Got V3i some six months back. My main criteria was it should be very light and slim as I normally carry the phone in shirt pocket. Other desired features were GPRS (must), MP3 Player (preferred). Motorola RAZR V3i fits this very well.
Though I was loyal nokia fan, I could not get anything that fits my criteria at the same price.
GOOD Features
The looks are great. I love its key pad. The screen tends to get dirty very easily and also hard to read when you are in sunlight. It is bit difficult to open the phone with only one hand (when you are driving). Surprisingly battery is good, as good as nokia.
Reception and sound quality is decent. Speaker is ok. I liked the single mini-USB port for all-in-one purpose, though it means you can not use the headset when it is charging.
Camera: though I was not looking for this, the quality is nice. Video is good. My dgaughter just loves it.
MP3 player: Probably not as good as Sony. But it serves my purpose very well. It is compatible with iTunes. The software works great. It converted my CDs to Mp3 really fast. It has good algorthms to copy it on mobile phone. Sound quality is good. I feel volume is bit low on headphone. A bit louder volume will be great. Memorey card supplied is good for 50-60 songs which is sufficient for me.
GPRS: It works great. The software and cable supplied with phone works perfectly. When my TATA Indicom broadband is not working (which is very often), I just hook my comp to mobile and access the internet. It requires just one click.
Games and utilities are ok. I liked the caldender and calculator interface.
Weak Features
Biggest drawback here compared to Nokia is user interface. I have to actually read manual in detail. Nokia is normally very intuitive. There are few things that you expect as standard (because of nokia), but missing here. e.g. you can set option to see only SIM names or only phone memory names. You can put all numbers of same person under one entry. These features are not available in V3i. Also there is no easy way to attach note to phone number. (I used to attach things like LPG gas consumer no to Gas provider phone number). I haven’t figured out how to display cell(area) information on screen.
The wallet feature provided by Nokia is much better than dumb java utility provided in Moto. This is very useful in storing bank accounts numbers or accessing web using GPRS. In motorola you can not paste user id and password from wallet-equivalent
There is supposed to be voice recognition for accessing main features and dialling numbers. But I just can’t make it work. My accent is not very American, so it can not recognise my voice commands. There is a feature to record the commands in your own voice, but it work only in non-english language!! For voice menu, there is special button on right side of screen, but it can not be programmed for different function, so it is useless.
SMS editor is ok once you get used to it. But I still prefer one that comes with Nokia.
Suprisingly there is no fast way to change volume setting for ring. You can change the ring style in one key press but not volume.
Overall good phone with not-so-good user interface.