Motorola Razr 50 Review: Flip Smartphone Made Reliable

In 2019, Motorola resurrected the Razr and kickstarted the era of flip smartphones.

Although the idea was to do a phone with a foldable screen, Motorola’s R&D team did a great job in paying homage to the original Razr V3 from the early 2000s. It had a huge stubby chin, the iconic 'Razr notch' and an instantly recognisable as well as fairly usable external caller ID screen that doubled up as a viewfinder. It was also an enabler for running miniature Android apps. The Razr was fun, bold and, most importantly, modern. 

Motorola eventually let go of nostalgia in pursuit of competing with the dramatically cutting-edge flip smartphones from Samsung. The modern-day Razr phones are well-rounded in features and design, enabling Motorola to position the range across various price points. The Razr 50 Ultra is presently the most advanced flip smartphone as far as hardware is concerned whereas the vanilla Razr 50…

That’s what we are about to discuss in depth. An extensive review of the non-Ultra ‘meant-for-the-masses’ Motorola Razr 50. 

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Motorola Razr 50 Review: An in-depth insight

First up, the price of the Razr 50 

Price is quite essentially the most crucial aspect of the Razr 50. Unlike the Razr 50 Ultra which promises to offer the best flip phone experience from Motorola, the Razr 50 comes at a more accessible price point – INR 54,999 – a level where you usually have phones like the OnePlus 12, iQOO 12, Samsung’s Galaxy S24 FE and more. 

Hence, you have to be dedicated to the flip smartphone form factor to go for the Razr 50 since the on-paper specifications may not impress most enthusiasts. 

Not worth it? Or should you book one now? There’s more to the Razr 50 than just a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.

Motorola Razr 50: Design

The Razr of today looks nothing like the Razr of the yesteryears. 

Gone are sleek lines and the reassuring hinge of the classic Razr and in its place is a generic flip smartphone which, when unfolded, seems undistinguishable from any generic Android phone. The bezels around the primary 6.9-inch display are not only thick but raised, which requires one to be patient to get acclimatised. Thankfully, they are uniform. The crease remains visible in most angles although it isn’t as obvious as what you see on Samsung’s flip phones. 

Since Motorola loves to slap vegan leather on its phones, the Razr 50 looks vastly different from its contemporaries. The Spritz Orange colourway that we have for testing duties is boldly bright – you either love it or loathe it. It also makes the Razr 50 an attention magnet. We haven’t seen complete strangers and passers-by steal as many glances at the ultra-luxurious iPhone 16 Pro! 

Regardless of the colourway, the Razr 50 is a nicely built phone with unique design choices, the flashiest one being the Cover Screen implementation. Motorola offers a 3.6-inch Cover Screen that’s creatively integrated with the front fascia, engulfing the two camera sensors. While it looks jaw-droppingly cool, it poses a couple of issues as far as user experience is concerned. More on that later. 

Also, if you are a Razr fan, the Razr 50’s design might seem familiar with last year’s Razr 40 Ultra. The lock button-mounted fingerprint scanner and the small volume adjustment keys make a return along with the same teardrop-shaped hinge system.

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Motorola Razr 50: Display

The Cover Screen is the star feature of the Razr 50, not its primary display. Measuring 3.6 inches and featuring an OLED panel with 1,700 nits of peak brightness and 90Hz peak refresh rate, Motorola wants it to be a window to your smartphone. As a Called ID screen, it is remarkable, especially when you consider how the panel wraps around the dual cameras. However, the cover screen isn’t as useful and practical as Motorola (and every other review) may say.

On paper, this 3.6-inch cover screen offering a mildly modified Android interface seems like an incredible idea. However, Android’s notification system and the app tray layout aren’t suited for the tiny viewing area this display has to offer. The default Android notification cards take up a lot of space and while responding to text messages, the QWERTY keyboard eats up almost all of the screen.

While you can watch YouTube videos and open third-party apps (and even games) here, the implementation is far from perfect. A cramped WhatsApp chat window and an Instagram session aren’t a pleasant experience, even if the purpose is to take a glance. A flip phone’s cover display should encourage its users to check for notifications, do quick responses, offer a viewfinder for the main camera and open the main screen for everything else. 

Since we touched upon the main screen, the 6.9-inch pOLED panel offers a decent viewing experience but not a great one. The colour accuracy is slightly biased towards muted tones and you need to set the display on Vibrant colour settings to get the most out of it. The screen brightness is more than adequate for outdoor requirements and the viewing angles are fairly wide. I faced occasional issues with the touch input registration on the edges of the display, something I hope Motorola fixes with a future software update. 

Since we touched upon the matter of software…

Motorola Razr 50: Performance

The Razr 50 is one of the very few flip phones to offer a near-stock Android experience, which translates to smooth UI animations and an adware-free experience. Although Motorola calls its the Hello UI, the customisation features are tasteful and limited to the homescreen tweaks – something we usually see on Google’s Pixel phones. I admire Motorola’s take on the custom widgets and typography on the clock. It is a pleasant UI to behold. 

What’s not so pleasant though is Motorola’s software update policy. Although the brand promises up to three iterations of Android OS upgrades and up to four years of security patches, our unit is still on the August 2024 security patch and the initial set of software bugs haven’t been squashed. Motorola needs to up its OS update game in a bid to stay competitive, considering how eagerly Samsung updates its Flip phones.

Then there’s the case of AI. In this example, Moto AI. With generative AI being the buzzword, Motorola’s Moto AI aims to bank on the hype and draw attention to the Razr 50. Sadly, Moto AI on the Razr 50 is limited to the Gemini chatbot and Motorola’s AI-generated wallpaper app. The Gemini chatbot needs to be downloaded separately and requires permission to be set as the default AI chatbot, overpowering the ageing Google Assistant. Despite Gemini being smart enough to generate images and write emails for you, it needs to fall back on Google Assistant to set an alarm or do a couple of on-device activities.

As for the Moto AI-generated wallpaper app, it never worked. All we saw was some kind of server error regardless of the textual description input. 

The Razr 50 is, therefore, in an unpleasant state as far as software is concerned. Although these issues can be addressed with future updates, Motorola should have ensured better post-purchase support from Day One, especially for a phone that demands a premium. 

Thankfully, the Razr 50 doesn’t disappoint on the performance front. The MediaTek Dimensity 7300X chipset is strictly meant for midrange phones and Motorola’s meticulous tuning leads to a polished experience in general. Regardless of the processing loads, the Razr 50 never lags or stutters. The chipset and the software work together brilliantly to keep apps running smoothly. Although flip phones aren’t suitable for gaming, my hour-long sessions of Rocket League: Sideswipe were unhindered as far as key aspects like frame rates and network connectivity are concerned. 

In essence, the Razr 50 has lots of potential to be a great flip phone for everyone and all it needs is Motorola’s active and eager software support.

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Motorola Razr 50: Camera

The camera performance has usually been an Achilles heel on Motorola smartphones and sadly, the Razr 50 does nothing to change that notion. 

You have a combination of a 50-megapixel primary sensor and a 13-megapixel ultrawide shooter forming the main camera system, while a 32-megapixel camera takes care of quick selfies and video calls. 

For a mass market-centric flip smartphone, we never expected the Razr 50 to drop jaws and the phone obliges. The main camera works well as long as you have daylight on your side – ample sharpness on subjects, vibrant colour science and good suppression of noise. However, the camera struggles with exposure management, especially on human subjects. The algorithms tend to make the skin tones warmer than usual, a trait that is not always desirable. The ultrawide camera fares worse in comparison with subdued colour science and lower levels of detail capture. Thankfully, it doubles up as a fun macro camera that you can use. The same can be said for the selfie camera, except that facial definitions and colours take a slight hit.

Once the sunlight fades away (or you step indoors), the Razr 50 panics and tends to make textures seem muddy. While it could be fine for people who just want to click photos, enthusiasts and content creators will be disappointed. The same is replicated for the video quality, despite you being able to record videos in 4K resolution at 30 fps. 

Since this is a flip phone, you can keep the phone folded at 120 degrees of angle to get the benefits of an in-built tripod. Videographers can also fold it in half to enjoy a camcorder-esque mode, using half of the screen as a viewfinder while the other half offers a touch panel for playback and digital zoom controls. Keep in mind to avoid folding the phone at extreme angles since the Razr 50 assumes that you want to lock and stow away the phone, and hence, it locks the screen.   

Motorola Razr 50: Battery

With a 4,200mAh battery and a power-efficient Dimensity 7300X chip, the Razr 50 has given us the best stamina of any flip phone we have ever seen. With moderate usage patterns that included an hour of casual gaming, up to two hours of social media browsing, an hour of video and audio calls along some generic notification checks, the Razr 50 managed to end the day with more than 60 per cent energy in reserve. In fact, one of my action-packed weekends saw the Razr 50 needing a battery recharge on Monday morning (a top-up was done on Friday morning). That’s insanely great for a flip phone!

Couple with the perks of a 33W wired and 15W wireless charging, the Razr 50 is possibly the only flip phone that we can recommend for using as a primary phone to battery conservation enthusiasts. 

Hey Samsung, you now have a benchmark to crack!

Motorola Razr 50 review: Our verdict

In a bid to make the flip smartphone with a foldable screen more accessible, Motorola has actually given us an incredibly reliable and easy-to-use flip phone. The Razr 50 sets the bar high for battery stamina and performance tuning for flip smartphones. Coupled with its pretty aesthetics and the ‘full-of-potential’ cover screen, the Razr 50 is a tempting choice for what it costs. Sadly, the story doesn’t end there.

As much as the Razr 50 seems appealing, certain aspects need to be considered. The cover screen, as of documenting this review, leaves a lot to be desired in the way the software utilises it. Running a miniature version of Android deprives this otherwise good cover screen of its potential stardom. Maybe Motorola could consider modifying its ‘Peek display’ UI to be adapted for this screen. A minimalist UI could work wonders here. 

The camera needs improvements too, considering the price and what its competition has to offer. An accessible pricing might justify the compromises but consumers deserve a good set of cameras in 2024 in the higher reaches of the midrange segment. 

That said, once the price tag of INR 54,999 comes into the picture, the Motorola Razr 50 seems to be a tempting pick as a package, especially for those who want to try something new – something that’s more than just a sum of its chipset and camera sensors. This is a phone that could reignite interest in the smartphone category and drive growth in the segment. 

Most importantly, the Razr 50 documents a great evolution of the flip phone in five years. Not only are they affordable now, but flip phones are now reliable. The Motorola Razr 50 is a shining example of that. 

Pros: 

- Value for money

- Splendid battery life

- A reliable Android experience

Cons:

- Sub-par camera performance

- Cover screen is a wasted opportunity

- Display could be better

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