The Motorola Razr 2024 needs to fix these three things if it wants to beat Samsung | Expert Reviews

Motorola Razr 2024: What needs to stay

The biggest strength of the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra was its sleek and stylish design. While roughly the same dimensions as the Galaxy Z Flip 5, its rounded edges felt more snug in the hand than the Samsung’s flat sides, making it more comfortable for one-handed use.

On top of that, and this is admittedly down to personal preference, the bold Viva Magenta colourway is far more striking than Samsung’s muted palette. Motorola has continued its partnership with Pantone for its recent handsets, so it looks like a safe bet that we’ll see at least one stand-out colour option for the Razr 2024.

The Razr 40 Ultra also has an excellent external display so I’m hoping Motorola doesn’t meddle with this too much. The 3.6in panel wraps around the rear cameras, resulting in a cleaner look than the Galaxy Z Flip 5, which has a fairly chunky cutout to accommodate its lenses. The 1,066 x 1,056 resolution is also terrific and should carry over, though I’m not convinced that the 144Hz refresh rate is worth putting on the outer display, as it feels like overkill.

The internal display, however, should bring all the strengths of its predecessor over, 165Hz refresh rate and all. I had so few faults with this panel that I’m even tempted to say that Motorola should focus its improvements elsewhere and just stick with what works here. The bumpers around the panels are slim and unobstructive, the hinge crease is barely visible – an accolade that Samsung still cannot match – and colour accuracy is solid, albeit still not perfect.

I’m not against Motorola bringing improvements to the camera suite – in fact, it’s a near certainty – but what’s important here is that there are no cuts to what already works. The dual-camera array on the Razr 40 Ultra proved to be a solid pairing in my testing, with bright, vibrant images in good lighting and even some fairly decent ultrawide shots – an area in which the Galaxy Z Flip 5 stumbled slightly.

The main camera also performed reasonably well after dark, producing much more naturally coloured images than we saw with the previous year’s Motorola Razr 2022. The only camera I’d consider switching up is the 32MP selfie lens that sits beneath the display – considering how simple it is to take selfies with the rear cameras on a foldable phone, having a higher pixel count on the internal lens always struck me as weird. It would make more sense to pour those pixels into the main shooter and highlight its selfie capabilities.

One thing that must not change is the price. The Razr 40 Ultra retailed for £1,049; a price increase of around £100 from the Razr 2022 but one that meant it cost the same as the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5. Assuming that the Z Flip 6 avoids a price increase, all of the following improvements will be moot if Motorola prices itself out of the market.