Review: Motorola KRZR K1 mobile phone

If you don't have a RAZR phone you probably know someone who does - the RAZR was Motorola's enormously popular and highly influential on phones that followed.

Although the company has made other handsets in the meantime, the KRZR (say cray-zer) is the first of a new wave of fashion phones aiming to be as head-turning as before.

The RAZR's claim to fame was entirely down to its styling - it was different from anything that had gone before in its shape, its look and the materials it used; exotically billed by Motorola as "aircraft-grade aluminium and magnesium".

So how does the new KRZR K1 measure up? First, it's narrower, if a little thicker than its predecessor, but feels better balanced so you can use it one-handed without worrying that it might bounce out of your grip if you're not careful.

The materials are still glamorous and include a toughened glass front with a deep blue metallic frame behind. Inside, the etched keypad of the original is here too, but with easier-to-identify keys. The screen is impressively large given the phone's overall dimensions.

It looks good, then, but how does it work? Motorola's operating system is supposedly improved, but if so, it's not really noticeable. It's still clunky and long-winded in many respects.

In terms of features, though, the KRZR is better endowed. It has Bluetooth, and what's more it's the stereo (A2DP or Advanced Audio Distribution Profile) version, so music can be streamed wirelessly to a set of Bluetooth headsets or speakers, for instance.

This sound's okay, though it is better through the wired headset supplied, which is lucky because the headset uses a mini-USB connector, so you can't swap it for headphones of your own.

Unlike the RAZR, the new phone has a MicroSD memory card slot so you can store up to 1GB of MP3 tracks with a big enough card. The phone includes 20MB of internal memory, which can handle a few photographs on the camera but not much more.

The camera is another improvement - at two megapixels it's not exceptional, but good enough.

Still, overall, you won't be choosing this phone for its features or its operating system - like the RAZR, this is definitely a fashion phone and in those terms it's another unqualified success for Motorola.

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