I just spent two weeks with the Motorola Razr, and I’m not talking about the Razr+. It’s the standard foldable Razr for 2023, complete with a more tame design and an attractive $699 price.
The Razr+ is Motorola’s big play to compete with Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 5, featuring a huge cover screen and high-end specs. But it still costs $999 (at least when it’s not on sale), which isn’t exactly ideal for those still questioning whether to buy a folding phone over a standard smartphone given the fact they’re the same price. So, to give folks on the fence a lower barrier to entry, there’s the Razr, and it’s quite good.
Is the standard Razr as impressive as the Razr+? No, not quite. But it’s the first time we’re seeing a mid-range foldable land in the United States, and Motorola has checked a number of boxes to make it worth considering as your next smartphone.
Let’s dive in and see what it’s like to use the Moto Razr.
If you want to spend less than $700 on a stylish, long-lasting foldable phone, there's a lot to like about the basic Motorola Razr. However, if you're not on a tight budget, the $1,000 Razr+ and Galaxy Z Flip 5 are both much better options.
What we liked about it
A vegan leather design that’s almost gapless
I remember seeing the Razr for the first time alongside the Razr+ during Motorola’s press briefing, and part of me liked it more than its pricier sibling. They look relatively similar for the most part, but there are some pretty clear differences, including a much smaller cover screen on the standard Razr than what the Razr+ has.
The regular Razr also comes with a matte aluminum rail around the sides that adds grip and makes the device feel more substantial, while the Razr+ is a lot glossier. The cheaper model is wrapped in vegan leather, whereas the Razr+ comes with frosted glass, giving the Razr a leg up in durability.
It’s available in Vanilla Cream, Summer Lilac, Cherry Blossom and Sage Green. I have the green, which seems to be the best “Standard” color in the lineup besides the Vanilla Cream. The vegan leather adds a ton of grip to the phone so it won’t go slipping or sliding, and it warrants going caseless even for those of us who would never use their phone without one (I am one of these people). Plus, it’s lightweight, at just under 7 ounces.
Speaking of durability, the Razr also boasts an IP52 rating. While that’s technically worse for water resistance than the typical IPX8 ratings of other folding phones, the “5” in “IP52” means that there’s a meaningful amount of dust resistance, which isn’t very common in the foldable market. Motorola included it on the Razr+, and it’s great to see it carried over to the cheaper model.
A lot of folding phones try to minimize the gap between the two halves of the screen so you don’t get any crumbs or dirt in between and cause damage to the display. Luckily, Motorola’s cheaper foldable uses the same hinge mechanism as the Razr+, which gets you next to no gap at all. If you hold the phone in the right lighting, you can see a very tiny gap between the two halves of the screen, but it’s minuscule. It’s still a dicey idea to take it to a place like the beach, but like the rest of the foldable phone industry, Motorola’s hinge design is improving greatly.
The display is big, fast and beautiful
Motorola kept the same display as the Razr+ for the cheaper Razr, while only making one notable change to accommodate the lower price.
The display, which measures 6.9 inches diagonally, uses a pOLED panel with a 2640 x 1080 resolution. That keeps the screen plenty sharp, colorful and equipped with excellent contrast. What’s more, it can go up to 1,400 nits of brightness, which isn’t too shabby for a folding phone. The key difference between the Razr’s display and the one on the Razr+ is the refresh rate, which drops from 165Hz to 144Hz. Is there a noticeable difference? Not at all; I have both phones on my desk and when I swap between them, they feel equally as smooth.
Overall, it’s one of the best screens on the market. While it doesn’t match the color accuracy as Apple’s iPhone displays or the sheer vibrance of Samsung’s, Motorola managed to include a very solid screen that most people should be happy with.
Mid-range performance that is perfectly fine
Whereas the Razr+ comes with last year’s high-end Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, the standard Razr gets the less-powerful Snapdragon 7 Gen 1. It’s an upper mid-range processor that mimics performance of the highest-end chips from a couple years ago, and lo and behold, that’s what you get on the Razr.
Is that a bad thing? Not at all. I can still do everything I want, from juggling Gmail and Todoist to scrolling social media and taking photos on the fly. I ran some benchmarks to see how it compares to the Razr+ and the Galaxy Z Flip 5 from Samsung, and while it’s slightly behind both devices, it’s a comparable alternative, especially at its lower asking price.
The chip is paired with 8GB of RAM that keeps tasks alive in the background and helps Android to run smoothly. You get 128GB of storage built into the phone, which is generally enough for most people. Unfortunately, you won’t find any larger storage configurations for this phone, so you might want to consider purchasing cloud storage for your photos or other important files if you have a surplus.
Battery life lasts all day
Inside the Razr is a 4,200mAh battery, which is bigger than the one you’ll find in the Razr+. Combined with the lower-powered processor and slightly slower screen, the Razr can easily last a full day on a charge. It would usually drop to about 35% to 40% percent by the time I concluded my typical 16-hour day, which is quite good.
We ran our usual battery test using VLC to loop a 4K video at 50% brightness with airplane mode on, and the phone lasted 16 hours and 45 minutes before it died. That’s quite good for a folding phone, beating out the Galaxy Z Flip 5, which lasted 14 hours and 33 minutes.
The phone won’t take that long to charge up. Motorola includes 30W wired charging, which can juice the phone up from zero to 100% in under an hour. If you’re a fan of wireless charging, you’ll be happy to know that it’s included here, although it’s only rated at 5W so it’ll take much longer to charge.
Clean, speedy software with all the flip phone tricks you could want
There’s one big reason to buy the Razr: It folds in half. And with that come all the same software tricks you might be looking for in a flip phone.
Running Android 13, Motorola’s take on the software is lightweight and snappy, with minimal distractions and bloatware. The phone has all the optimizations you could ask for to accommodate the flexible display, from watching YouTube videos on the top half of the screen hands-free to flexing the cameras up and using the phone as a tripod. You can also hold the phone sideways and bend it slightly to record videos like an old-school camcorder. There’s also split-screen multitasking, scaling options to ensure apps take up the full screen and neat swiping gestures to split apps in half so you can run them side by side (perfect if you want to reach the top of an app or want to run two apps at once with one hand).
Of course, you also get all of Motorola’s other custom touches like a double wrist twist to open the camera, a double chop to turn on the flashlight, Peak Display (for quickly glancing at notifications while your phone is off), privacy features like a secure folder for sensitive files and Ready For compatibility (letting you use your phone from your PC remotely).
There’s also a new app called Moto Unplugged which lets you put a pause on your phone and only gives you access to the apps you absolutely need, helping to limit distractions and interruptions during your day. It’ll automatically place your phone into do not disturb, set your home screen and wallpaper to a much simpler interface, and give you options for how long you’d like it to last. It’s a handy feature to have if you’re trying to get work done and don’t want to be tempted to dive into TikTok every time you check your text messages.
Overall, Motorola’s software experience remains one of my favorites, and I think anyone who picks up a Razr (or any modern-day Moto phone, for that matter) will feel the same.
Motorola says the Razr will be supported with three years of Android version upgrades, as well as four years of bi-monthly security updates. That means this phone should at least get Android 16 or 17, and it’ll continue to be updated with the latest security features until 2027. It’s not the best update policy we’ve seen (that honor goes to the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro), but it’s pretty decent for a $700 folding phone.
What we didn’t like about it
Disappointing cameras
Motorola has never been king of the smartphone camera, and that unfortunately carries over to the Razr. The phone technically comes with a higher resolution main sensor compared to the Razr+, but when placed head-to-head with it and the rest of the foldable competition, results are very underwhelming.
Motorola Razr vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 cameras
The 64MP main sensor in question is adequate for quick photos of passing moments, but don’t expect the best colors or detail from them. It has an f/1.7 aperture so it can let in a decent amount of light, but Motorola’s processing can’t pull much detail information at all when the lights go down. Similarly, the 13MP ultra-wide camera may be decently wide at 120 degrees, but the overall quality of its photos is very underwhelming, especially since the first thing you want from an ultra-wide photo is detail.
Compared to the Galaxy Z Flip 5, the Razr struggles to keep up in almost every lighting condition. Only in the most well-lit environments does it produce images that are decent but not amazing, whereas the Z Flip 5 takes great photos in bright light and decent ones at night.
I’m also not a fan of the Razr’s video quality, which always looks choppy and overprocessed. Yes, it can record in 4K, but it’s not good 4K. There’s a difference, too; I record 4K video on my iPhone 15 Pro all the time and love its quality. Just because a phone says it can record in 4K doesn’t mean it’ll actually look good, and that’s unfortunately the case with the Razr.
Like I mentioned, you get all the neat camera tricks that come with a folding phone, which is a nice bonus. But I’m not sure how much that matters when camera quality is subpar. Granted, it’s not bad enough that I’d warrant it a dealbreaker for most buyers, but if you care deeply about the quality of your smartphone photographs and videos, you’ll want the shop elsewhere than the Razr.
The cover screen is smaller than you think
Motorola’s cover screen on the Razr+ feels like a mansion compared to the shoebox on the regular Razr. It measures 1.5 inches diagonally and lets you check your notifications, calendar, the weather, and other information, as well as provide controls for your music. You can customize the widgets that appear, and you can tweak the clock interface to your liking.
But let’s be clear: This thing is microscopic by today’s standards. Yes, I’ve been spoiled by the Razr+ and Z Flip 5 which have gigantic cover screens, but that’s a wildly superior implementation of the feature. The cover screen on the Razr feels dated by comparison.
I understand why Motorola chose to include such a small panel here. This is a mid-range foldable, not a high-end one like the Razr+, which means it doesn’t get all the fancy features.
Still, if you visit a carrier store shopping for one of the new Razrs and you see these two cover screens sitting next to each other, you’ll instantly want the Razr+. It gives you a lot more room to manage what’s going on on your phone without having to open it, and you can do things like run full apps and games. The smaller screen on the Razr limits you significantly by comparison.
Some folks may be fine with that, but if you want to get the most out of your flip phone without having to open it up, the Razr won’t be for you.
Oh, and promise me you won’t try to use it to take selfies. You can technically do it, but the viewfinder is so small that it’s virtually impossible to frame yourself correctly. Just use the selfie camera on the main display. It’s fine.
Software bugs are a bit too common
I found the software on my Razr to be quite buggy. It didn’t happen every time I opened the phone, but once or twice a day, the lock screen would simply crash and not show up, which would force me to either reboot the phone or jump into the camera and hope that it would figure out how to fix itself in the background. There were also a few times that the entire Android system would come to a screeching halt, forcing me to reboot.
Apps also occasionally would stutter for no apparent reason, and swiping up to go into the multitasking view didn’t always work the first time around.
Motorola told me to update my review unit’s software while setting it up, but I have yet to receive an update that fixes these problems. If you plan on buying this phone, beware of some bugs along the way.
Bottom line
At $700, the Motorola Razr is a good value, but also has its shortcomings. Other phones like the Z Flip 5 make up in the areas where the Razr falls flat, which begs the question: Maybe it’s best to wait for the Samsung flip phone to go on sale?
Whether it’s through a carrier promotion, a good trade-in deal or a straight-up discount directly from Samsung, you can generally get the Galaxy Z Flip 5 for hundreds less than its original $999 asking price, bringing it much closer to what Motorola wants for the Razr. And at that point, it’s clear that the best buy is the Galaxy, since you’ll get all sorts of advantages like a bigger cover screen, faster performance and better cameras. There’s a reason it’s our foldable pick for best smartphone.
Of course, there’s a case to be made for buying the Razr. Its vegan leather design is unlike any other foldable on the market, and the specs you get for the price are quite good. As long as you can live with subpar cameras, you’ll get a phone with good performance, great battery life and a perfectly pocketable form factor.
Just don’t expect it to blow your mind in anything it does. That’s what the Razr+ and Galaxy Z Flip 5 are for.
