Motorola Razr

£1,350 | $1,500 www.motorola.com The Razr folds, but at a high price

The new Razr is a great design concept, but its execution leaves several things to be desired. The ambition and potential are there – and perhaps it will be realized in a successor device – but for now, it’s tough to recommend the Razr at its current high price.

On the plus side, it’s the first clamshell foldable to market, with an unprecedented format that halves the smartphone’s footprint and cashes in on nostalgia with a design that evokes the original Razr V3, while unfolding to reveal a modern smartphone display.

But the drawbacks are equally apparent, with underwhelming specs and cameras, an older operating system (Android 9) out of the box, and questionable design choices that make the phone somewhat cumbersome to use.

We’re looking forward to seeing a refined interface, display, and specs that match this phone’s design promises in a Razr 2. As it is, it’s tough to recommend this Razr to folks who aren’t completely smitten by the physical flip phone flow.

Something important to note, in case you plan on popping your old nano-SIM card into this phone: the new Razr doesn’t have a SIM slot, instead relying on an eSIM. In the UK it’s exclusively available through EE, and only on a contract starting at £94/month with an upfront fee of £100 – all told, that’s £2,356 over 24 months, and that’s only the cheapest option.

Design

The Razr’s design is a mostly great execution of an idea so ludicrous it’s either laughable or genius: flip phones for the smartphone era. Of course, this was shrewdly pitched as homage to the 2004 Motorola Razr v3, one of the most instantly-recognisable phone designs ever.