FIRST LOOK: Finally Motorola Has A New Premium Razr Foldable, With Impressive Front Screen
Finally, after their third attempt, Motorola has delivered a cracker new 5G Motorola Razr 40 flip phone, and I love it.
What’s amazing is what competition and design pressure can do, especially when your back is up against the wall and you have a competitor breathing down your neck with a product and sudden ownership of a category that you basically created and designed the first product for.
Flip phones are Motorola, but the first two were rushed and lacked some key features needed to push the device into the realms of a true premium smartphone, and this allowed Samsung, with their Galaxy Flip phone, to gain ground.
This time it’s very much different, because the new 2023 Razr is a serious offering.
It has a beautiful 3.6-inch pOLED display, which is larger than the Samsung Flip, and it’s seriously premium.
In fact, it’s the largest display available on a flip-phone or foldable and sitting over dinner last night in a Sydney restaurant I could not resist pulling it out of my pocket.
Within a few minutes a lady on the next table was asking me, “what is that phone?”
With a 1:1 aspect ratio, and a 1066 x 1056 resolution, the images and especially video are crystal sharp, and that may be because it has HDR10+ certification and a 144Hz refresh rate.
The cover screen is Gorilla Glass Victus, which means it’s tough.
Also impressive is the quality and the Glacier Blue design which, in the hand, gives this smartphone a feeling of quality – and moreso, is a product you would actually want to show off.
My wife has the Samsung Flip 4 and when the two devices were compared side by side there were glaring differences, no more so than the gap between the closed displays, with the Razr a lot tighter when the device is closed.
The new hinge mechanism appear to pull the two sides of the device closer together; Motorola claim the new hinge is extremely durable and feature a less noticeable crease. I have to agree, after using this device for several hours.
There are two new models in the Razr family, and the model I have is the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra, which has a retail sticker price of A$1,499.
The other model is the $999 Motorola Razr 40.
The real standout is the new cover display and the reengineering of the software, so that more information is delivered to the front display.
I have only had the device for a few hours, and I am already noticing the benefits of not having to pull out a big phone with key information available on the front screen.
While it’s lying idle you get this shiny black screen, but once there is motion a customisable clock face appears, and when you swipe the screen upwards your pin log in appears, or you can log in using the fingerprint reader, located on the side of the device.
You then get access to the weather, time,and date, and a multitude of app options.
What you see when flipped is a row of icons; for example, with one tap you get access to contacts and the ability to dial from the display without having to open the screen.
Your appointments can also be delivered to the front display, you can get access to Google Maps on the external display, and the software redesign allows run any application you want on the Ultra display.
You can also use the Razr Cover to take selfies with the two primary cameras – the quality is good.
The processing engine in the Razr Ultra is the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor, 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM, and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. There is also two primary sensors, including a 12MP main camera with an f/1.5 aperture and OIS (optical image stabilisation), plus a 13MP ultrawide camera that doubles as a macro lens.
On the inside of the Razr Plus is a 32MP selfie camera.
Shortly, we will bring you a full review on the new Motorola foldable, which at this stage has already been added to the very few devices that actually make it in the premium smartphone market.