Motorola Razr 5G Review
The Motorola Razr 5G revives its classic flip design with sharp looks and great usability.
PROS
- Pocket friendly
- Some serious cool factor
- Solid everyday performance
- Easiest main-camera selfies
CONS
- Limited battery life
- Durability
Motorola revolutionized the mobile phone industry in 2004 when it launched the Razr. Almost overnight, the sleek clamshell became a status symbol and gained a dedicated following until Apple’s iPhone and a host of other smartphones hit the market. Moto brought it back briefly in the early 2010s with a line of slab-style Droid Razrs, before reuniting it with its rightful folding form factor earlier this year. While the new Razr definitely turned heads, it was met with mixed reviews (including our own) and a healthy dose of skepticism after Samsung’s problems with the Galaxy Fold. Months later, the folding phone trend shows no sign of stopping and Motorola is back with the Razr 5G.
$600 off the Razr at motorola.com (Valid now to 11/7)Razr 5G is different than most of the foldables out there right now, as it doesn’t attempt to do double duty as a tablet or a laptop replacement. And it fixes nearly every issue we had with its predecessor, for a lower price. While it’s still pretty expensive, it costs a lot less than the $2,000 Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2, which is the only other folding phone we currently recommend. There are also special deals going on right now to save big.
infinitely capable, perfectly pocketable
Revolutionary flexible material and an innovative zero-gap hinge allows razr’s gorgeous 6.2” OLED display to fold in half, fitting comfortably in your palm or pocket.
Motorola.com
Bringing Back a Classic
The Motorola Razr 5G was launched hot on the heels of the first of the reimagined Motorola Razr in September 2020. Just seven months after its predecessor’s launch in February.
The upgrade makes a lot of sense, though. The first of the neo Razr’s came with a high price while offering a Snapdragon 710 chipset that would not only pale in comparison to the performance of the Snapdragon 865-based flagship phones launching in 2020 but also lack the 5G capabilities readily found on many of those phones.
The Razr 5G steps things up considerably with a Snapdragon 765G that’s well suited for all that the phone is meant to do. It’s a speedy phone for most daily activities, and 5G support will help it stay relevant in the evolving network infrastructure of the coming years.
Of course, the star of the show is the phone’s hinged design and flexible OLED display. Motorola did an impressive job building a phone that harkens back to the original Razr flip phone while coming with premium materials. Even though the display has some lumps and is plastic, it actually doesn’t feel like it falls too short of the best smartphones, especially since its bright visuals render those lumps all but invisible. And, that 6.2-inch display packs up into dimensions that take up way less space in your pocket than a typical smartphone.
It’s also worth noting the Razr 5G’s hinge has two positions: open and closed. There’s no Flex Mode like on the Galaxy Z Fold 2, or the seemingly limitless variations offered by the Microsoft Surface Duo. You can’t use the Razr 5G as book, or a tablet, or a very tiny laptop; it’s a phone, plain and simple.
This won’t be the smartphone for everyone. It lacks a lot of the versatility of its competition, and a lot of the price tag is just accounting for the foldability. But, for those who just need a general-purpose phone and have the money to make it the coolest one, the Razr 5G is one of the best folding phones out there.
Peppier Performance
The Razr sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G processor, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage, of which about 228GB is available out of the box. There’s no microSD slot for external storage.
The battery may be the Razr 5G’s biggest shortcoming, as it’s a fairly diminutive 2,800mAh. We actually haven’t had trouble making it last the whole day, but we aren’t spending a lot of time on the go depending on a phone for everything. Since the phone also looks worse with dark themes, we can’t enjoy the battery savings they provide on OLED devices. That said, the small front display offers a battery-saving opportunity as it is handy for peeking at notifications, checking the time, and snapping a quick selfie without needing to light up the larger display.
Surprising Cameras
The phone has a 48MP camera with an f/1.7 aperture and laser autofocus on the outside, and a 20MP camera with an f/2.2 aperture inside. No, it doesn’t have triple outer sensors like the Galaxy Z Fold 2, but it also costs $600 less.
Both the 48MP and 20MP sensors excel in good light. In test shots, I found images to be crisp, with excellent depth of field. Motorola’s color science takes a more conservative approach than many other phone makers, so you’re not going to see super-vivid and oversaturated colors unless you shoot in Pro mode or tinker with the settings
Software
The Razr ships with Android 10 and Motorola’s My UX software extensions. For the uninitiated, Motorola offers a nearly stock version of Android with some genuinely useful features you can turn on and off.
Conclusions
Motorola’s Razr 5G is a welcome antidote to the monotony of the generic glass sandwich. It’s an improvement upon its predecessor in every way, with faster performance, better cameras, longer battery life, 5G, and more. And with Motorola’s enhancements to the Peek Display, it has the possibility to genuinely change the way you use your phone.
The Motorola Razr 5G holds up. It’s no heavyweight offering the highest-end internals or the most versatile features, but it earns its place by daring to be different – very different. It’s truly impressive how well Motorola has implemented a flexible display that actually feels close to the displays in its competitors. The phone has a high price for cool factor, as its cameras, chipset, and battery life certainly doesn’t justify the high price. But, for those who want a phone that’ll turn heads, there are few options like this. Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip offers the most serious competition, offering an experience that lines up more closely with other flagship phones, but it lacks the iconic design and could benefit from the external display the Razr 5G makes clever use of.
