Design

Although the design of the original iTunes phone (the Rokr E1) was decidedly dull, the Motorola Slvr L7 sports a form factor that's just the opposite. Stylish and amazingly thin, the Slvr L7 sports a soothing black and dark-gray color scheme that should please even the most ardent slave to fashion. At 1.9 by 4.5 by 0.45 inches, it's just a hair slimmer than the Razr, but the candy bar design makes it nominally taller. Also, at 3.4 ounces (compared with the 2.5-ounce Razr), the Slvr L7 is easily portable, but it feels more solidly built than its sibling. The trim form factor does have one drawback, however. It can be difficult to get a good grip on the Slvr L7, which makes it somewhat awkward to hold against your ear for long periods of time.

The Motorola Slvr L7's 262,000-color, 176x122-pixel display measures 1.8 inches diagonally, making it large enough for the phone's size. It's great for scrolling through the menus, viewing photos, and playing games, yet it does disappear in direct light. Be warned that it also catches finger smudges easily.

The navigation toggles below the Motorola Slvr L7's display are adequately sized but sparse in number, with just two soft keys, a five-way toggle, a menu control, and dedicated Talk and End buttons. Unlike with the Razr, there are no shortcuts for the camera or Web browser next to the toggle, nor is there a dedicated Back button--an annoying omission. The toggle can be set as a shortcut to four user-defined functions, but it would have been nice to have more options. What's more, there's no dedicated iTunes button, as there was on the Rokr. Instead, one of the soft keys serves this function but only when you're in standby mode.

Since the toggle and all other navigation controls are set flush with the surface of the Motorola Slvr L7, using them did take some practice. Our finger slipped around a few times, but we got the hang of it eventually. The small, blue-backlit keypad buttons also took acclimation. Closely similar to the Razr family in that they resemble a single flat touch pad, they lack the Motorola Razr V3c's textured lines separating the individual rows. The numbers are raised ever so slightly, but it's not enough to dial by feel. What's more, not only are the keys slippery, but there's also no satisfying click when pressing a button. So if you're thinking of buying the Slvr L7, you may want to give it a test-drive first.

On the back of the Motorola Slvr L7, you'll find the camera lens (sans a flash or a self-portrait mirror), as well as the single speaker for music and speakerphone calls. The lack of stereo speakers on a music phone is puzzling, and its placement on the handset's rear face means you'll want to place the phone facedown for best results when using the speaker; however, be careful not to scratch the display. On the left spine are a volume rocker and a camera button. Unlike with many other camera phones, the latter control opens the camera menu rather than activating the camera itself. On the right spine, you'll find a voice-dialing control, as well as the USB port for the included headset and cable needed to load music on the phone. By utilizing the included adapter, you can use your own 3.5mm headset if you wish. Farther down is the TransFlash card slot--an especially welcome addition to such a slim phone--and a 512MB card is included.

Features

Since the toggle and all other navigation controls are set flush with the surface of the Motorola Slvr L7, using them did take some practice. Our finger slipped around a few times, but we got the hang of it eventually. The small, blue-backlit keypad buttons also took acclimation. Closely similar to the Razr family in that they resemble a single flat touch pad, they lack the Motorola Razr V3c's textured lines separating the individual rows. The numbers are raised ever so slightly, but it's not enough to dial by feel. What's more, not only are the keys slippery, but there's also no satisfying click when pressing a button. So if you're thinking of buying the Slvr L7, you may want to give it a test-drive first.

On the back of the Motorola Slvr L7, you'll find the camera lens (sans a flash or a self-portrait mirror), as well as the single speaker for music and speakerphone calls. The lack of stereo speakers on a music phone is puzzling, and its placement on the handset's rear face means you'll want to place the phone facedown for best results when using the speaker; however, be careful not to scratch the display. On the left spine are a volume rocker and a camera button. Unlike with many other camera phones, the latter control opens the camera menu rather than activating the camera itself. On the right spine, you'll find a voice-dialing control, as well as the USB port for the included headset and cable needed to load music on the phone. By utilizing the included adapter, you can use your own 3.5mm headset if you wish. Farther down is the TransFlash card slot--an especially welcome addition to such a slim phone--and a 512MB card is included.

The iTunes experience on the Motorola Slvr L7 is nearly identical to that of the Rokr. iPod owners will instantly recognize the overall interface. Opening the player takes you straight to the music library, where you can organize songs by playlist, artist, album, and name. When playing music, the phone goes into standby mode while displaying onscreen soft controls and album art. Settings include shuffling of songs or albums, as well as repeating one or all but no equalizers. Transferring between the cell phone and the music player is seamless, as music automatically stops when you receive a call. Hang up and press the dedicated iTunes key, and your song picks up again from the point you left off. There's also an airplane mode that lets you listen to your tunes in flight with the cell phone turned off.

The Motorola Slvr L7 is the second iTunes phone, so we were hoping we wouldn't see any of the irritating limitations found on the Rokr. Yet to our disappointment, they're still here. You can download songs only through the included USB cable. There's no way to transfer iTunes music wirelessly, you can't listen to music through a Bluetooth headset, and you can't use iTunes tracks as ring tones. The strict 100-song storage limit hasn't changed either, and all songs must be saved on the TransFlash card, assuming you haven't filled it up with a lot of other data. And forget the idea of storing more music on the phone's skimpy 5MB of integrated memory--it just isn't possible. So in other words, don't get too excited about circumventing the inadequate 100-song cap. Like the Rokr, the Slvr L7 also connects with only one computer at a time. When we tried connecting to a second computer, the Slvr L7, like the Rokr E1, erased all our previously loaded songs.

In addition to the iTunes player, the Motorola Slvr L7 has a separate, generic Motorola-designed MP3 player that supports MP3, MIDI, WAV, AAC, and DRM AAC files. The interface is as bare bones as players get, but it accepts downloads via Bluetooth, or you can buy tunes from Cingular for around $2.49 each. You can use stored tracks as ring tones, but since this second player isn't connected to the iTunes player in any way, you can't transfer files back and forth. Once again, the Slvr L7's meager integrated memory will limit you to about 20 songs.

After seeing the 1.3-megapixel camera on the Motorola Razr V3c, we wanted the Motorola Slvr L7 to come similarly equipped. Unfortunately, the VGA camera takes pictures in just three resolutions: 640x480, 320x240, and 160x120. On the upside, we liked the useful camera options. A meter keeps track of how much storage space is left, and you can switch between the phone and the card storage with three easy clicks. For photo-editing features, you get a choice of six lighting settings, an adjustable brightness control, a 4X zoom, a 5- or 10-second autotimer, and a selection of five shutter sounds, as well as a silent option. The MPEG-4 video recorder takes clips about 30 seconds in length, with sound in two resolutions (176x144 and 128x96), and you can choose a lighting setting. Photos and video were about what you'd expect from a VGA camera: Objects were fuzzy, and colors didn't exactly jump out. When finished with your snapshots and clips, you can send them in a multimedia message or save them to the phone. You can also save your work to the TransFlash card, but you'll probably want to keep that chunk of memory for your music.

You can personalize the Motorola Slvr L7 with a variety of wallpaper, themes, menu styles, color skins, screensavers, and message tones. If you'd like more options or ring tones, you can download them from Cingular. You get three Java (J2ME) games--BlockBreaker Deluxe, Jewel Quest, and Tetris--but you can always download more if you're an avid gamer.

Performance

We tested the quad-band Motorola Slvr L7 (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; GPRS) world phone is San Francisco using Cingular's service and had no trouble getting a signal. The fact that the phone supports only GPRS data speeds and not EDGE is a letdown, especially since Cingular is on the verge of introducing its first 3G (UMTS) phones.
Call quality was generally good. We enjoyed clear conversations, with little static and no voice distortion. Callers occasionally could tell we were using a cell phone, but they reported satisfactory audio quality as well. As with the Razr, volume on our end was somewhat low, so callers with hearing impairments should try the Motorola Slvr L7 first. We encountered little interference from other electronic devices. The speakerphone was loud and only occasionally muffled, but it performed admirably overall. Putting the speaker facedown on a table does affect outgoing sound somewhat--callers had trouble hearing us at times--but it's difficult to find an alternative position, as the phone can't rest on its side. We tested the Slvr L7 with the Plantronics Explorer 320 Bluetooth headset and had no problem connecting the two devices. Call quality was clear, but volume on both ends was low. That could be due to the headset, however.

As with the Motorola Rokr, song transfers from iTunes to the Motorola Slvr L7 were agonizingly slow. It took 4.3 minutes to transfer a 43MB playlist, which makes for an average transfer time of just 0.17MB per second--compare that to the iPod Nano's 5.3MB per second. In fact, the overall performance of iTunes was obviously affected whenever we had the Slvr L7 connected. However, the Slvr L7's onboard iTunes performance showed noticeable improvement upon the Rokr's. Navigation between screens was quick if not always smooth, and starting up playlists and scrubbing through tracks had no more delay than your standard MP3 player.

The Motorola Slvr L7's audio performance is top notch for a phone; it compares evenly to the iPod Nano's. All types of music sounded bright, clear, and detailed, and bass response was OK, though not thumping. The 'buds sound fine but may not be comfortable for all users.

The Motorola Slvr L7 has a rated talk time of 6 hours and a promised standby time of 17 days. In our tests, we came away with a very solid 8.5 hours of talk time and a respectable 12 days of standby time. According to FCC radiation tests, the Slvr L7 has a digital SAR rating of 1.34 watts per kilogram.

Ratings

Design: 7

Features: 6

Performance: 7

Verdict

The good: The Motorola Slvr L7 has an attractive overall design. It also comes with an integrated iTunes player, Bluetooth, a sharp display, a TransFlash card slot, and a speakerphone, as well as solid call and music-audio quality.

The bad: The Motorola Slvr L7's iTunes player is sluggish, and it's burdened with too many usage restrictions. The phone is further hampered by a low-resolution VGA camera, a lack of support for EDGE, tricky controls, no FM radio or stereo speakers, and little integrated memory.

The bottom line: Motorola's Slvr L7 puts a prettier face on the iTunes phone, but its midrange features, its sluggish music-player performance, and the limitations on the iTunes usability are big distractions.