Motorola Razr 40 review

A total of three selfie cameras

The Motorola Razr 40 comes with a 64MP primary camera and a 13MP ultrawide shooter with autofocus that is also capable of closeup shots.

There is another camera inside the foldable screen's punch hole with a 32MP sensor, which will likely be relegated to video-calling duties. After all one of the best things about foldables is that you can capture selfies with the far superior main cameras.

All cameras support 4K video capturing.

The primary camera on the back features a 64MP 1/2" OmniVision OV64B sensor with a Quad-Bayer filter. The sensor has 0.7µm pixels, and after the 4-in-1 binning, you'd be getting a 16MP photo with 1.4µm equivalent pixels. This sensor sits behind a stabilized 25mm f/1.8 lens with OIS and supports PDAF. A high-res 64MP mode, Pro Mode, as well as Night Vision, are available for this camera.

The ultrawide camera uses the 13MP Hynix Hi1336 sensor with 1.12µm pixels. It sports a 16mm f/2.2 lens and supports autofocus. Thanks to that it can double as macro shooter and there is even a dedicated macro mode available on the viewfinder.

The selfie camera uses a 32MP OmniVision OV32B 1/3" Quad Bayer (4-Cell in OV speak) sensor with 0.7µm pixels with 8MP images coming out by default (you can shoot in 32MP, too). It sits behind a 25mm f/2.4 lens with fixed focus.

Camera app

The camera app on the Razr 40 is custom despite the relatively stock-looking software package. When it comes to its implementation on the unfolded phone, it's essentially identical to what you get on regular, bar-style Motos.

The basics are as usual - the camera modes are arranged in a customizable carousel formation, with the 'More' tab at the rightmost end of the carousel holding the rarely-used shooting modes.

Pro mode gives you full control over the camera's settings like white balance, ISO (up to 3,200), focus, shutter speed (up to 32s), and exposure compensation, and it works on all cameras. A tiny live histogram is provided, but there's no focus peaking or zebras.

Camera app

Additional settings for each camera mode can be found by swiping down in the viewfinder. There's a tiny bar at the far end to indicate that, but if you miss it, you may be left wondering where some controls are, like the flash and self-timer settings in Photo mode and frame rate in Video mode.

The gear icon for the general settings menu houses even more settings.

More camera settings

You can also run the camera app on the external display while the Razr 40 is folded. There is a special twist gesture, which activates the cameras and the small screen lights up. You can then swipe from the left or right to change between Photos, Videos, Portraits or you can swipe from the top or bottom sides to switch between the cameras.

Camera on the external screen

You can use cropped view for both portrait and landscape orientation, or you can disable the crop for when shooting landscape selfies. The mirrored selfie option applies as well when using the rear cameras for selfies, too.

Daylight photo quality

The main camera takes very good 16MP photos in broad daylight. They have enough resolved detail and do well with demanding objects such as foliage, the noise is kept low and the color rendition is mostly accurate and realistic.

Local contrast is high, but the dynamic range is still adequate.

Main camera, 16MP

Something that is not advertised, not even suggested by the viewfinder, is the "lossless" 2x zoom available on the Razr 40. But you need to activate the zoom slider manually and then rotate it until you reach 2x, which is far from convenient.

Anyway, the 2x zoomed photos are alright, almost on par with the regular ones when it comes to per-pixel detail and overall rendition.

Main camera 2x zoom, 16MP

There is a 64MP mode available and it takes good even if a bit noisy photos. The 64MP samples offer capture extra detail overall, but obviously do worse on pixel level. The good news is color rendering and overall processing isn't compromised so if you need the highest possible amount of detail for a given scene you may freely use this mode.

Main camera, 64MP

Here's a comparison of the extra detail you get from the 64MP photos compared to the default 16MP images.

The portrait mode offers proficient subject separation, well balanced blur and excellent exposure, colors, and dynamic range. But for some reason the detail is quite poor.

Portraits, 16MP

The 13MP photos from the ultrawide camera are better than the average, but the processing is a bit too heavy-handed here. They have enough detail, little noise and very wide dynamic range.

Their colors look a bit de-saturated, though, as the HDR processing goes a bit overboard and gives that unrealistic look.

Ultrawide camera, 13MP

The ultrawide camera supports autofocus and it can shoot macro samples from as close as 3cm from the front element. They are on par with the regular shots - overall good detail, low noise, good contrast and good dynamic range, and we do see improvement in the color saturation.

They are still a bit over-processed, but not nearly as bad as the regular shots from the ultrawide camera.

Macro with ultrawide camera

There is a dedicated Macro shortcut just below the 0.5x key, but it just crops and upscales from the regular ultrawide photo so it can match the field of view of the primary camera. And, quite expectedly, this worsens the image quality.

Dedicated Macro Mode (cropped and upscaled)

Low-light photo quality

There is Auto Night Vision available on the Motorola Razr 40 and it is active by default. Once the light diminishes it fires almost every time on both the rear cameras and requires about 2 seconds to shoot and save a picture. There is Night Vision dedicated mode as well, which requires about 4 seconds and yet it captures photos identical to the Auto ones.

So, the Auto Night Vision samples from the main camera are excellent - they are detailed, well-exposed, with wide dynamic range and good contrast. The noise is notably low, and the colors remain realistic and lively.

Night Vision doesn't make a day from the low-light photos, they look just a notch brighter than they really were, and we quite like them.

Auto Night Vision, Main Camera

Disabling the Auto Night Vision makes for less detailed photos, softer, a bit darker, and with narrower dynamic range. While they are still usable, we'd keep ANV on at all times.

Night Vision OFF, Main camera

The Auto Night Vision photos from the ultrawide camera are good - they are bright, with good dynamic range and contrast, preserved colors and with tolerable noise. Sometimes the detail is lacking, but all things considered - these are some very usable samples.

Auto Night Vision, Ultrawide Camera

Turning off the Auto Night Vision for the ultrawide camera will save underexposed and often very noisy photos with limited dynamic range. Once again, it's better to stick to Auto mode.

Night Vision OFF, Ultrawide Camera

And here's how the main camera stacks up against the competition in our extensive Photo compare database.

Motorola Razr 40 against the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra and the Galaxy Z Flip4 in our Photo compare tool

Selfies

You can take selfies with all three cameras on the Motorola Razr 40 as you can use the external display as a selfie viewfinder.

But let's start with the intended selfie camera, the 32MP imager inside the screen's punch hole. It's a Quad-Bayer shooter and saves 8MP photos by default. There are shortcuts for wide and zoomed photos, but obviously there's only one camera so the only difference is cropping.

The 8MP selfies we shot on the internal camera are good enough - they offer enough resolved detail and mature processing with little noise and no oversharpening artifacts. The subject is always well-exposed, but the color balance is a bit of a hit-and-miss affair.

Selfies, 8MP front camera

Using the primary camera on the back as a selfie shooter yields photos of similar quality as the internal camera, but the detail levels are higher and color rendition is superior.

Selfies, 16MP primary camera

If you need group shots and you have enough light, the ultrawide camera will make for an excellent group selfie shooter. It does go overboard with the processing though and faces have a bit of an oil-painting look when examined at pixel or close to pixel level.

Selfies, 13MP ultrawide camera

Video recording

The Motorola Razr 40 supports 4K@30fps video capturing with all three cameras. There is also 1080p at both 30fps and 60fps. You can choose between the h.264 and h.265 codecs.

Stabilization is optional and available to all cameras - you can turn on/off the electronic stabilization, and there is also an option for horizontally stabilized video when you've mounted the phone on a stable surface and pan around.

The EIS works well on all three cameras, but its reach is limited so you sharper shakes aren't handled at all.

But let's talk about video quality first.

The camera app is super generous with the bit rates - the 4K footage gets 50Mbps when using the h.264 codec. The audio bitrate is about 250Kbps, the sound is stereo, and intelligent noise reduction is available if needed.

The 4K videos from the main camera we shot on a sunny day are exceptional - their resolved detail is impressively high, noise is absent, the dynamic range is quite wide, and yet the contrast remains great. The colors are lively and accurate. Overall, this footage is easily among the top 10 we've seen from a cameraphone this year.

The daylight videos from the ultrawide camera have a sharp and detailed center, wide dynamic range is super wide, the contrast is alright. The colors are slightly muted and with a cold tint and there's pronounced corner softness, though.

The 4K low-light videos from the main camera are usable but that is the best we can say about them. They are underxposed, rather noisy, with a narrow dynamic range. The detail is acceptable and so is the color saturation.

Naturally, the night video from the ultrawide camera is even darker and noisier because of the smaller sensor and slower f/2.2 aperture.

The internal selfie camera saves great 4K videos with excellent detail, low-noise, high contrast, and likable colors. The dynamic range is somewhat limited though.

As we said the stabilization works well on all cameras, as long as you stay within its limited operating range. Otherwise the video will remain shaky and/or jelly-like.

Here's how the Motorola Razr 40 compares to other devices in our vast video compare database.

Motorola Razr 40 against the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra and the Galaxy Z Flip4 in our Video compare tool