Introduction
Motorola has officially launched its next-generation foldable smartphone, called Motorola Razr 5G. The foldable phone comes with 5G support (as the name suggests) and succeeds the Motorola Razr that went official in November last year. The new Motorola Razr 5G also arrives with some upgrades under the hood. Mainly, the chipset has been upgraded to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G. There are a few more hardware improvements while the design of more or less remains the same, although some tweaks have been made to improve the durability of the foldable phone.
Price and availability
The Motorola Razr 5G 2020 announced today (9-September), but doesn’t have a firm release date – Motorola only noted it will be out ‘this fall.’ The Razr 5G comes in three colors: the matte black Polished Graphite, gray-and-black Liquid Mercury, and Blush Gold. The Motorola Razr 2020 costs a bit cheaper than its predecessor at $1,399 / £1,399 (around AU$1,922). In the US, it will be available unlocked at Best Buy, B&H Photo, Amazon.com and Motorola.com, and on T-Mobile and AT&T later this year. In the UK, fans can buy it in one color (Polished Graphite) from O2, Vodafone, Tesco, John Lewis, Amazon, Carphone Warehouse, and Motorola.co.uk.
Design and display
The Razr 5G’s design much like its predecessor. The chin is now tapered and it is made out of 7000 Series Aluminum Alloy. The corners are more rounded than before. Motorola also moved the fingerprint sensor to the back underneath the "M" logo, which helps to make the chin less bulky. Motorola is also addressing durability concerns with its second-gen Razr. The company claims the hinge of the Razr 5G can withstand up to 200,000 flips and it uses stainless steel. The primary and external display panels are unchanged from the first-gen Razr. There’s a 6.2-inch 2142×876 plastic OLED main display and a 2.7-inch 800×600 Quick View glass OLED display. Unlike Samsung’s foldables, Motorola isn’t using a layer of Ultra-Thin-Glass. Motorola Razr 5G now allows you to run any app that you want on the cover display, whether it be Spotify, Twitter, Gmail, or anything else.
Cameras
Poor camera performance was one of the major complaints with the Razr 2019, and Motorola is attempting to get it right this time with a new 48MP sensor. The camera module features OIS along with a ToF sensor for advanced laser autofocus. The front camera also sees an upgrade from 5MP to 20MP. Furthermore, the Razr 5G comes preinstalled with Motorola’s brand new camera app (called Moto Camera 3.0) that brings unique features designed to take advantage of the Quick View display. Some of those unique features include camera cartoon, a feature that plays an animation on the Quick View display to keep the subject focused, Instant Review, which shows a preview of the photo on the Quick View display so you can quickly see selfies without flipping the phone open, and External Preview, which mirrors the viewfinder on the Quick View display so subjects can see their photo before it’s taken.
Performance, software, and battery
Under the hood, the Motorola Razr 5G is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G SoC, a step up from the Snapdragon 710 in the last model. RAM and storage also see a bump with the device now packing 8GB RAM and 256GB of flash storage compared to a relatively modest 6GB RAM and 128GB storage of its predecessor. Since the Snapdragon 765G comes with an integrated modem, Motorola was able to save some internal space to cram in a bigger camera sensor and a larger battery. That integrated modem is the Qualcomm Snapdragon X52, and with it, the Motorola Razr 5G is able to support sub-6GHz 5G networks. Motorola Razr 5G runs a near-stock version of Android 10 with Motorola’s handful of software customizations on top. Motorola’s My UX app, first introduced with the Motorola Edge, comes preinstalled. The software on the Quick View display is also seeing a big upgrade, with support for showing a nav bar at the bottom, the ability to swipe right to access the camera, and the ability to swipe left to access favorite your contacts and an app tray. Motorola says they preselected 8 apps to appear in the app tray, but they’re giving users the option to add any app of their choice.
The Razr 5G packs a 2,800mAh battery, up from a 2,510mAh battery in its predecessor that will hopefully result in more hours before recharging. Motorola says, based on the usage pattern data they obtained from the first-gen Razr, users tend to interact more frequently with the Quick View display compared to the inner display. Since the outer screen requires less power, Motorola reasons the 2,800mAh cell should work out just fine.