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The Motorola Razr was actually announced earlier this year, alongside the Razr+. But it only just launched in the US this fall, along with many other phones during Techtober. When I first got hands on with the Razr back in May, I was pretty impressed with the phone, to be quite honest. Especially when Motorola told us that it would be “considerably cheaper” than the Razr+ which had an MSRP of $999. That to me meant around $600-$700. And I was right. But I was still unsure if Motorola would be able to hit that price range.
The Razr is available with an MSRP of $699, however, during the pre-orders (ending on October 20) you can get it for just $599. That’s a pretty incredible price for a foldable, and the cheapest price we’ve seen for a foldable in the US. But the real question is, did Motorola cut to many corners to hit this price point? Probably. But let’s find out in our full review, and whether you should still buy the Motorola Razr (2023) after those corners were cut.
Table of Contents
Motorola Razr (2023) Review: Hardware and Design
Motorola has always built good hardware. Usually more of an industrial design with its smartphones, though in recent years, they have gotten to be a bit more “playful” with its designs and colors. And that’s apparent here with the Motorola Razr (2023). But one thing that Razr fans are going to hate, is the move away from the iconic Razr design. Gone is that chin, that Motorola had on the first few Razr foldables, which brought back nostalgia from the original Razr in the early 2000s. Instead, it looks more like any other foldable, but it still has some Motorola design cues.
The model that we received to review is the Summer Lilac color, which is a really nice shade of purple. And what I really like about this color is that it’s apparent all around the outside of the phone. Unlike some other phones that will stick to a standard color on the frame, like the Galaxy Z Flip 5. Instead you have a very similar shade of purple on the frame and hinge, which is close to what the vegan leather purple looks like. And nothing here is glossy, not the hinge, nor the frame. Meaning, fingerprints begone. It’s a really good look to be quite honest, and probably my favorite looking flip phone at this point, besides the Razr+. This was a phone that I absolutely loved taking photos of for this review. Because it just looked good everywhere, and there were no fingerprints, or shadows to worry about, like you get with glass-backed phones. My only question is, why isn’t the Razr+ a vegan leather phone (other than the viva magenta color that is exclusive to T-Mobile).
I am a huge fan of this vegan leather finish on the Razr. I loved it when I got hands on with the device many months ago, when it was first announced. And love it even more now that I’ve been using the Razr for about a week or so. It’s a finish that I wish every smartphone maker would use on their phones. It’s a lot more grippy than the matte glass that you’ll find on the Galaxy Z Fold 5 or Google Pixel 8 Pro. It also doesn’t show fingerprints like glass will, or titanium for that matter – looking at you, iPhone 15 Pro/Max. And it just looks amazing. I mean look at this purple color on the Razr.
The rounded sides here work really well for making it feel more comfortable in your hands. Despite this not being a super large phone, it’s still a 6.9-inch 22:9 aspect ratio display. Which makes it pretty tall, even taller than the Sony phones. Despite it being a fairly large phone, it doesn’t really feel that large. Of course, part of that comes down to the weight too, which is just 188.6 ounces. That’s far lighter than my iPhone 15 Pro Max. But you do still end up doing some hand gymnastics to reach up and pull down the notification panel, or reach anything at the top of the screen. Because again, it is a very tall phone. Taller than most other phones on the market today.
Razr’s outside is pretty understated however. With a pretty small 1.5-inch outer display, and then your dual-camera setup. It looks quite different compared to the Razr+ which has the entire outside covered in a display. And it’s fine. It’s not large enough for you to run any full apps on the outer display or anything like that, but it gives you the basics. Like notifications, the time, battery percentage, date, etc. I’d argue it’s better for light users out there, versus those of us that are heavy users and need to use our phone for a whole lot more.
Now, because of the folding nature of this phone, it makes the power and volume buttons a bit to high on this one for my liking. However, because this is a folding phone, that was bound to happen. It’d either be to high or to low, and that’s because of the hinge, it can’t be too close to the hinge or they could break a lot more easily. They aren’t so high that it’s hard to use, however, so Motorola has that going for them. The fingerprint sensor is built into the power button, like it is on all foldables, and it works as you’d expect. I’m still in the camp that a power button fingerprint sensor is the way to go, versus an under-display fingerprint sensor. Motorola also lets you use face unlock to secure your device. So if you don’t like the fingerprint sensor, you do have options.
The hinge on the Motorola Razr (2023) is still quite stiff. I was hoping that it would ease up a bit after being broken in, but it hasn’t. This is on the hand, good to see that it is pretty strong, and less likely to break. But on the other hand, it makes it a lot tougher to open one-handed. Now, I’m not someone that tends to try and open a foldable with one hand, so this isn’t as much of an issue for me as might be for some other people. But it is worth noting. And it does fold completely flat. This is pretty common for foldables now, especially since Samsung has gotten rid of the gap on its recent foldables. It also unfolds flat. Despite the Pixel Fold not unfolding completely flat to 180-degrees (it’s more like 179-degrees), most other foldables do unfold all the way, for the most part.
Motorola Razr (2023) Review: Display
Let’s first get that front display out of the way here. The Motorola Razr (2023) has a tiny 1.5-inch outer display. Now I get why they did this. One, it was cheaper than making the entire front a display. Two, it differentiates the Razr and Razr+ quite a bit. But this display is almost useless. All you can really do here is see the time, any timers or media controls, and see your notifications, one at a time. So it’s going to force you to open the phone a lot more often. I guess if you pick up your phone to see the time quite often, then this might be very helpful, but if not, it’s kind of a waste.
The main display is tall and fast
Then we have the main display. This one is a pretty tall one, coming in at 22:9. That is the same aspect ratio as the Galaxy Z Flip 5, however, the Motorola Razr (2023) is about 0.2 inches larger. Making it a bit taller. However, something that it has going for it that the Flip 5 doesn’t is, 144Hz. That’s right, this $700 phone has a 144Hz display. It can also reach a touch rate of 240Hz or 360Hz while gaming. It is honestly a really good display for doing a whole lot of things.
It’s also a pOLED display, which looks incredible here. Motorola has done a good job of tuning these displays, and even the brightness is quite good. We’re looking at a peak brightness of 1400 nits here on the main display. And it’s HDR-compatible for HDR10+. So watching videos from Netflix, YouTube and more on here is a treat. What’s more important here is that this display is really good to use outdoors. Some foldable displays, despite being bright, are tough to use outdoors in direct sunlight because of the glare that the plastic display and plastic screen protector produce. But that is not a problem on the Motorola Razr (2023), thankfully.
What about that crease? Motorola has done a good job with the crease since the beginning, but on the Razr (2023), it’s pretty tough to see the crease here. You can really only see it when the screen is off. And you don’t really feel it much either. Like you can feel it, but nowhere near as much as some other phones like the Galaxy Z Flip 5. That’s quite impressive for Motorola, and even more impressive on a $699 foldable.
There’s really not much to complain about the main display, all of my complaints are on the outer display, and if the Razr+ and Flip 5 didn’t exist, I might not complain as much, but here we are.
Motorola Razr (2023) Review: Performance
When Motorola announced the new Razr and announced that it was coming with the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1, I was honestly a bit saddened by that news. You see, since the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, Qualcomm has had unreal battery efficiency in its Snapdragon 8 series. And I was hoping to see that same processor in this Razr. But the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 is still manufactured by Samsung, whereas the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 and 8 Gen 2 are manufactured by TSMC (hence the big battery gains). So my expectations were not high for this phone with this processor. But I have to say, my expectations were exceeded.
The performance on the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 has been pretty good. I honestly have not noticed much a difference between the performance here and any Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 device. And battery life has been up there as well, which we’ll talk about a bit more in a minute.
Pairing the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 with 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM sounds pretty decent on paper. Not flagship material, but a pretty good high-end mid-range experience. And that’s true. Especially with Motorola’s nearly stock Android experience here. There’s not a whole lot of stuff running in the background compared to some other phones. So with that RAM, the Razr still runs quite nicely.
Speakers are good, but not great
The speakers on the Motorola Razr (2023) is pretty decent actually, and Motorola does have Dolby Atmos included, which I absolutely love. And wish Google would add. But watching videos and listening to music on the Motorola Razr (2023) is pretty good, especially with these speakers, and that’s great to see. Even if you’re using earbuds, you still get Dolby Atmos.
Otherwise the mids and highs are pretty clear, there’s a good amount of bass here, of course, a bit part of that is having Dolby Atmos on-board. Watching YouTube on this device has been a great experience, and that also comes from the pretty great display that Motorola has included here.
Fingerprint, Face Unlock, multiple ways to lock your phone
Motorola has included a few different ways that you can unlock your Razr, and it makes it so easy that there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have it locked. Everyone should definitely have their phone locked somehow, to keep others out of it. There’s plenty of sensitive info on your device, that you don’t want just anyone getting a hold of.
The fingerprint sensor is built-into the power button, which honestly, I’m in the camp that believes that is the perfect place for the fingerprint sensor. Since you’re already turning it on anyways, it’s one less step. Not to mention, it’s much faster than an under-display fingerprint sensor. Which you don’t want on a folding display anyways, because that can damage the display pretty quickly.
But the fingerprint sensor is nice and fast, and I’ve had very few times where it did not recognize my fingerprint. Normally, the only times that it didn’t recognize my finger was because it was the wrong finger. So there’s that.
Motorola did include Face Unlock here on the Razr, as you might have expected. However, since it is only using the front-facing camera, it’s not as secure as other options like the Pixel 8 Pro or iPhone 15. So I actually prefer not to use it. But for the few days that I did have it on, it worked well. It was fast and let you bypass the lock screen. So it’s easy to get right into your phone and start using it.
Both options are good, I’d just rather use the fingerprint sensor, and that’s something that I’ve been using for years. So at this point, it’s muscle-memory.
Motorola Razr (2023) Review: Battery life and Charging
As I mentioned in the last section, I really thought that battery life might take a hit here with the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1, even though the Razr (2023) does have a pretty large battery for a foldable – at 4,200mAh. But I am happy to report that I was wrong here.
During my testing, I’d unplug the phone around 7AM, and go about my day using it. Generally getting about five to six hours of on-screen time before plugging it in at about 11PM. At that time, it was usually around 20-30%. Which means on a heavy day, it could likely get 8 hours of screen on time, and that is rather impressive. That also puts the Razr (2023) on par with the Razr+, Galaxy Z Flip 5 and the OPPO Find N3 Flip in terms of battery life. And that’s really good to see.
Now the bad news. Motorola is only touting 30W charging speeds on the Razr (2023). That is okay, especially with this smaller battery, but we would definitely like to see some faster charging here. The OPPO Find N3 Flip is able to do 44W and it’s also a flip phone.
The really bad news comes from the wireless charging. It charges at a max of 5W. And actually, I put it on my MagSafe charger here on my desk, and it was charging so slow that it actually lost battery while charging. Motorola added wireless charging because customers were asking for it, on the previous Razr models. But if you’re only going to give us 5W, why bother? I’m sure most customers would prefer you to give us faster wired charging instead of giving us such slow wireless charging. Or use that extra space for a larger battery – that never hurts. Even Apple provides 15W wireless charging via MagSafe (10W without). If you do buy this phone, don’t even bother with the wireless charging, to be honest.
Motorola Razr (2023) Review: Software
At the time of reviewing the Razr (2023), it was running on Android 13 with the September 1, 2023 security patch. Motorola has guaranteed that the Razr (2023) will get three OS upgrades. One of which being Android 14, unfortunately. That means it will get Android 14, 15 and 16. It is also getting four years of security updates. Meaning it’ll get security patches until 2027. That’s not to bad, but also not the best, among Android manufacturers. Samsung is still doing more, and Google is blowing everyone out of the water with the Pixel 8 series getting 7 years of updates.
I honestly, really like Motorola’s software. I loved it on the Razr+ and the same goes for the Razr (2023). Why? Because it is basically stock Android with a few additional features added in. Motorola keeping the software nice and vanilla is a good move by them. And honestly, it does set them apart still. Even though the Pixel runs stock Android, it doesn’t really look like stock Android anymore.
One of the bigger changes that Motorola has made to the software is actually the Settings app. It’s laid out a bit different from stock Android, but it still makes sense. Motorola has also added a “Personalize” section, which gives you access to the wallpaper, icons, etc. This is basically everything you’d see when you long-press on the home screen. It’s good to see it all in one place, and that does kind of mirror what OnePlus and OPPO have done in OxygenOS and ColorOS.
The software here on the Motorola Razr (2023) is pretty good. It’s plain and simple, and that’s what works best sometimes. Not everyone needs or wants all of the many features that Samsung puts into its phones, which actually bogs down the phone to a degree. Keeping it simple lets the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 perform very well here.
Some features for foldables too
Motorola has also added some features to this phone, because it is a foldable. But since it is a flip phone, there’s not a whole lot that needs to be added here, compared to a book-style foldable.
One thing that Motorola has done is added a section for the external display. You can customize just about everything on that external display. Though given how small it is, there’s not a whole lot to customize here. But you can change up the clock face, which panels show up, notifications, call settings and more.
Motorola has 15 different clock faces that you can use on the external display, and you are able to change up the color of the clock too. I’m currently using the “Bubblegum” clock face, and changed the color to purple to match the color of the phone. I think it looks really nice, and it’ll also show you the date and battery percentage. It’s not a lot, but it is a good amount of customization, to really make the Razr yours.
Like the Razr+, the Razr (2023) does also give you a number of different panels that you can use. But keep in mind that this is a much smaller display, almost a ticker display if you will. So adding lots of panels may not be the best bet. I’ve added the weather, Timer and Media controls. Things I’d use often on the Razr (2023). There are also options for Contacts, Calendar and Audio Recorder. Motorola also lets you rearrange them into the order you want.
This is a 1.5-inch external display, but Motorola does a good job of letting you do a lot to customize how it looks and feels. And that’s a pretty big deal.
Motorola Razr (2023) Review: Camera
So far in this review, I’ve been pretty high on the Razr (2023). Well, that ends with the camera. The camera is okay, it’s not great or excellent. But it will get you some decent photos. On the backside, we are looking at a dual-camera setup with a 64-megapixel main sensor and a 13-megapixel ultrawide which is also used for macro.
Now while those numbers might sound pretty good, they are actually not. These are smaller sensors, compared to the competition. And thus let in less light. And honestly, some of the pictures just aren’t good at all, especially the macro shots. I took a handful of macro shots with the Motorola Razr (2023) which looked good on the actual phone. Then when I saw them in Google Photos on my monitor, I could tell they looked anything but good. The colors are slightly off, that’s not a big deal though. But the background and even some of the foreground has a lot of artifacting. It did slightly better outdoors on a cloudy day, versus inside. But it’s still not great.
Here are some of the macro shots I took with the Motorola Razr (2023), unedited.
When it comes to regular photos on the main 64-megapixel sensor, it’s a better experience. It can sometimes still blow out the sky, especially since it’s been very cloudy around here lately. The camera is just not great here. And if you’re someone that takes a lot of photos, you might want to look at a different foldable, or smartphone. Motorola has never really had a strong camera in its smartphones, so this doesn’t come as a big surprise, and I really hope they start to focus a lot more on their cameras on their future phones – not just foldables, but phones in general.
Here are some more pictures taken with the Motorola Razr (2023) unedited.
Should you buy the Motorola Razr (2023)?
I honestly really like the Motorola Razr (2023), but the camera being as poor as it is, makes it a lot harder to recommend. Especially when phones like the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and OPPO Find N3 Flip exist. Sure this is a $699 foldable, but the Galaxy Z Flip 5 is going to be that price in a month. And that makes the question of whether you should buy the Motorola Razr (2023) a pretty tough one to answer. Because the camera is such an important aspect of any phone these days.
Basically, what it comes down to is, you get what you pay for. And here, you’re paying for the cheapest foldable on the market. So obviously, Motorola did need to cut some corners here. But the real question is, should you buy this Razr over the Razr+. Which is currently only $100 more than the Razr, and offers a whole lot more functionality, better battery life, better camera, and even better displays.
You should buy the Motorola Razr (2023) if:
You want a cheap foldable.
You don’t use the camera very much.
You should not buy the Motorola Razr (2023) if:
You want the best flip phone on the market.
You want better software support.
You want a great camera in a small form-factor.