Motorola Razr 50 Ultra/razr+ (2024) review

A telephoto instead of the ultrawide, new main cam too

The Motorola Razr 50 Ultra switches things up in the camera setup, replacing the ultrawide (most commonly found on clamshell foldables, older Razrs included) with a telephoto. Previous attempts have been made in the field (Huawei Pocket 2, Oppo Find N3 Flip), but this Razr appears to be better-specced than either of them when it comes to zoom action, one way or another. But it's not just the secondary camera where the new development is - the main one has gotten a significant upgrade too.

So It's not an industry-leading, large-sensor, long-range periscope type of telephoto - if we go into semantics, the 47mm equivalent focal length isn't even strictly telephoto, but rather 'normal'/'standard'. Still, 2x zoom on a clamshell is most welcome, and the 50MP sensor promises solid image quality.

The main camera has gotten an upgrade from the fairly basic 12MP unit on the Razr 40 Ultra and the new model comes with a more up-to-date 50MP sensor from Samsung. It's not a very common model, mind you, so there's not a lot of data on the internet, but the numbers we did manage to scrape are below.

Inside, puncturing the foldable display is a fairly common selfie camera that uses an OmniVision sensor with a fixed focus lens. Whether you'll actually be using this for selfies is debatable though, since you do get the cover screen as a viewfinder for the outer cameras.

• Wide (main): 50MP Samsung ISOCELL GN8 (1/1.95", 0.8µm - 1.6µm), f/1.7, 25mm, dual pixel PDAF, OIS; 4K@60fps
• Telephoto 2x: 50MP Samsung ISOCELL JN1 (JN5) (1/2.76", 0.64µm-1.28µm), f/2.0, 47mm, PDAF; 4K@60fps
• Internal camera: 32MP OmniVision OV32B (1/3.14", 0.7µm-1.4µm), f/2.5, 25mm, fixed focus; 4K@60fps

The cover screen interface is moderately functional, giving you options to switch modes and allowing for some relevant settings to be changed. There's no apparent way to zoom in to the telephoto camera, though - no button is in sight and pinching doesn't work either. So if you're starting out from a closed phone and launching the camera, and you want to set it on a table in 'tripod' mode to record or take a picture of yourself, you can only do it on the 1x camera.

Realistically, the only way to get to the telephoto camera with the cover screen preview enabled, is to unfold the phone and launch the app on the main screen, and then enable the cover display preview. Sure, you won't have the camera interface on there - just the live preview - but if you're far enough to be using the zoom camera, perhaps you have a remote trigger handy, or you'll be resorting to the palm shutter release. The Razr 40 Ultra did have a toggle to switch between the main and the ultrawide cameras, and while we understand how the two camera setups are different in their use cases, the Razr 50 Ultra can benefit from a toggle as well.

Daylight photo quality

Main camera

Daylight photos from the Razr 50 Ultra are quite good. We're getting accurate exposures and wide dynamic range but also great contrast. Detail is also about as much as you'd expect from a 12-ish MP image, and even though it's not rendered in the most natural way, it's not too artificial-looking either.

White balance can be a little off with outdoor scenes and photos can end up with a yellowish/greenish cast - admittedly, our weather has been somewhat unusual as of late, and you probably wouldn't notice it you don't have side-by-side comparisons, but the fact remains that the Moto isn't the most reliable in this respect. We wouldn't say we observed any issues indoors, so there's that. Other than that, the saturation and overall vibrance of these shots is well judged, we reckon.

Daylight samples, main camera (1x), Natural

The Auto Enhance style adds an extra layer of vividness to the photos, most notable in the lush greens in outdoor scenes. A nudge in contrast is also readily observable.

Daylight samples, main camera (1x), Auto Enhance

You can also check out a few photos of our resident people shots model, in both Photo mode and Portrait mode. Portrait mode has an extra zoom level at 35mm equivalent, which isn't too bad either.

Daylight samples, main camera (1x), Photo mode

Daylight samples, main camera (1x), Portrait mode, 24mm

Daylight samples, main camera (35mm), Portrait mode

The full-res 50MP samples do tend to contain a smidge more detail in some scenes, along with some more noise. In other cases, they'll look just like upscaled 12.5MP shots (like the snail scene).

Daylight samples, main camera (1x), 50MP

2x telephoto camera

The zoom camera of the Razr 50 Ultra does quite well in the day - it's plenty sharp and captures very good detail, both outdoors and in. It's probably a touch less prone to missteps with white balance or at least when it does stray from perfection, it does it less obviously. In terms of saturation, these are about as vibrant as the main camera's.

Daylight samples, telephoto camera (2x)

Skin tones are looking a little different on the zoom camera than they do on the main one, and perhaps the primary's tuning makes faces a bit more 'alive'.

Daylight samples, telephoto camera (2x), Photo mode

Daylight samples, telephoto camera (2x), Portrait mode, 50mm

Once again, the 50MP mode will produce one of possible outcomes - an ever so slightly more detailed, but noisier image (these are the ones with no HDR processing), or an upscaled version of the binned file (wider dynamic range).

Daylight samples, telephoto camera (2x), 50MP

The zoom camera can also give you 4x photos. These are typically okay in their detail presentation - not pin-sharp, but a touch better than the upscaled-like 50MP ones (if, conversely, not as good as the non-HDR ones). In our experience, these always had HDR processing, so dynamic range is hard to fault.

Daylight samples, telephoto camera (4x)

We wouldn't say we're fans of using the 4x zoom level for people shots - the detail is just not there. The 85mm portrait mode is also hard to recommend.

Daylight samples, telephoto camera (4x), Photo mode

Daylight samples, telephoto camera (4x), Portrait mode, 85mm

On a foldable, we'd normally dismiss internal camera selfies as redundant since you can typically take much higher quality shots with the outer cameras and still get to see a live preview. While the cover cameras are indeed better on the Razr 50 Ultra as well, the internal unit isn't half bad either, including in suboptimal lighting conditions. What it's missing is autofocus, so more unusual framing and shooting distances are best reserved for the outer screen/cameras.

Selfie samples

Indeed, the rear camera will let you frame your mug closer and get you some separation from the background thanks to its shallower depth of field. Slightly warmer skin tones and overall livelier colors are also to be had, as well as an extra 4.5MP of detail.

Selfie samples, rear camera, 1x

If you go through some hoops to get the 2x camera working (keeping the UI on the main display, with just the live preview on the cover), you can take some shots at 2x as well. Or place the phone across the room and film TikTok dances or whatever it is that youngsters do these days.

Selfie samples, rear camera, 2x

Low-light photo quality

Main camera

In low light, the Razr's main camera takes very good photos for the class. Its default processing will capture nicely balanced exposures where both the shadows are bright enough (but not overdone) and the highlights are well preserved (but not artificially so). There's no loss of color saturation either so you get plenty of pop at night as well. Detail can have somewhat of a heavily sharpened look on occasion, particularly in darker scenes or high-contrast areas, but it's not too bad.

Low-light samples, main camera (1x)

2x Telephoto camera

The telephoto camera can be a bit overly enthusiastic in its handling of warm street lights, though it's a fairly specific set of circumstances that makes it go all yellow, plus it's probably better to err on the side of too much color than too little. Dynamic range is very good and once again the approach to tonal development is quite balanced. Detail is pretty good too.

Low-light samples, telephoto camera (2x)

The photos taken at 4x zoom level aren't exactly made for 1:1 pixel peeping, but if you limit yourself to fit-to-screen viewing, they're fairly decent.

Low-light samples, telephoto camera (4x)

Video recording

The Razr 50 Ultra records video at up to 4K60 with all of its cameras - the two rear ones and the selfie one. The default codec is still h.264, but you can switch to h.265 in settings. You also get the option to record in HDR10+. There's video stabilization in all modes and you can switch it off, if you have other means of supporting the phone.

Daylight 4K videos out of the main camera are more or less good. White balance tends to lean into warm-ish (as it it did in stills), but it's not way off, just off, and saturation is just right. Dynamic range and contrast don't leave us wanting. Detail could have been a little better, though - it's got this general softness and we'd prefer some more definition. The 60fps mode doesn't bring any quality loss, so that's nice.

The 2x camera is closer to the truth with its white balance, though it's still a touch off in the magenta direction. Detail is probably in good to very good territory in isolation, but it's pretty great for a foldable at 2x.

Low-light videos taken on the main camera aren't without flaws, but they're still solid. There's some noise indeed, but there's good detail to go with it. Dynamic range is respectable and color rendition doesn't give us grounds for complaint either. The telephoto is easier to criticize - its output is softer and the way it handles tonal extremes is harsher - though in context, it's probably among the better ones.

Stabilization on the main camera isn't the most adept at ironing out walking shake and some of it will be left in the end result. Pans can also have a weird zoom-out-than-in effect, though the transitions from stationary to moving and back are nicely smooth. Having the phone pointed in one direction does give you very stable footage, though, and that applies to both the main camera and the telephoto.

Video sample playlist

You can check out the playlist below, which includes multiple video samples.