Got a Droid RAZR 4G this weekend. Took it back this AM. It's a big beautiful slab of phone that seems solidly built and bulletproof. (It even has a Kevlar back, but it's not guaranteed to actually stop bullets.) Sadly, the 4G wi-fi hotspot feature didn't work for me.

Apparently it's a known problem and Motorola is working on a fix but can't say when it will be available. So I availed myself of the 14 day return policy and reactivated our old phone. The folks at Cellular Sales were nice enough about it and waived the restocking fees, etc., and were quite apologetic.

The person helping me said she had sold several of them based on the wi-fi hotspot feature, and had tested it herself, but mine was the first one that had come back. Others are reporting it works for them, too. We set it up and tested it in the store and sure enough it didn't work for her, either.

She offered to let me try another one but I didn't want to go through three or four more phones to find one that works. Besides, it appears to be a software problem according to Motorola, so I'm not clear on why it works on some phones and not others. I'd rather just wait for the fix that makes it work for all phones. Plus there will likely be hundreds of other fixes for reported problems and annoyances.

The symptom is that the wi-fi hotspot activates, broadcasts its SSID and accepts connections. You can then connect your client and get an IP address etc. and everything looks to be working. But then it hangs up when trying to access most websites or get email. My phone also rebooted several times when trying to use the hotspot.

Motorola said it's something about the IP MTU size, and adjusting it in your client IP4 settings seems to fix it for some people. Can't do that on a tablet, though, and who wants to be monkeying around with your network stack on every PC or notebook you might want to use with it?

Anyway, the features that do work are pretty slick. Performance is amazing. Everything is fast and snappy owing to the dual core CPU. The 4G is incredibly fast. I got consistent 11Mbps download and 2.7Mbps upload speeds, comparable to the Droid X over wi-fi (see chart below).

                     Ping ms  Download Upload (Mbps)
Desktop Wired (ref)  23       34.66    3.17 
Desktop WiFi         25       20.7     3.16    
Droid RAZR 4G        86       11.02    2.68
Droid RAZR WiFi      38       16.31    3.14 
Droid X 3G           155      1.26     0.62
Droid X WiFi         53       11.55    3.04
OG Droid 3G          247      0.59     0.44
OG Droid WiFi        Failed   Failed   Failed
XOOM Tablet WiFi     105      4.85     2.40

(It appears I need to look in to why the XOOM tablet wi-fi is so slow.)

The RAZR's 4.3 inch, 540 x 960 pixel "Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen" display is super sharp with rich colors and nice contrast. I miss it already.

It's slightly larger than the already large Droid X, but much thinner and a little lighter. It still feels solid, though, and appears to have excellent build quality.

There is no removable/replaceable battery, and good battery life appears to require a lot of tweaking and settings. So that's a consideration if you plan to use it away from a charger and don't want to carry an external power pack.

There's an expensive "Lapdock" accessory with a screen and keyboard and a phone dock that makes it into a nettop rig. (Have not tried this.)

My only complaint (other than the wi-fi hotspot) is that it's loaded down with Motorola and Verizon bloatware and Android replacement apps (email, music player, etc.). And, you can't remove them or replace them with the stock Android versions.

(This makes the "soon to be released any day now" Samsung Galaxy Nexus look pretty attractive.)

So, my advice from lessons learned is don't be an early adopter. Check the support forums and chat boards for known problems, and wait for the first update release to make sure they are fixed.

If you can live without wi-fi hotspot until it's fixed (or are willing to use a USB tether which allegedly works) the RAZR is a really nice phone. And there is supposed to be a future Android 4 "Ice Cream Sandwich" update (presumably with a new set of problems).

Regardless, I'm really looking forward to a 4G phone (with a wi-fi hotspot that works), but for now I'm going to wait.