Motorola Razr 40 Ultra review

Vanilla Android 13 garnished with Moto features

Motorola has always been keen on the vanilla Android experience and this has been one of Motorola's main appeals. However, in the context of a foldable smartphone, some may think it's more of a drawback. After all, foldable smartphones require a bit of extra touch so that all apps work properly on the fairly new form factor. The good news is that Android isn't stale and has matured enough to accommodate the new foldable form factor and Motorola has worked closely with developers to polish the user experience. Moreover, the OEM promises three major OS updates for the Razr 40 Ultra.

If you've ever used a Motorola smartphone or any other handset running a clean Android, you'd feel right at home. There's nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to aesthetics, navigation and Android-intrinsic features.

In a typical Motorola fashion, there are a handful of additional features that come with almost every Motorola smartphone along with some exclusive ones thanks to the new external 3.2-inch display. Pretty much all of the additional features can be found in the system Moto app, along with some useful tips on how to make the most out of the Razr 40 Ultra.

Home screen, recent apps, notification shade, settings menu

Let's start with personalization. Motorola provides a ton of dynamic wallpapers that can be applied on the main and external screen. There's no Always-on display, though, not in the general sense, at least. You can't set the external display to be always on, but Motorola offers the so-called Peek Display, which is the second-best thing. You can wake up the external screen by tapping on it or just bumping the phone. The software tacks for changes in the accelerometer and wakes up the screen. It shows notifications and a customizable clockface.

Moto features and personalization

There are a couple of other Moto gestures, like launching the flashlight with two hand-chopping motions or twisting the phone to launch the camera.

Moto gestures

The sidebar is a fairly new addition to the Moto features. You can access your favorite apps via the Sidebar and launch them in small windows. Sadly, you can run only one app in the background and one in a small window, so the multitasking capabilities are somewhat limited.

Sidebar and multi-tasking

Motorola also added a double-tap gesture оn the back so you can launch an app or execute an action on the fly. This isn't the first time we see this gesture implemented, but this is definitely the first time we see it working properly without delay or misfires. Maybe because your finger naturally rests on the secondary display, which in turn is more capable of registering touches than your regular metal/leather/glass/plastic back.

Quick launch with double tap on the back

Now off to the external display. Motorola makes a big deal out of it and we can see why. The secondary screen may not be big, but it's more functional than ever. You can run standalone apps on it, reply to messages, use it as a viewfinder, attend or dismiss notifications and even watch Netflix videos. Motorola has worked closely with developers to optimize some of the most commonly used apps so they can work properly on the 3.2-inch screen. However, there are still some issues that need to be addressed. The Google Maps experience, for example, wasn't stellar and some buttons and UI elements were often blocked by the camera sensors. It's important to note that we had an engineering sample to work with, so Motorola may fix them at launch or shortly after.

External display customizations

As we already mentioned, you can set a clock style of your choice, arrange apps on the home screen, rearrange the panels on the home screen and adjust the font and size. The system allows you to switch between the main and the external screen on the fly by either tapping on a button when you close the phone or by transferring the said app automatically as soon as you close the flip. Keep in mind that some apps are not allowed on the external panel, but the vast majority of apps we tried worked properly.

External display customizations

The external display also has its own recent apps menu and you can access the quick toggles and notification shade too. In short, it allows you to do almost everything without having to open the device at all.

External display home screen, recent apps, notification shade

Introduced in 2021, Motorola's 'ready for' platform enables a multitude of use cases that put the phone in the center of a big-screen experience. Connecting a TV or a monitor allows you to get a Windows-desktop-like environment, play a game on your phone, display it on the external screen, or even have a video chat on a larger display.

Gestures in Ready For mode

And while this feature only worked with an appropriate USB-C to USB-C cable in the past, you can now make the connection using Miracast, which most modern TVs, monitors and PCs support nowadays. If you don't have a mouse and/or keyboard handy, the phone's screen can be used as a trackpad and/or keyboard.

You can also use 'ready for' on a Windows-based PC - it runs within a window on your desktop. This is helpful when you want to run an Android app from your computer or multi-task between devices on just one screen.

Ready For desktop-like experience

Another use case of 'ready for' on a Windows PC is for video calls, where you can use the phone's camera to capture yourself and an external display to see the other participants.

The final Ready For use case is for gaming on a bigger screen - be it TV or laptop/monitor. You connect an external controller and run the game on the phone, with the obvious benefit being the larger display for gameplay.

It works exactly like Samsung's DeX, bringing a desktop environment-friendly experience to Android and its apps.

Ready For desktop-like experience

All in all, Motorola's vision for a clean Android is somewhat different than Google's as it provides a couple of unique features and was able to polish the foldable experience beyond the scope of vanilla Android. The best part is that the software didn't feel unfinished in any way, quite the opposite actually. Our experience was bug-free (except for the extremely rare UI issues with the external display in some apps) and the system ran smoothly without any slow-downs or hiccups.

Benchmark performance

The Razr 40 Ultra gets a last-year chipset, the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 (4nm), which is a capable, modern, flagship SoC but it's not the most recent one. Still, it's powerful enough to handle everything you throw at it and it's the full-fledged version of the silicon and not the underclocked variant that some other phones are using. This means that the octa-core CPU has the usual 1+3+4 clusters with the following clock speeds: 1x3.19 GHz Cortex-X2 & 3x2.75 GHz Cortex-A710 & 4x1.80 GHz Cortex-A510. The Adreno 730 GPU takes care of the graphically-intensive tasks.

The standard memory configuration is 8GB/256GB while the 12GB/512GB variant can be found exclusively in select markets.

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Galaxy S23 Ultra
  1537
• Motorola Edge 40 Pro
  1482
• Xiaomi 13 Ultra
  1477
• Motorola Razr 2022
  1324
• Motorola Razr 40 Ultra
  1277
• Galaxy Z Flip4
  1270
• Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 average
  1241
• Galaxy S22 Ultra
  1180
• Huawei P50 Pocket
  1092
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  936

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi 13 Ultra
  5049
• Galaxy S23 Ultra
  4927
• Motorola Edge 40 Pro
  4896
• Motorola Razr 2022
  3944
• Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 average
  3937
• Galaxy Z Flip4
  3913
• Galaxy S22 Ultra
  3657
• Motorola Razr 40 Ultra
  3645
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  3265
• Huawei P50 Pocket
  3077

AnTuTu 9

Higher is better

• Motorola Edge 40 Pro
  1273764
• Xiaomi 13 Ultra
  1268538
• Galaxy S23 Ultra
  1241531
• Motorola Razr 40 Ultra
  975461
• Galaxy S22 Ultra
  968359
• Motorola Razr 2022
  965260
• Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 average
  937839
• Galaxy Z Flip4
  800001
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  773574
• Huawei P50 Pocket
  768513

GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Motorola Edge 40 Pro
  86
• Galaxy Z Flip4
  60
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  58
• Motorola Razr 2022
  56
• Motorola Razr 40 Ultra
  54
• Galaxy S23 Ultra
  54
• Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 average
  54
• Xiaomi 13 Ultra
  51
• Galaxy S22 Ultra
  30
• Huawei P50 Pocket
  29

GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi 13 Ultra
  62
• Motorola Edge 40 Pro
  60
• Galaxy S23 Ultra
  59
• Galaxy Z Flip4
  46
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  44
• Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 average
  44
• Motorola Razr 2022
  35
• Motorola Razr 40 Ultra
  33
• Galaxy S22 Ultra
  31
• Huawei P50 Pocket
  23

GFX Aztek Vulkan High (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Galaxy S23 Ultra
  69
• Xiaomi 13 Ultra
  69
• Motorola Edge 40 Pro
  68
• Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 average
  47
• Galaxy Z Flip4
  45
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  37
• Motorola Razr 40 Ultra
  36
• Galaxy S22 Ultra
  35
• Motorola Razr 2022
  27
• Huawei P50 Pocket
  26

GFX Aztek Vulkan High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Motorola Edge 40 Pro
  98
• Galaxy Z Flip4
  62
• Galaxy S23 Ultra
  60
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  56
• Motorola Razr 40 Ultra
  55
• Xiaomi 13 Ultra
  55
• Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 average
  54
• Motorola Razr 2022
  43
• Galaxy S22 Ultra
  29
• Huawei P50 Pocket
  29

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Motorola Edge 40 Pro
  112
• Motorola Razr 2022
  76
• Galaxy Z Flip4
  74
• Galaxy S23 Ultra
  67
• Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 average
  67
• Motorola Razr 40 Ultra
  65
• Xiaomi 13 Ultra
  63
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  59
• Huawei P50 Pocket
  40
• Galaxy S22 Ultra
  37

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi 13 Ultra
  129
• Motorola Edge 40 Pro
  127
• Galaxy S23 Ultra
  126
• Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 average
  97
• Galaxy Z Flip4
  83
• Motorola Razr 2022
  76
• Galaxy S22 Ultra
  76
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  75
• Motorola Razr 40 Ultra
  58
• Huawei P50 Pocket
  58

3DMark Wild Life Vulkan 1.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi 13 Ultra
  13106
• Galaxy S23 Ultra
  12241
• Motorola Edge 40 Pro
  12230
• Motorola Razr 40 Ultra
  8787
• Galaxy Z Flip4
  8460
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  8144
• Galaxy S22 Ultra
  7437
• Huawei P50 Pocket
  5656
• Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 average
  4997

As you can see, the Razr 40 Ultra performs as expected most of the time and offers good utilization of the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC. There are a couple of GPU-intensive scenarios in which the device falls behind your average SD8+ Gen 1 smartphone. However, it's hard to look over the fact that the Razr 40 Ultra costs as much as other 2023 flagship devices while delivering inferior performance. All true flagships from this year are rocking the much-improved Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.

Sustained performance

The Razr 40 Ultra doesn't surprise with good sustained performance and that's partly due to the form factor. The separation of the chassis into two parts results in diminished heat dissipation and it becomes increasingly harder for the cooling design to keep up with the SoC's demand. That's why the Razr 40 Ultra started throttling in the first 5 minutes of the CPU stress test.

CPU stress test: 30 min • 60 min

There were no signs of improvement throughout the whole test and the SoC maintained about 50% of its theoretical performance during the 1-hour long stress scenario.