Motorola Razr40 Review: Looks Good, Priced Even Better!

The Motorola Razr (2023) (aka the Razr40 in regions such as the UK, India, and Europe) is the company’s answer to those looking for an affordable flip foldable. While there’s no denying the Razr+ ( Razr40 Ultra for other regions) is a better phone, it’s also more expensive. So if you’re in the market for an affordable foldable, then the Motorola Razr40 is arguably the best bet for you.

You ask why? Well, the answer is very simple. Despite sporting a design and a cover display that’s closer to the previous generation flip foldable, it offers a bigger battery and better cameras than them. And all of this, again, at a rather aggressive price for a foldable.

But before you decide on buying the Motorola Razr40, we recommend going through our detailed review first and then making an informed buying decision.

Let’s start with the design of the Motorola Razr40. With the Razr40 series, Motorola has made some noticeable changes in the design language of the two phones. In fact, the design changes are so stark that the Razr40 looks less like the previous generation Razr. Rather, it now looks more like Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip phones.

The Razr “chin” is gone and so with it the design issues that it brought with itself. But to differentiate it from other foldable, past and present, the Motorola Razr40 uses vegan leather to cover its shell. This gives it a premium look and makes it stand out in the crowd. Plus, also adds a level of sturdiness to the device.

Another advantage of using vegan leather is that it makes the phone less susceptible to fingerprints and stains. Plus, improved grip is also a by-product of this move. And paired with a similar shade of metal on the hinge, the Razr40 looks and feels absolutely stunning.

However, it’s important to note that Motorola only offers limited protection with an IP52 rating. This pales in comparison to the more expensive Galaxy Z Flip 5’s IPX8 rating. So if you plan on taking this phone to the beach, you’d have to be extremely cautious.

As for our feedback on the hinge and folding mechanism itself, we’ve had the device with us for a few weeks now. And in that time, we’re happy to report that we’ve faced no issues in this department. The phone opens and closes shut tightly with no space between the display. And it does so with relative ease with no gaps when viewing it from the side.

Since this is a foldable, there are two displays on the device. The first is the showstopper, a folding panel, and the second is a much simpler cover display. The panels are similar across both the Motorola Razr40 and the Razr40 Ultra.

The internal foldable panel is 6.9 inches in size capable of touching 1400nits brightness. It also has a decent pixel density of 413 pixels per inch. This is a 144Hz panel. The outer screen is a 1.5-inch that’s good enough to glance at notifications without the need to unfold the device.

Because of its size, the external screen offers limited functionality. But you still get the ability to navigate the calendar, and weather forecasts. You can also check the time, and of course preview photos before clicking them.

There are other minor functions too like toggling wifi, Bluetooth, flashlight, and more all without opening the phone’s main panel. While it’s functional, it loses out to the bigger cover displays of the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and the Razr40 Ultra.

As for the primary folding display, the 6.9-inch unfolded panel does all that a flagship display is supposed to do. The panel is bright, it’s responsive, and the colors on it pop to make movies and shows look great on it.

Yes, there’s a crease on it for sure, but it’s nothing to make you feel like jumping to a flat-screen phone. Especially when the brightness is jacked up a little as it completely masks the crease on the screen. The display also feels quite durable. While there is no way for us to test the hinge’s durability, no interaction of ours with the phone suggested we will run into issues with it in the foreseeable future.

Now this is where things start to get interesting. Motorola Razr40 comes with a Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 chipset. This is a strictly upper mid-range chipset, but one that’s still quite powerful at the same time.

So while it may look like the Razr40 is underpowered compared to the Razr40 Ultra, it does manage to hold its own when you compare the two outside of the realm of synthetic benchmarks.

For everything else, the performance of this highly optimized chip is good enough. So games run silky smooth on the device, and apps of daily use run without any stutters. As we mentioned above, if benchmarks are not what you’re looking to run on the device, then you’re definitely not going to feel the pinch of this upper-mid-range chipset.

But whatever the Razr40 loses out in the performance department, it covers in the battery tests. This is primarily because it comes fitted with a 4,200mAh battery pack. Fun fact, This is a bigger battery pack than you get on the Razr40 Ultra.

And also significantly larger than the 3,700mAh battery pack in the Galaxy Z Flip 5. This battery pack paired with the optimizations of the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 ensures the phone can easily last over a day on a single charge.

When completely drained, the battery can be charged at a respectable 30W. This translates to about an hour of keeping the phone hooked to a wall adapter. There’s also wireless charging, which sadly is capped at 5W and takes its own sweet time to fill up the phone’s battery.

Now, let’s switch focus to the cameras on the device. These again are not flagship-grade, but are good enough to get the job done. This is despite packing more megapixel heavy lenses when compared to the Razr40 Ultra.

At the heart of the camera set-up of the device is a 13-megapixel ultra-wide lens sitting beside a 64-megapixel primary lens with optical image stabilization. However, it crucially offers a lesser aperture of f/1.7 instead of f/1.5 on the 12-megapixel primary lens of the Ultra.

The primary pixel-binned lens is honestly a mixed bag as it does a decent job in good lighting conditions. Details in well-lit scenes are good and pictures come out sharp and vibrant. Its good shutter speed also ensures that very few shots come out blurred or lacking in sharpness.

However, as the light dims, results start to become less impressive. The phone starts to struggle a little in focusing on objects and the sharpness in images goes for a bit of a toss. The slightly outdated ISP on the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 SoC, also does the phone no favors and fails to compensate for the lens’s failings.

Similar is the case for the ultra-wide lens, which does decent in daylight but not so well in low light conditions. But overall, this is to be expected as the Moto Razr40 is an aggressively priced foldable and as such, this is one corner that appears to have been cut to keep the manufacturing cost down.

There’s also a 32-megapixel selfie camera on board. It’s the same that’s also on the Razr40 Ultra, and it’s no surprise that it does quite well. The lens captures a good amount of detail and keeps images looking sharp pretty much in all lighting conditions.

However, it’s still recommended that you try and manage light a little to ensure selfies come out brighter and crisper.

If you’re strapped for cash and find yourself stretching your budget to get foldable, then the Razr40 is really a very good option for you. Its rather aggressive price for a foldable makes it a very solid and safe entry point if experiencing foldable phone technology is what you want.

Buy

However, if you’re jumping ship from a previous generation foldable or even a flagship, we’d recommend holding onto your hard-earned money for now and investing it in the Razr 40 Ultra or the Galaxy Z Flip 5 at a later date when their prices come down a little.

Last updated on 25 August, 2023

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Sushant Talwar has been a journalist since 2015 who started his career covering politics, business and defence-related stories. Shortly after, he made the switch to covering tech. Sushant has reviewed everything from TVs, laptops, GPUs and phones. In his free time, he likes to follow football and play video games (mostly Fifa these days).