Newsletter
Motorola is back with the Razr, and its second true attempt at a foldable. And on the surface, it seems like Motorola has really hit out of the park. Motorola addressed basically everything that users complained about with other flipping phones, and also lowered the price. That includes adding a larger cover display, a larger battery that lasts longer, and a cheaper price tag. But was that enough to make the Motorola Razr+ a best-seller for the company? It might be. But let’s find out in our full review.
Table of Contents
Motorola Razr+ Review: Hardware & Design
The design of the Motorola Razr+ is actually a bit different than you might expect from Motorola. With their previous foldable, they did keep some of the unique design choices that made the Razr so popular in the 2000s. After all, the Razr v3 did sell over 130 million units worldwide, so it was a big seller for the company. So it makes sense to reuse that name here. But it didn’t make sense to keep the chin.
With the Razr+, the chin is gone. That does get rid of one of its more differentiating factors however. And now, it looks like every other flipping phone on the market. And it has less of an industrial design this time around.
Motorola has outfitted the Razr+ with curved sides, which make it feel better in the hand. It also has the power button and volume rocker on the right-hand side. The power button also doubles as a fingerprint sensor. Making it easier than ever to get back into your Razr+. That fingerprint sensor works really well, and I really wish every phone went with a power button fingerprint sensor.
On the opposite side, you’ll find the SIM card slot. While there is support for eSIM, it is not the only way to use the Razr+. Unlike the iPhone 14 series which is eSIM only. So that’s good to see.
The back of the phone is going to be frosted glass, unless you get the Viva Magenta color (exclusive to T-Mobile and Motorola.com) which is a vegan leather back. It feels great in the hand, whether folded or not. Inside, you’ll find the massive 6.9-inch display, along with the cut out for the front-facing camera, and a lifted bezel. This is the case for most foldables these days, where the bezel is actually raised, to protect the folding display.
Let’s address the elephant in the room. It does not fold completely flat. This isn’t new. Most foldables do not fold completely flat, because of the hinge. But it became a big deal after a few leaks of the Pixel Fold came out, saying it didn’t fold flat. That’s still the case here on the Razr+. But you won’t notice, unless you are looking for it.
It’s one of the most stunning foldables I’ve seen, so far. Now, this does come ahead of Samsung announcing the Galaxy Z Flip 5 (and Fold 5) next month, so that might change. But Motorola has really hit it out of the park, at least from a hardware and design standpoint.
Motorola Razr+ Review: Display
Like most foldables, the Razr+ does have two display. The inner display is a 6.9-inch FHD+ 165Hz AMOLED display. While the outer display is a 3.6-inch 144Hz AMOLED display, it has a resolution of 1056×1066, so it’s almost a square.
The inner display is quite nice actually. It’s great to see Motorola using a proper AMOLED here instead of a pOLED display. While they are similar, AMOLED displays are a lot more vibrant and reproduce color a lot more than pOLED does. It’s really a great display, with one problem. It’s a problem that I’ve gotten used to with the Razr+, and that’s the aspect ratio. This is a taller device than most others on the market. With the inner display being a 22:9 aspect ratio. This makes it tougher to reach the top of the display, when using it one hand.
Now, I don’t know for sure, but I’d assume that making this taller is what allowed for the larger front-display on the Razr+. Though, a slightly wider phone wouldn’t be too bad either. It’s something you’ll get used to after a few days, but it’s another thing to keep in mind.
Large Front Displays are in
I spent a good two months using the Galaxy Z Flip 4 as my daily driver last year, because it was really the first Flip phone that had decent battery life – thanks to the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, the same chipset in the Razr+. And the main thing I disliked about the Flip was, having to open it tens if not hundreds of times a day for every little thing. With the Razr+, you don’t need to.
The front display can be used to reply to emails as well, as it can fit the entire keyboard on that screen. Now it will be hard to see what you’re typing, but it is possible. I’d say you’re more likely to reply to text messages, than write an email with this screen. Unless it’s a super short email.
Apps do work on the front display, and in fact, every app works on it. Motorola said that they built it so that any Android app should work on the display, some will look better than others, however. We did try a number of apps on this front display. Particularly ones that don’t generally work well on these weird aspect ratios, like Instagram. And it worked. Now was Instagram the best looking on this square display? No, of course not. But it does work. Other apps we tried included Twitter, Amazon, and Google News, to name a few. They all worked, but other than Twitter, I’d prefer to use them on the internal display.
Since this outer display is a 144Hz panel, you might be thinking about games. And yes, there are some games that work here. They are powered by the Game Snacks that Google has been working on for Android Auto. Which is pretty interesting. There’s games like Marble Mayhem which you have to tilt the phone to get the marble through the maze, and then it drops into the camera. Which is neat. Other games that are pre-installed include Astro Odyssey, Scooter Xtreme, Tiger Run, Stack Bounce and 99 Balls 3D. Obviously, these are not AAA games, and really lightweight games. Which is what you’d expect for playing on such a small display.
These are mostly games you’d play when you have time to kill, like waiting at a doctor’s office, or something like that. Probably not something you’d use often, but still cool to have.
Motorola Razr+ Review: Performance
Inside the Razr+, there’s the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Now some of you might have noticed, that is an older processor. It is, but it’s not that old. It’s just now hitting a year since it was announced. But it’s still a really good processor, and that is likely how Motorola was able to put the Razr+ out for under $1,000.
The Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 performs as well here as it has on every other phone that has used this processor over the past year. That means that it is pretty fast, while staying cool, and very battery efficient. While using the Razr+, I never really noticed any overheating. Now, the phone did get hot while using the camera for extended periods of time and playing games, as it would normally. But otherwise, it was pretty cool.
For others 8GB of RAM likely feels like its kind of old at this point. But it’s plenty of RAM. When using the Razr+, apps didn’t really need to be redrawn, and it did keep apps in memory quite nicely. That’s surprising, compared most other Android smartphones from Google and Samsung do not do that, with the same amount of RAM.
Overall, performance here was quite nice. It’s not the most powerful smartphone on the market, but it does a good job at everything it needs to do. And everything you might throw at it.
Motorola Razr+ Review: Battery life & Charging
This section is going to have some good, and some bad news. Let’s start with the good news, battery life.
Battery life on the Motorola Razr+ hit my expectations. Comparing it to the Galaxy Z Flip 4, which has a slightly smaller battery at 3700mAh, while the Razr+ has a 3800mAh battery. And the processor is the same, while the Razr has a slightly larger display and a higher refresh rate. I figured I’d get about the same battery life, and, I was actually wrong. The Razr+ outperformed the Galaxy Z Flip 4, slightly.
When I reviewed the Galaxy Z Flip 4 last year, I was usually getting six or seven hours of screen on time. With the Razr+, I’ve been getting eight hours on most days, but no less than seven hours. That’s pretty good. Not quite on the level of some non-folding phones like the Galaxy S23 Ultra, but it is better than the Pixel 7 Pro.
Wireless charging should have been skipped
Now, onto the bad news. Charging speeds. Motorola has pretty decent wired charging speeds at 30W. Sure, faster would be nice, but even at 3800mAh, this does charge pretty quickly. The bad news though, is the wireless charging speed. It’s 5W, which is just, so bad. That’s about as slow as you can get. Now, I understand that Motorola was looking to cut some corners and save money, while also protecting the battery. But 5W? Motorola should have just omitted the wireless charging and maybe given us a slightly larger battery with that space.
The other bit of bad news is, Motorola is joining the OEMs that no longer include the charger in the box. Now, Motorola did include a charger in our reviewers kit, but that won’t be in the retail boxes that ship in late June. Most of us likely have a 30W capable USB-C charger, but if not, you’ll need to buy one.
Motorola Razr+ Review: Software
For the most part, Motorola has stuck to a vanilla Android approach on its phones. And that includes the Razr+. So you’ll notice that it is very similar to what the Pixel offers. Though it does ditch some of the annoyances of the Pixel software, like the battery life screen only updating every two hours – obviously, that’s really only an issue for reviewers like myself.
With Motorola sticking to a vanilla approach here, that does mean that Material You is available on the Razr. But it’s not the same method as other smartphones. Basically, it’s not located in the Wallpaper screen. Instead, long-press on the home screen and tap on Personalization. In here, you’ll see a number of options for personalizing the Razr+. This includes themes, fonts, colors, icon shapes, and so much more. In the colors section, you’ll find the Material You options for the icons. It includes basic colors and wallpaper colors. So it uses a single shade instead of up to four shades, like stock Android uses. It’s unclear why this is, but it is what it is.
Motorola has added some curated live wallpapers that react to you opening and closing the Razr. Like a flower opening as you open the Razr and closing as you close it. It’s the little things that make all the difference and this is one of them. Of course, you can set any wallpaper you’d like, but some of these are really cool, to be quite honest.
The company has also added a ton of gestures that you can use on the Motorola Razr, to get the most out of this phone. Like the Sidebar, which is a quick way to jump into other apps for multitasking. You can also turn on gestures to double-tap the screen to put the phone to sleep or wake up. Interestingly, these are two separate options. So you can turn one on for turning off the display and keep the one off for turning on the display, if you wish to do so.
Motorola also allows you to swipe across the screen to jump into split screen mode. Making it much easier then going to the recents menu and doing it. And there’s so many more. If you go to Settings > Gestures, you’ll find about 20 different options there. Of course, an oldie but goodie is still there. And that’s the chop to turn on the flashlight. That’s a gesture Motorola added on the original Moto X, way back in 2012, when Google owned them.
The software on the Motorola Razr+ is really fluid and I have not had any issues with it at all while reviewing this device. Everything’s been super smooth and quick responding. But that’s what you get when you stick to a relatively vanilla approach to Android. Something we wish more smartphone makers did.
To wrap up the software section, it’s important to talk about updates. According to Motorola, they are promising three OS updates. Which means this will get Android 14, 15 and 16. As well as 4 years of security updates. That does put them in line with most other OEMs, and a big departure from its previous stance of maybe updating their phones to the next version of Android. So good on Motorola there.
Flex View mode is incredible
Flex View is nothing new for foldables. Samsung was the first to do this, back on the original Flip, and others have added this feature as well. But basically, on the Razr+, Flex View is great for using with the camera. When you take a photo, the front-display will automatically show the viewfinder, even if you are not in Flex View mode. If the phone is flat, it’ll still show the viewfinder. So those you’re taking photos of, can see how they look. You can also use this when closed, so the front-facing camera is pretty much pointless.
There’s more that the camera can do in Flex View mode as well, like the ability to take multiple photos back to back, like a photo booth. You can also take photos hands free, and the viewfinder will take up the top half of the display, while the controls take up the bottom half.
It also works in a few other apps like, YouTube. Which will show the video in the upper half of the screen, with all the controls at the bottom. But most of the Flex View features are in the camera app, currently.
Motorola Razr+ Review: Camera
The cameras on the Motorola Razr+ aren’t the most feature-rich, and they aren’t going to be the best cameras on a smartphone. We kind of expect that from Motorola these days. But they will get the job done. The cameras are actually pretty good, though some of its non-folding competitors will perform better – like the Galaxy S23 Ultra and Pixel 7 Pro.
On the Razr+, we have a 13-megapixel ultrawide sensor, and a 12-megapixel main sensor. The main sensor is fairly large at 1.4um, in fact, those are larger pixels than what the Pixel 7 Pro uses. This means that Motorola’s camera can let in more light. So even though it is only a 12-megapixel shooter, it does provide some really great looking photos.
In my testing of the Razr+, I found that the colors were pretty accurate, and not saturated at all. So that’s a win over the Galaxy S23 Ultra already. It was also able to take photos of my dog that didn’t get super blurry. Typically, her face becomes blurry on any non-Pixel smartphone. Due to her being black and not staying still for more than a fraction of a second. So that means that the focus is accurate and the shutter is fast. That’s always a good thing.
Macro mode done right
Motorola has often times been an offender of adding a dedicated macro sensor that was just complete trash. Usually a 2MP or 5MP macro sensor, just to be able to say there’s two or three sensors on the phone. But with the Razr+, Motorola decided to use the ultrawide for Macro. What they call “Macro Vision”. This is the new trend as of late, and it works out really well. I was able to get up pretty close to a number of objects and get some really good macro shots.
Macro mostly works better on trees, signs and plants outside. That is because of the natural sunlight. Remember when you are that close to something, you’re also blocking the light. Making it tough to get enough light to get a good picture. I took a few pictures at my desk, and they didn’t come out quite as nice.
Here’s a few samples of the macro shots I was able to get.
Portrait mode on the other hand, is also fairly good. It’s not perfect, especially on objects. Like with a lot of other phones, portrait mode works better on humans than objects. But I was still pretty impressed with it. Motorola might take the second best portrait mode photos behind the Pixel.
Should you buy the Motorola Razr+?
The big question here is, whether you should buy the Motorola Razr+? I really want to say yes. But a foldable is not for everyone. Even for myself, I’m not sure I could live with this phone for two, three years, before it’s time to upgrade again. And that’s not to say it’s a bad phone, it’s quite the opposite. I just don’t know if I’m ready for having to open my phone hundreds of times a day to do things.
However, if you are looking to get a foldable, this might be the one to get. And there are plenty of great deals available right now, where you can get it for nothing, or very little money. If you want something a bit cheaper, the Razr will be launching in a few months, with an even lower price tag.
You should buy the Motorola Razr+ if:
- You want the nostalgia of a flip phone.
- You want a foldable, without the foldable price.
- You like vanilla Android software.
You should not buy the Motorola Razr+ if:
- You don’t want a big screen on the front.
- You want the best camera on the market.
- You are on Verizon, and want to use mmWave 5G.