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The new Motorola Razr 5G is official: updated design & better battery for $1399

Updated: Sep 11, 2020, 9:57 AM

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The new Motorola Razr 5G is official: updated design & better battery for $1399

Motorola just announced the Razr 5G, the company’s newest compact foldable and the sequel to last year’s beautiful (but flawed) Razr reboot. This time around, Moto’s outfitted the smartphone with updates across the board, including more powerful specs, a refined design, and major software upgrades to build a much more convincing package.

An updated design with a more premium look & feel

The most immediate difference with the Razr 5G is the shiny glass back and sleeker physical build, which now features a slick, brushed-metal finish and a slimmer bottom chin. The updated design is subtle but more polished, and the fingerprint sensor’s new positioning on the back should improve ergonomics too. The new model is a titch lighter than its predecessor at 192 grams and slightly more compact thanks to its trim bezels.

And beyond aesthetics? Given that long-term durability is a major concern for all foldables, Motorola says that the design of the Zero Gap Hinge has been refined to offer a tighter, more solid feel both folded and unfolded—though the company still stands behind the durability of last year’s Razr.

The Moto Razr 5G in Polished Graphite, Blush Gold, and Liquid Mercury

The foldable display itself is still the same 6.2-inch pOLED panel, but the surrounding housing and support mechanisms help keep the display taut and smooth, like a conventional glass display, while providing a better defense against dirt and dust. Motorola says the new Razr is designed for 200,000 flips, which translates to 100+ flips a day for five years.

A mediocre spec lineup was one of the 2019 Razr’s biggest weaknesses, but Motorola stepped up its game and equipped the Razr 5G with a number of hardware upgrades, including a new Snapdragon 765G chipset, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of internal storage. Compared to the older SD710 system-on-chip that ran the show on last year’s Razr, this year’s setup coasts well past ‘mediocre’ and solidly into ‘competent’ territory, though it still trails behind the latest and greatest Snapdragon 865+ that powers the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5G.

Majorly improved Quick View outer display

The Razr 5G's outer Quick View display offers additional functionality

The Razr’s greatest strength is easily its capable Quick View display, and Motorola clearly doubled down on this asset with a number of significant improvements. Though the hardware remains the same, the software has received a complete refit, which now allows it to fully open and run apps on the outer display as opposed to just displaying notifications.

Though not all apps will make sense ergonomically, Motorola says any app can be enabled to run on the external display, so users can pick and choose which ones are most useful to them. The company emphasizes that the phone promotes mindful usage, and that it was designed as a compact device first, larger device second. We’ll have to test and see how well this concept works in real life, but on paper, this is a major step forward in terms of functionality, and a huge advantage over the Razr’s rivals.

The Razr’s redesign also made space to house a larger battery cell, which now features a capacity of 2,800mAh, up from 2,510mAh. Paired with the über-efficient SD765G processor, Motorola claims the new Razr will offer solid all-day battery life, along with 15W TurboPower charging for speedier top-ups. We suspect the greater functionality of the Quick View display (and consequently reduced usage of the main display) will play a role as well.

Upgraded camera systems

Sitting below (or above!) the outer display is the upgraded 48MP camera, which offers a f/1.7 aperture and 1.6μm pixel size, with 4:1 pixel binning for better detail and lighting. If that sounds familiar, it’s very similar to any number of recent Motorola devices, like the main camera on the Moto G 5G Plus and Motorola One 5G. Motorola’s cameras have been pretty solid this year, so the Razr 5G should be plenty capable as far as photography goes.

The Razr also offers super-fast autofocus with a ToF sensor and optical image stabilization for reduced camera shake. There’s no telephoto or wide-angle lens here, and it seems that 4K video capture didn’t make the cut. 60fps video is capped at 1080p as well. Like last year’s model, the new Razr also features a small notch on the inner display, which houses a selfie camera for video conferencing on the big screen—though this year, the resolution has been bumped up to 20MP (from 5MP) for much better picture quality.

For software, the Razr 5G ships with Motorola’s minimalist UI over Android 10, which will see updates to Android 12 or beyond, according to the manufacturer. The interface features Motorola’s signature features like Moto Actions and Peek Display, along with a new, gesture-based UI on the external display to support all the extra functionality it offers.

Pricing & Availability

Now for the big part: The new Razr 5G will be available this fall in three color variants for $1399. It’s still expensive, but a much better value than last year’s model and possibly many of its foldable peers, especially as it undercuts the Z Flip 5G.

And unlike last year’s Verizon exclusivity, the Razr 5G will be available unlocked from retailers including Amazon, B&H Photo, Best Buy, or from AT&T or T-Mobile, with no UWB version in sight. All variants will support eSIM as well as a physical nanoSIM card.

While many rivals feel like big devices that can get smaller, the new Razr 5G feels like a compact phone that can grow bigger when needed. Though we reserve judgement for now, Motorola’s latest effort looks like a step in the right direction in this exciting new foldable territory.