Digital Trends

Motorola SLVR L7 March 1st, 2006 | by Stewart Wolpin

Performance

The SLVR's iTunes interface pretty much parallels the iPod's; but the SLVR is certainly no iPod. Filling the Micro SD card with 100 tracks takes about a half hour, twice as long as it takes to pour 120 tracks onto a Shuffle. Playback is periodically marred by crackle from either the wireless receiver or static electricity. And without a click wheel, using the navigation array to scroll through tracks or artists to find one track is tedious.

Discerning listeners will want to use their own headphones, which makes the inclusion of the mini USB-to-3.5mm adapter welcome. The included hammer-shaped earbuds hang loosely from the ears and easily dislodge with any vigorous movement. Even when the buds do fit snugly, music sounds muddy and is often overcome by ambient noise. But the buds are handy for dual music listening/conversation usage. Hearing your conversation through twin earphones vastly increases comprehension, and center placement of the cord clip on a lapel eliminates the need for idiotically holding the mic up to your mouth. Callers reported relatively clear sound at their end using the earbud/mic, even while walking down a noisy street.

The SLVR automatically mutes the music when a call comes in, which it did, and is supposed to automatically resume when a call is ended, which it didn't during our tests. More dexterous manipulation of the multi-use button on the in-line mic may result in the result we couldn't get.

Quad band (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) reception was consistent throughout our usage. Voice volume was plenty high and voice quality was crisp and clean, even from another cell phone. Ringtone volume, however, was low, necessitating a reliance on the vibrate mode if you do decide to keep the phone in a pants pocket.

EDGE Web performance is adequate, with pages filling in eight to 15 seconds. As you'd expect, the VGA camera is useless in anything but bright sunlight, especially since there is no flash -- but we doubt anyone would buy the SLVR for its picture taking capability. The SLVR's 12-hour music playback battery life (6 hours/17 day talk/standby), is only two hours shorter than the Nano.