** Smart Phone in your BUDGET**. Review on Motorola SLVR L7

MOTOROLA SLVR L7 Just at the last moment the company of Motorola renamed its fashion line phones and assigned an L index to them. For now, the top model is the L7 SLVR. The device is interesting for its size being thinner than Motorola RAZR V3 and slightly larger (113.5x49x11.5 mm against 98x53x13.9 for the RAZR). During the development of the Blade family, this device got a poetical name of Royal Blade, which was to stress the role of the phone and position in the line. But do not think the company decided on making it expensive from the very beginning, a traditional candy bar form-factor and the same feature set as in Motorola RAZR V3 (except for memory card support) couldn't form an extremely expensive product. The company representatives think the SLVR is the device for people who didn't have time to buy RAZR for some reason. As a bonus besides low price additional functionality as memory cards is provided.

First the device will be launched as a single color solution, it will be in October, and Russia is the first country for the launch. It's rather hard to call the color black; it seems like a tint with come ink color. Its keypad with bronze tints adds extravagance changing the whole appearance of the phone. The keypad is in the RAZR style - metallic (such keypads are possible with etching of metallic planes). In contrast to the primordial idea the developers added a protective covering of transparent plastic thus adding to the mechanic durability of the construction. As for the company engineers the problems with the keys are minimal possible unlike the RAZR.

Stylish -The keys are backlit in a bright blue, which is stylish and functional at the same time. All the characters are easy to read in various conditions. Due to the body thickness, the device looks very stylishly and unordinary. Unfortunately, despite the surface is dull fingerprints stay on it. The device is very easily soiled. That mainly concerns the current color solution, and others show fingerprints not as much. Only sides are made of metal and the back is of anodized aluminum. Other parts are plastic though no such feeling appears when holding the device in your hands. A great achievement is the weight forming 85 grams (the RAZR weighs 95 grams, which is due to another screen and the form-factor). In the middle of the first quarter two more colors will appear. Still the final colors are not defined, and possibly one will be carmine-red and another one ''silvery hoar-frost'' (stale color with grey tint, very stylish). If necessary, the company can create a wide color palette for the model.

Screen -The screen came from the triplets. That is a 262K TFT matrix by Sharp, which proved itself well in the customer's eyes. The resolution is 176x220 pixels (30x38 mm). The screen is similar to Motorola v635. In its class it remains one of the best on the level of Sharp and Samsung. It fades in the sun, though the picture remains readable.

Memory -The expansion slot came to the right side and is closed with a rubber shutter closely joining the body. Hot memory card change is supported; the card format is TransFlash (aka microSD). For now the max capacity of such cards reaches 512 MB. A blue line is above the slot, it resembles as a card work indicator, but it is not. That is only a decorative element specifying the card position only. The right side holds a camera button which is also responsible for Push to Talk (if the initial user settings have it on, other wise it won't be seen even in the menu). There is a miniUSB slot at the same side; it serves for connecting a charger, a headset and a synchronization cable.

Extras -A coupled volume button is on the left-side surface, it allows changing profiles in the standby mode also. A little below, there is a Smart button changing its function depending on the menu item. In some software versions you can assign to it activations of voice tags or the start of the Dictaphone work.

A company feature is placing a lighting indicator on top. The keypad backlighting turns on or not depending on the illumination level. A VGA camera objective completely coinciding with the one in other models is on the back. Removing the back cover, you uncover a 820 mAh Li-Ion battery. The manufacturer claims it is capable of up to 140 hours in the standby model and up to 4 hours in the talk one. Averagely in Moscow networks the device worked for 3 days in case of one hour of talks and up to 20 minutes of using other functions. So, we think the average battery life is about 2-3 days. The battery is fully recharged in less than 2 hours. One day of battery life is achieved at the whole day listening to the mp3 player (4-6 hours of music and up to an hour of talks).

Games and applications - The phone supports Java MIDP 2.0, all applications that are located in this menu item are based on this technology. The number of games and their title depends on where the phone was bought. The most often to find are 3D Care Race & 3DCricket.

Multimedia -The phone supports themes. It's a set of wallpapers, color schemes for the menu, sounds and ring tone types. You can change the outlook of your phone almost instantly and this is really fun. New themes can be downloaded from Motorola's website. The themes haven't changed; there are three of them - a standard, Techno, Scarlet. They not only change a colour menu representation but interface windows, the whole interface of the phone changes.

Sounds -Information about all sound files located in the phone's memory is stored here. You can check out their size, info and even listen to them. The players is similar to other Motorola's phones, everything is clear and easy to understand. The great advantage of this very player is playing back in background. You can form you own play lists by the way.

Pictures -List of all images located in the phone's memory. There's a special icon near the file name. Each picture can be set as the wallpaper or screensaver. Pictures can be sorted in categories; this will make the browsing easier. A special editor is present as well, it allows putting frames, changing color scheme and using special effects. The most convenient part is that after mocking the picture it can be stored with a new name. This means that both the original and the new picture will be available for use. This may come handy in case if you want to edit the photo, and not to ruin the original.

Camera - The device is equipped with a VGA-camera, which is a typical solution well known by all the triplets, no flash as well as any peculiarities. The camera is quite enough to take photos of people and use the photos in the phone book. The camera allows not only taking photos but also recording video (3GP). The record may be called from the multimedia menu and then video. The duration of a record may be limited for a MMS or maximum (about 24 seconds). Two resolutions are supported 128x96 pixels and 176x144 pixels. Voice recording may be turned off. The quality of the video is average and the artifacts are seen on the screen. That was hard to expect the device will show any eminent features in recording video and it is typical and doesn't differ from other models. The time that saving the video takes almost equals that necessary for recording and that is a disadvantage.

Synchronization with PC. A complete version of Mobile Phone Tools version 3 is included into the package. The program possibilities cover the needs of the majority of users; they include synchronization with MS Outlook, making reserve copies on the PC, copying photos, melodies, writing messages on the PC.