Motorola Razr 50 Ultra Review: Remodelling the Razr

Motorola is back with its yearly update for its Razr series. The new Razr 50 Ultra is not out to change the clamshell foldable but is more about adding several improvements in its attempt to refine its foldable formula. While last year’s foldable perfected the cover display with a radical and bold design, it fell behind with its cameras and was also plagued with heating issues.

This year’s Razr 50 Ultra appears familiar to last year’s model. But there are a ton of hardware upgrades on the inside that make a big difference with this year’s model. After using it for more than a week, I can conclude the same. So, read on to find out why it should be your first foldable.

Motorola Razr 50 Ultra Review Design: You win some, you lose some

• Dimensions – Closed – 73.99 x 88.09 x 15.32mm
• Dimensions – Open – 73.99 x 171.42 x 7.09mm
• Weight – 189 grams

While its overall appearance and design have remained mainly the same as the Razr 40 Ultra, there are some subtle changes that not everyone may notice. When closed, the clamshell foldable is now a couple of millimetres thinner, which gives it a cross-section (when folded) just as thick as most smartwatches. This is mainly down to the new hinge, which, apart from promising better reliability (with fewer moving parts) is also compact.

According to Motorola, the hinge, apart from providing a smoother opening and closing experience, also protects against dust. However, the phone gets an IPX8 rating this time, which is on par with the older Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5, but loses against the new Galaxy Z Flip 6’s IP48 rating, which works for both dust and water. Ironically, Motorola’s Razr 40 Ultra offered an IP52 rating.

The new hinge lets the Motorola Razr 50 Ultra lie perfectly flat when open

The new hinge refines the abilities of the previous model. While Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip is all about delivering extreme hovering angles, it still needs two hands to be opened. Oppo’s Find N3 Flip is the exact opposite, with a smooth yet easy-to-open hinge that has a smaller sweet spot (45-120 degrees) for hovering. Motorola’s Razr has always been about flipping the top half open. It has a small hovering range (beyond which the phone folds shut or opens flat), making it one of the easiest foldables to flip open and close shut with one hand.

Despite having a smaller hovering range, the Razr 50 Ultra can hold up one-half of the display well at this V-shaped angle. Motorola has taken advantage of this with some smart software-based features.

There’s a Sleep display feature which activates the cover display’s AOD feature. This mode activates when the top half (with the cameras and the cover display) is angled at a slant (around 70 degrees) in the Stand position. It shows a regular white over black AOD screen with all the necessary details, but you can wake it up (to the lockscreen) by tapping the display or just bringing your hand closer to it when in this mode.

The new leather rear panel, apart from feeling great, also offers plenty of grip

The second feature, the Desk display, takes advantage of the cover screen’s low refresh rate (LTPO). It works in both Tent or Stand positions and shows preselected photos from your gallery or custom images from Motorola (like Hello Moo or Hello Moto). Images can be accompanied by custom text as well, turning the cover display into a digital photo frame, which barely sips power (1-2 percent an hour) when in use and can remain on all the time provided it is set to Tent or Stand positions.

The rear panel now gets the vegan leather treatment for all finishes. These finishes have a minor difference because of how they are spliced. The Spring Green unit we received for review had fine vertical grooves, which gives the phone a solid grip. In fact, it has so much grip I almost mistook it for supporting the new Qi 2 standards (which it does not).

Desk display turns the Motorola Razr 50 Ultra’s large cover display into a mini photo frame

I would like to see a true always-on-display mode (like on an iPhone 14/15 Pro) used for the Razr’s cover display. Since it essentially covers the front half of the clamshell, it can double up as a colour-changing customisable front panel that can show a matching print design and more. But well, maybe next time!

Motorola Razr 50 Ultra Review Displays: A notch above the rest

• Cover display – 4.0-inch, 1,272 × 1,080 pixels, 165Hz
• Main display – 6.9-inch, 2,640 × 1,080 pixels, full-HD+, 165Hz
• Display type – pOLED (LTPO)

While I was blown away by the Razr 40 Ultra’s cover display, the Razr 50 Ultra’s larger 4.0-inch panel has better cutouts for the two floating cameras and the LED flash unit, making it appear more polished. The cover display, with a peak brightness of 3,000nits, is plenty bright outdoors and is also HDR10+ certified, which is good for scrolling through photos, capturing photos and when watching supported content on the cover display when in tent mode (which I surprisingly did).

The new larger cover display with its floating cameras is a treat to look at

Colour reproduction of the main display is quite good provided you set it to the Natural colour mode. The bright display is also quite tall or wide (22:9 aspect ratio) when viewing videos, so I did end up with some letter-boxing on the sides when streaming the shows in the usual 16:9 format, but it works perfectly well when watching movies with their wider cinema formats. The maximum 300Hz touch sampling rate (220Hz normal) is only available while playing games, but it’s just about right for some high-end FPS gaming if you are into it.

Motorola Razr 50 Ultra Review Software: A fine balance

• Software – Hello UI
• Version – Android 14
• Latest – Security Patch: 01 May, 2024

The software experience with Motorola recent Hello UI is quite good in the sense that it’s not reached the point where it feels overwhelming for the user nor is it slowing down the hardware. There are some preinstalled third-party apps (that can be uninstalled), and Motorola has also started adding several of its own which cannot be uninstalled, but most of these are useful (Family Space etc.) In short, it does not have that near-stock feel of the old Motorola phones but offers a ton of personalisation with themes, fonts, AI wallpapers and more.

Motorola lets you invert the orientation of the cover display depending on your app’s layout when in full-screen mode

As with every clamshell foldable these days, Motorola still remains on the forefront (now that Samsung’s new Galaxy Z Flip 6 is out) when it comes to the capabilities of its cover display. Its bigger size instantly makes it more useful and I often found myself starting and completing tasks on the cover display itself. Motorola also goes all guns blazing by supporting Google’s Gemini AI on the cover display, and it’s as useful as it claims it is. And once you get your results, you can also copy paste those between apps on the cover display itself since there is a full-width keyboard available. And since you can access any app on the cover display without issues (in full screen that too), all of this makes the cover display on the phone as useful as the one inside.

Motorola Razr 50 Ultra Review Performance: A bit of a hothead

• Processor – Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3
• RAM – 12GB, LPDDR5X
• Storage – 512GB, UFS 4.0

In terms of raw performance, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 we tested last year is still best in class. Despite its odd moniker, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 processor is not as powerful as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. So, this puts it in line with last year’s Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 (we expect the Z Flip 6 to perform better), which has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy SoC as you can see from the benchmark scores in the table below.

In terms of everyday usability, I faced no issue or notable bugs with everything running smoothly and flawlessly as one would expect from a Motorola device, despite the brand’s inclination to add more native apps year after year. The transition of apps from the cover display to the main display and back still works well and is something other manufacturers have yet to accomplish successfully.

One area that still sticks out is heating. The phone does not get as hot while playing demanding games and does not heat up with regular use, but I did notice it warming up quite a bit when using the camera. I could not feel the heat on my fingers when holding up the device, but it can be felt on the inner folding display. One can also tell that something’s wrong because the camera interface starts to lag after about 5-10 minutes of mixed usage. This is most noticeable when recording video, where the animation of the recording button itself slows down.

The Razr 50 Ultra’s main display is a lot tougher than the previous one and has a nearly invisible crease

For those who love to play games, I love the simple cover display games which have good haptic feedback and make good use of the floating cameras well. For serious gamers, the phone will be capable of running Call of Duty: Mobile at Medium graphics and Ultra frame rate with no problems and the same applies to High graphics and Max frame rate as well. The UTG screen protection also finally seems to be strong enough to resist scratches while playing games.

Motorola Razr 50 Ultra Review Cameras: New cameras, old problems

• Main Camera – 50MP (OIS), f/1.7 aperture, AF
• Telephoto Camera – 50MP, 2x optical zoom, f/2.0 aperture, AF
• Selfie camera – 32MP, f/2.4 aperture

Motorola has done away with the usual ultra-wide-angle camera and gone with a telephoto camera this year. This surely seems to be a good move, and the primary camera (wide-angle) is usually enough for most regular shooting scenarios, leaving room for an excellent telephoto shooter with 2x optical zoom.

The primary camera captures slightly saturated colours (whether or not you have AI Shot optimisation switched on in Settings) and shows good dynamic range with enough details in the shadows and the bright areas. Autofocus was quick while capturing photos but a bit slow when recording video. Results are pretty good in low light, with noise well under control and plenty of detail in the textures.

Motorola Razr 50 Ultra Daylight Camera Samples. Top: Primary camera, Middle: 2X Telephoto camera, Bottom: 4X digital zoom (tap images to expand)

As for the new telephoto camera, it serves its purpose well in daylight and indoor lighting. Photos pack good detail as long as your subject is steady. The telephoto is primarily used in portrait mode, and the results are detailed and sharp. It can also be used to zoom into a frame and the results in daylight up to 4X (digital crop) are quite usable with just enough detail. The shots captured in dim light or low light come out a bit soft and blurry mainly because it lacks optical image stabilisation (OIS), which is present on the primary camera.

Motorola Razr 50 Ultra selfie camera samples: Top: Selfie camera, bottom: selfie from the primary camera via a cover display (tap images to expand)

The built-in selfie camera just like last year’s model isn’t great. Daylight selfies are passable in terms of quality and detail, but low-light selfies have a different colour tone and come out quite soft and blurry. Thankfully, this is a foldable. So that 4.0-inch cover display can be used with the primary camera to capture some clear low light selfies when folded shut which have good natural bokeh reducing the need to fire up the Portrait mode even at night.

Video captured at 4K 30fps or 4K 60fps shows good detail with slightly limited dynamic range. Stabilisation when walking and panning is good provided the phone has not heated up till then or you are blessed with pleasant or windy weather. Once the phone heats up, you will notice the ongoing video recording appearing quite stuttery on-screen. The phone’s hardware clearly cannot keep up with the camera, so the camera’s software interface also gradually slows down.

Motorola Razr 50 Ultra low-light camera sample (primary camera)

Thankfully, the recorded footage looks better even though it, too, struggles with bitrate issues thanks to the built-up heat when shooting. In low light, 4K 30fps footage hits the sweet spot with good detail and stabilisation. 1080p video recordings appeared a bit soft and scaled-down, so it’s not ideal to shoot at this resolution, especially in low light.

Motorola Razr 50 Ultra Review Battery: As good as it gets

• Battery Capacity – 4,000mAh
• Wired Charging – 45W (68W in-box charger)
• Wireless Charging – 15W

Battery results are really impressive even with the always-on-display feature (AOD) switched on

The cover display being as useful as the one inside, automatically results in better battery life. Despite using the AOD (black and white) feature, I found that the phone can easily last a whole day with heavy usage (including camera and gaming sessions) and can be stretched to the next afternoon with casual use. In our video battery loop test, the phone managed to last an impressive 20 hours and 28 minutes. The phone also charges up quickly going from 0 to fully charged in 51 minutes. It also offers 15W wireless Charging when placed on its proprietary charging dock (sold separately).

Motorola Razr 50 Ultra Review Verdict

Foldable clamshell smartphones surely have found a sweet spot in the compact flagship segment which always struggled with limited options to choose from. Currently it’s just the Samsung Galaxy S24 (Rs. 74,999) and the Google Pixel 8 (Rs. 61,999) in India.

While previously riddled with constant heating issues, poor battery life and lacklustre camera performance due to their slim designs, clamshell foldables have now finally reached a point of refinement where they can be recommended as daily drivers instead of compact or even plus-sized flagships.

That said, the Motorola Razr 50 Ultra can be your first foldable. Unlike last year’s model, Motorola has remodelled the Razr (in a good way), and it checks the long list of boxes with features that buyers expect from such a device. This includes a capable set of cameras, a compact form factor (when folded) and a large display when opened with good software, good battery life and fast charging as well. Motorola even throws in a premium pair of its Buds+ (Review) TWS earphones in the box to sweeten the deal.

The company even jumped onto the AI bandwagon and offered Google’s Gemini on the large and functional cover display, which in itself is something to look at. Oppo’s Find N3 Flip (Review comes close as it offers a good set of cameras, while Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 5 (Review) and the new Galaxy Z Flip 6 (First Impressions) are high on AI. But Motorola’s cover display and excellent software integration still makes it the clamshell foldable to beat.