Motorola Razr 2022 review: a nostalgic flip phone reaching new heights

Anyone who wants a small folding phone should read this Motorola Razr 2022 review. It’s one of the best folding phones you can buy with a clamshell design, starting small and folding out into a regular-sized smartphone. 

Motorola’s Razr phone series was first launched back in 2005 and at the time it was extremely popular, everyone who was anyone wanted one so it quickly became a noughties icon. But after just a few years the flip phone era was over and the Razr was gone.

Against all the odds, Motorola successfully revived the Razr back in 2019, but this time around loading it up with the latest in foldable screen technology. Now on its 3rd generation, the updated Razr series has gone from strength to strength and the most recent model boasts much more advanced hardware than ever before.

In this Motorola Razr 2022 review, I’ll take you through everything I thought about the handset when I tried it out, from what’s new about it to how I found its screen, camera and performance. By the end, you should be able to tell whether this is a good choice for you, or not. 

Motorola Razr 2022 review: price and what’s new 

The Motorola Razr 2022 will set you back £950 in the UK for the model with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. We still haven’t heard anything about when or if the phone will go on sale in the US.

We last saw the Razr back in 2020, and there have been a few changes since then that are worth knowing about. Motorola has gone all out to make this a really advanced smartphone. 

Firstly, the design has changed, gone is the thick bar across the bottom, instead, it has been replaced with a much smaller bezel that surrounds the entire screen. Speaking of which, the HD+ 6.2-inch folding display inside the Razr 2020 has been replaced with a much larger FHD+ 6.7-inch screen with a hole punch style camera centred towards the top. On the front, the 2.7-inch OLED cover display is just about the same, though.

Under the hood, there's a new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset where there was a Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G CPU before. It sits alongside a 3,500mAh battery (up from a 2,800mAh cell) and it can be now charged using the included 30W charger. 

Another change is to the camera system, the main lens has been boosted to 50MP (up from 48MP) with a new 13MP ultrawide camera added to the mix and an upgraded 32MP selfie camera.

Motorola Razr 2022 review: design and screen

Folded up, the 3rd generation of the Motorola Razr is square in shape with a 2.7-inch cover screen, unfolding into a regular-sized smartphone with a 6.7-inch display. 

The cover screen is surrounded by glossy glass and sits next to two camera lenses, while on the back, there’s plastic casing with the Motorola logo discreetly printed across the middle. You can only buy this phone in a Satin Black colourway as things stand.

Lying flat, the main display has quite an obvious fold through it but it doesn’t really get in the way. Surrounded by quite thick raised bezels, the Razr still doesn’t quite look as sleek as other options available on the market. It’s also quite bulky measuring 79.79 x 86.45 x 16.99mm and weighing 200g. Personally I found it too big to comfortably use one-handed especially with the large bezels getting in the way. Motorola has a long way to go to make this compete with the likes of Samsung and Huawei when it comes to design.

When folded up, the size is much more bag friendly, even though it's still quite thick. What's great is that there's next to no gap between the two halves of the main display so it won't be susceptible to trapping dirt. 

In terms of durability, Gorilla Glass 5 protects both sides while the plastic elements feel well-built and sturdy. My only issue was with the hinge which feels ever so slightly loose and so a bit flimsy, but only time will tell whether that will end in disaster or not. 

Thanks to IP52 water and dust resistance, you can be safe in the knowledge that this phone will survive light splashes of rain or a day at the beach although you will still need to be careful not to drop it into a body of water or a pile of dirt.

On the right side of the frame, the Motorola Razr has a fingerprint sensor to unlock it just above where your thumb sits. It works quickly but it's a little too far up to use completely comfortably and it's a little behind the times that Motorola chose to put it there as opposed to in the display. 

Around the frame, there's also a volume rocker towards the top of the phone and a USB-C port along the bottom. There’s no headphones jack here but that’s expected in this day and age. 

The large 6.7-inch screen is big and vibrant enough to use for all sorts of tasks thanks to the FHD+ 2400 x 1080p resolution. Colours pop, lines look sharp and there's a good level of contrast between light and dark areas when you stream TV shows. 

One other quite major benefit is the 144Hz refresh rate which is higher than even the most up-to-date flagships, making for super smooth scrolling, swiping and tapping.

I did find that under bright sunlight, the main screen was quite reflective which made it quite hard to see, especially on the crease of the fold. It was a little prone to fingerprint marks as well so I found myself constantly feeling the need to wipe them away. 

Motorola Razr 2022 review: camera 

A 50MP main lens and a 13MP ultrawide lens make up the Motorola Razr’s rear camera system, which is paired with a 32MP front camera as well. 

Photos are packed full of rich colours, without looking too oversaturated. For most casual photographers it'll do a good enough job of snapping images of landscapes, cityscapes and people, photos will be good enough to use on social media too.  

When you blow them up, you’ll notice that there’s quite a significant lack of detail which results in blurred lines especially when you're looking at objects which are placed further away. Because of that, the digital zoom isn’t particularly effective either, and especially at its maximum of 8x zoom, makes shots look very grainy. 

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One thing the Motorola Razr camera does really well is snapping shots up close to the subject using the Macro Mode. It's not something you can do on all phones and as you can see in the sample shot below, the photos come out looking sharp and precise.

Motorola Razr 2022 review: performance and battery 

The Motorola Razr 2022 is loaded with a high-end CPU, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. Alongside that, you get 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage although there’s no MicroSD card slot to expand it. As you would expect, it comes with the latest Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 as well.

In use, I was pleased with what the Motorola Razr had to offer, it's actually a very powerful flip phone. The system was speedy and I didn't feel it heat up too easily. You'll be able to use it for the majority of tasks without any issues. 

To compare it more directly to other handsets, I ran the Geekbench 5 benchmarking test on it and the Motorola Razr picked up scores of 1,307 in single-core and 4,246 in multi-core which places it amongst some of the most powerful flagships in the world including the Oppo Find X5 Pro or even the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. 

One really up-to-date feature is eSIM support, which means you don’t actually need to insert a physical SIM card, instead, you can download the data directly to the phone. That makes it easier to switch networks and means you can have more than one in use at once.  Of course, if you'd rather slot it in manually then you can still do that as well. 

The 3,500mAh battery wasn't as impressive. In fact, I thought it was a little disappointing because I had to charge it at some point every day if not twice a day, after spending time scrolling social media, replying to messages and browsing the web. 

I ran a test where I downloaded and played an HD video at full brightness to see how long the battery would survive. The result was just over 11 hours in total which is a long way off some recent phones like the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G which lasted up to 25 hours in the same test, although admittedly the longest-lasting phones weren’t foldables. 

When the battery does run dry, the included 30W wired charger was able to take the Motorola Razr 2022 from flat to full in less than an hour. There are no wireless charging capabilities here. 

Running on Android 12, the system is organised intuitively with an app drawer and multiple home screen pages. Icons and lettering look clear and colourful without being over the top or cartoonish like with some other Android skins. 

Unfortunately, it's not as future-proofed as some other comparable devices because you’ll only get 2 years of OS updates and 3 years of security updates. 

There are certain software features which are exclusive to a folding phone like this, for example, if you prop it halfway open on the camera app, it'll automatically place the camera's view on the top half and all of your settings on the bottom half. Similarly, the front Quick View screen has all sorts of uses like composing selfies on the main camera system, quickly skipping through songs on Spotify or checking out what you have planned for the day on your calendar. You can even access your quick settings to turn on Do Not Disturb, light up the torch or to set an alarm. 

Unique to Motorola phones are Moto Actions which are basically shortcuts to different apps and tasks. To name a few, twisting your wrist twice will open the camera, tapping the screen with three fingers will take a screenshot and two karate chop motions will turn on the torch. 

Motorola Razr 2022 review: verdict

As far as folding phones go, the Motorola Razr provides the most promising combination of price and hardware. It’s right up there amongst the leaders of the pack and it even takes things a step further than its rivals when it comes to performance. New faster charging is another welcome feature although the battery life could be improved quite a lot. 

The Razr’s other crowning glory is the 2.7-inch cover screen which is actually a good size to use quite regularly, but it’s also great to see a new 6.7-inch FHD+ display on the inside because it makes certain activities like mobile games much easier.

If you already own a Razr and you’re wondering if it’s worth the upgrade then I would say it absolutely is because this phone is a huge step up from the two generations that came before it. 

Motorola Razr 2022 review: also consider 

If you’re willing to spend a little bit more, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 is worth considering because it’s a more compact, sleeker clamshell-style folding phone that also packs the latest processor, however, the cover screen is a fair amount smaller than the one you get on the Motorola Razr 2022. 

For a larger ‘phablet’ style screen, check out the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4. It has a 6.2-inch screen on the outside and a huge 7.6-inch display on the inside which is well suited to all sorts of more complex tasks, you could even get some work done on it. Naturally, a bigger screen means a higher price and this doesn’t come cheap, you’ll be looking at spending around $1,799 in the States and £1,649 in the UK if you were to buy one.