Motorola’s latest flip phone seriously competing with the bigwigs
Decades after losing its go-to phone status, Motorola is back with a serious contender for the mobile of the moment.
REVIEW
Motorola is making waves with its latest flip phone launch, the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra, with availability starting on July 10 in Australia.
The new device is wowing phone fans and tech enthusiasts as one of the first pocketable flip phones to house a large outer touch screen, and I’m excited to get my hands on one early, before its release.
Unboxing
The Motorola Razr 40 Ultra, also known as the Motorola Razr+ in the States, is available in colours Infinite Black, Glacier Blue and Viva Magenta.
I got my hands on the Magenta colourway, which is striking and elegant.
Here in Australia, the box also includes a wall charger, USB-A to USB-C charging cable, and even a clear phone case.
Design
As soon as you turn on the phone you are greeted with the huge (yet tiny) 3.6-inch pOLED external display, which is currently the largest external display on a touch screen flip phone. The display’s resolution and quality is immediately shocking – in the best way – and excitingly it is a completely interactive display, which can be used just as you would your normal phone screen. You can open apps, play games, scroll social media or even use it as a mirror.
Internally, there is a 6.9-inch pOLED display, which is insanely bright and crisp.
Scrolling and gaming is also incredibly fluid, with its whopping 165Hz refresh rate.
Motorola says the phone’s display is “virtually creaseless” and I will say this is true most of the time as the crease generally fades into the background, or is completely out of mind while using the device.
The hinge of the phone is fairly robust and feels well made, similar to the other competing flip phones on the market.
However, the display on my model is slightly audible when opening and closing the phone and occasionally offers up flexing sounds from the thin bendy screen. It doesn’t seem flimsy or breakable, it just sounds like I am flexing a piece of thin plastic, which is a bit quirky.
Cameras
This phone is equipped with some really impressive cameras externally. On the outside there’s a 12MP main camera, which supports 4K 60fps video recording, and a 13MP ultrawide/macro lens.
Although ‘low’ in megapixels, both do an incredible job at capturing quite outstanding images and videos. Photos and videos are crisp, bright, colourful and have the ability to produce beautiful blurry backgrounds with impressive swirly bokeh.
Motorola surprised me here, and I loved the look of everything coming out of the back/main cameras.
Unfortunately, even though the internal camera is a 32MP, 4K camera, I found it to be pretty low in quality. I wouldn’t use it for selfies, but it would work fine as a basic camera and for video calls.
The best part though is that you don’t really need to use it at all, as you can use the back cameras as a selfie camera. And you can use the 3.6-inch external screen to see yourself while you use them.
Additionally, you can fold the phone to a 90-degree angle and sit it on the table for a hands-free experience. The phone essentially has its own built-in tripod, which is great for capturing video or photo content.
In fact, this is a huge reason why I love and would recommend this phone.
Battery
The phone only has a 3800mAh battery, which sounds a bit on the smaller side, but through my usage it was able to handle a full day’s worth of use.
The Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chip set helps with its efficiency (and overall processing power) and with its 33W charging abilities, you can take the phone from around 10 per cent to 100 per cent battery in around one hour and five minutes.
Not too bad for a flip phone, although it would be nice to see an increase here.
Should you buy it?
Overall I am really impressed by Motorola on this one.
It feels like they’ve taken the new-age flip phone to a new place, competing with the bigwigs. It’s time we take Motorola seriously as a mobile phone competitor with Google, Samsung and Apple.
This phone is powerful, runs efficiently, has a great processor and operating system, the cameras are excellent and the form factor is awesome.
I haven’t used it for too long, but for $1499, it’s certainly competing with the other flip phones on the market.
The Razr will be available from July 10, and I would definitely recommend considering it if you’re interested in joining the new wave of pocketable touch screen flip phones.
Elly Awesome is an Aussie tech and lifestyle vlogger | @ellyawesometech | YouTube