HORIZON TOP 10

The Motorola Razr comes blasting back from the ’90s, plus Segway’s new electric dirt bike

The Motorola Razr is a cutting-edge, foldable phone that’s also a throwback to one of the most iconic handset designs of all time: the original Razr V3 that launched in 2004… it’s the future wrapped in the past. We got a chance to test it, to see whether this synthesis is novel enough to be worth flipping out over.

We assumed that foldables would bridge the gap between phones and tablets by unfolding horizontally into a wider display. Motorola has other ideas, however, and its take flips open to reveal an elongated touchscreen that’s just a bit longer than the iPhone 11’s display.

So, no, you don’t get much more screen real estate. The novelty lies in what you can do when the phone is closed down to a pocketfriendly size, as there’s a smaller display on the outside for checking texts, calls, music, emails and such. Below that quick-look screen is the rear camera – which, when the Razr is closed becomes a selfie camera, with the small display showing what it’s looking at.

The interior display is a 21:9 OLED screen with a resolution of 876x2142. That’s cinematiclevel widescreen, like those on Sony’s Xperia phones, but less sharp. Being so widescreen is a bit up and down if you want to use it to watch media – movies look fantastic when they fill the screen, not all of the content on Netflix and other TV services fills it.

But for a foldable phone at a lower price than the Samsung Galaxy Fold, the Razr is built well. Yes, you can feel the hinge beneath the screen as you run your finger over the middle, but it doesn’t obstruct. Better still, unlike the Galaxy Fold, the Razr’s display doesn’t have a visible seam – though we’d love to see if that holds up after years of opening and closing it.

There is a front screen, much like the old-school Razr – though in place of the dated 96x80 digital colour LCD, the new Razr has a 2.7-inch 800x600 display. It’s far sharper than expected, and makes selfies a joy. Just tap the screen, hit the volume button or turn on ‘smile for shutter’, and the phone takes a photo.

The Razr has a single 16MP rear camera, which functions fine. Given that last year’s Moto Z4 dropped down to one lens but supplemented it with much-improved software, we assume the new Razr will take photos of the same quality. The ones we took seemed fine – and you’re not buying the Razr for photography, anyway.

Elsewhere, the phone runs Android 9 and packs a Snapdragon 710 chipset – which doesn’t reach the performance of the advanced Snapdragon 855 in the Samsung Galaxy Fold. Why not the latest chipset? Because it would’ve drained more battery and generated more heat than the Razr team desired for the phone’s final design. In many ways, this new handset inherits the old Razr’s initial reputation as a pricey status symbol – though instead of a fashion flex, the new Razr is a design darling. Yes, it’s a big nostalgia play, but it’s also an innovative new direction that smartphones could follow to break out of the black rectangle convention.

And yet, convention drives down costs, and the unique design in the new Razr comes at a price. It’s hard to tell whether the novel form factor will convince folks to fork over more money for functionality they could largely have at a much lower price tag.

“The new Razr’s look is utterly desirable – we just hope the middling specs don’t leave it feeling like an expensive gimmick”

Matt Bolton, Editor

BATTERY DOUBT While Motorola assures us that the 2,510mAh battery will last all day, we aren’t sure that will hold up to more strenuous GPS and media-watching activity. However, if the front screen leads users to preview more and open their phone less, that could lend weight to Motorola’s assertion STORAGE LIMITATION The Razr doesn’t have a slot for expanding the storage or inserting a SIM card (the phone uses eSIM), and neither is there a 3.5mm headphone jack. Meanwhile, the right side of the phone features a volume rocker and a lock button, but they’re too slim and sharp to be terribly useful

PHOTO FUN The front-facing camera is a 5MP sensor that’s perched in the top of the unfolded screen. While it’s not as sharp as some phones’ offerings, there’s something neat about shooting a video with the device closed, and then flipping the phone open to switch to the front-facing camera

HIGHLY CHARGED We’re a bit disappointed to note that the Razr doesn’t support wireless charging. However, Motorola has made up for this by including a 15W TurboPower wall charger with the phone. According to the US company, it delivers hours of power in a matter of minutes, making it ideal for emergencies

NICE GESTURES The device supports various Motorola gestures that work when the phone is closed and opened. This is handy for the ‘chop to open flashlight’ gesture, and crucial for the ‘wiggle to open camera’ – which seems to be the only way to get the camera app open while the phone is shut