Motorola Razr 40 review

The competition

The Motorola Razr 40 turned out to be an excellent little smartphone with premium design and cool form factor, flagship-grade display, very capable cameras, loud stereo speakers and solid battery life. Its external display turned out to be quite useful even if small, and the overall operation is smooth even if the phone is not necessarily a gaming powerhouse.

The Motorola Razr 40 launches at about €800-€850 depending on the market, which is the lowest a Flip foldable phone has started at. However it can be matched by some of last year's models that have received price cuts in the meantime.

Of course if you like the software package, but want a little more power and a more capable external screen you can consider the Razr 40 Ultra - it is about €300 more expensive over the Razr 40, but certainly adds a bit of extra flashiness, which is why people like flip phones in the first place.

The older Motorola Razr 2022 costs the same as the Razr 40, and it also offers a larger external AMOLED, more powerful Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 and slightly more capable primary camera. This Razr 2022 has much inferior battery life, though, and its selfie camera is not as good.

While the Galaxy Z Flip5 will hit the shelves in two weeks, the older Galaxy Z Flip4 still makes sense as a competitor to the Razr 40. In Europe the Flip4 can be had for just €700 and will give you a water-resistant body, more powerful Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset, and it has a better selfie camera. Samsung's foldable software is also the best one out there. However if you equalize the storage and factor in the extra costs of getting a charger and a case that the Moto Razr gets for free the pricing advantage of the Samsung disappears.

Motorola Razr 40 Ultra • Motorola Razr 2022 • Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4

If you live in markets where the Huawei P50 Pocket and the Oppo Find N2 Flip are available, you should check those out, too.

The Huawei P50 Pocket has faster hardware, better photo quality across the board, and faster charging. It is also cheaper at about €700. The issue with the lack of Google Mobile Services remains, and you'll be missing on 5G connectivity. The P50 Pocket has a smaller even if cooler external screen, no ingress protection whatsoever, and its battery life is rather poor.

The Oppo Find N2 Flip on the other hand is a truly great flagship with excellent screens and hardware, as well as battery life. It omits ingress protection, too, but it's closer in price to the Razr 40 Ultra than the vanilla 40.

Huawei P50 Pocket • Oppo Find N2 Flip

Our verdict

So all things considered the Motorola Razr 40 can stand its ground successfully against most competitors with the 2022 Galaxy Z Flip4 perhaps the only one to edge its value for money proposition. However odds are it two won't be easy to find in a couple of months as Samsung focuses on the Flip5 and if the Razr 40 manages to shave some more euros from its price as did its predecessor it will find itself in the comfortable position of being the cheapest-but-still-great clamshell foldable.

After all the Motorola Razr 40 is a modern foldable with exquisite design that is comfortable to hold and operate, too. The latter bits are surprisingly rare in the segment with the Galaxy Flip4 and Oppo Find N2 Flip being properly slippery device.

We found its foldable OLED to be of excellent quality, while its external OLED turned out to be quite useful if a step behind the 2023 trends. The loud stereo speakers were also a nice touch, as well as the solid camera quality across the board. The battery life turned out to be adequate for such a device, and if Motorola addresses the high standby drain with an update it could well become great.

The Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 processor is perhaps more than enough for the category as we don't see many heavy gamers going for flip phones. So all things considered we liked the Motorola Razr 40 and while it doesn't feel like it will be the new V3 it looks destined to become the most popular of the new generation Razr phones.

Pros

• Exquisite Flip design with grippy vegan leather exterior.
• Great primary display with a rather unobtrusive crease.
• Helpful external OLED.
• Adequate battery life, fast charging.
• Loud stereo speakers, good audio quality.
• Great sustained performance, no throttling, no heating.
• Great all-round camera experience.
• Polished software with 3 years of major updates.

Cons

• Basic ingress protection.
• We never saw 144Hz refresh rate on the screen unless forced.
• GPU performance is behind direct competitors.
• Electronic stabilization needs improvement.