Motorola SLVR L6 mobile phone

Can this son of RAZR bring home the bacon?

Hot on the heels of last month's PEBL V6 comes Motorola's latest variation on the iconic RAZR.

But where the PEBL took the basic internals and stuck them in a rounded, girlie package that just wasn't as cool or as pocket-friendly, this is more the son of RAZR - it's sleek, thin and angular, but in a candy-bar form rather than a clam-shell. The best news is that it's a full 3mm thinner than its older brother, at just 11mm - in fact, we had to keep checking our pockets to make sure we hadn't left it at home. The bad news is that the silver case has a slight blue tinge that's just a touch effeminate for our tastes.

The Motorola menu system is still as irritating as ever, and it's not helped by a D-pad that's slightly smaller than the RAZR's. Thankfully, the keypad is much better, with clearer lettering that makes texting easier than it was on the older model's flat metal keys. The screen is the same nice, bright 220 x 176-pixel LCD, although it pales in comparison to the bigger, sharper one on the Samsung D600.

Battery life is superb - we got a little under two weeks out of it, with the odd call and plenty of texting, before it ran out of juice. It comes with Bluetooth, but as with the previous two handsets, there's no card slot for expanding storage or swapping content, and the camera is only VGA-resolution - inexcusable in this day and age - so the snaps aren't even worth bothering to print out.

However, despite the annoying menu system and that disappointing camera, the phenomenally thin, stylish design puts this a cut above the RAZR. Some rivals offer a better selection of features for your money, but this handset can't be beaten for pocketability.