily legible on a sunny day.

Overall, the Motorola PRO feels like a well-built device, but its display and hardware keyboard fail to impress.

Interface:

The interface of the Motorola PRO looks quite bland and conservative, but since it lacks any fancy animations and transitions, navigation is really smooth and responsive. The 1GHz single-core chip handles navigation perfectly even with a live wallpaper set up. Seven customizable home screens is what you have at your disposal, along with a bunch of handy widgets, contact shortcuts and toggle switches provided by the manufacturer. A nice addition to the experience is the ability to resize widgets to your liking.


Additionally, you can save up to three interface presets with their own wallpaper, widgets, and shortcuts arranged just the way you like them. That way you can have easy access to your productivity tools while at work, and then turn your smartphone into a multimedia device by switching to the respective preset when you get back home.

Software:

When it comes to software, there isn't much that comes out of the box, but still you get a 3G Wi-Fi hotspot wizard that helps you setup and manage the feature, a social networking client that supports multiple networks at a time and a couple of applications that let you transfer media from the phone to a computer and the other way around. Of course, QuickOffice has also been thrown in there and allows quick viewing and editing of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF documents.



Internet:

While checking out the stock internet browser on the Motorola PRO we noticed that it struggles rendering some heavier web pages making them a bit tricky to navigate. Pinch to zoom is a bit choppy as well, but alternatively, you can double-tap to zoom in and out on pages. Adobe Flash support comes out of the box, and runs quite well in general, but having videos playing takes its toll on the browser's responsiveness.


Camera:

The 5-megapixel camera with dual LED flash and autofocus gets the job done if you are not too demanding of a photographer. Its biggest drawbacks seems to be that the photos are quite grainy when you zoom in, and that the colors are slightly oversaturated. When it comes to shooting videos, 720 by 480 is the highest resolution that the phone supports, and the footage taken with it looks good enough.


Motorola PRO Sample Video:



Multimedia:

What we were genuinely impressed by is the cool audio player that the Motorola PRO comes with as it offers plenty of neat features. Sure, its interface doesn't look eye-pleasing, but the player allows you to listen to online radios, it provides access to music-oriented social services, it has SoundHound song recognition built-in, and it even automatically downloads and displays the lyrics of the song currently playing. When it comes to video playback, 800 by 480 is the biggest resolution videos could play at, and DivX/Xvid file formats are supported out of the box.

Performance:

The in-call sound quality that the Motorola PRO delivers is well above the average. We could hear the other party loud and clear without any hint of distortion. On the other side of the line, our voice did sound somewhat unnatural affected by noise suppression techniques, but it is worth the sacrifice because background noise was barely audible. The smartphone's battery life is just as impressive as it can last for 8 hours of continuous talk time, and if left in stand-by mode, it will be 330 hours before the handset drops dead.

Conclusion:

In a nutshell, the Motorola PRO is a well-built, solid device, but it is far from perfect. We liked its superior in-call sound quality, the way how it feels in the hand, and the wonderful audio player it has been equipped with. On top of that, its interface may not be pretty, but it makes up for it with being fluid and practical.

On the other hand, its hardware keyboard cannot compete with the ones BlackBerrys come equipped with, its internet browser doesn't seem to be snappy enough to meet the needs of business professionals, and the capacitive Android keys are plain annoying to use. In addition, its display looks below par even when compared with some run-of-the-mill Android offerings.

So, if you are looking for a business-centric device, the Motorola PRO doesn't seem to be the best option out there. Perhaps you might want to check out the BlackBerry Bold 9900 or the BlackBerry Curve 9360 first. However, if Android is a must, the LG Optimus Pro could be a lighter and cheaper alternative to the Motorola PRO. The Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini pro should also be taken into account, as long as you do not mind its smaller size and sliding form factor. Besides that, the Sony Ericsson Xperia pro is not far from launching, so if you are not in a rush for a new smartphone, you might want to check it out as well.

Motorola PRO Video Review: