The Motorola Razr 50 Ultra cuts the mustard

Motorola first launched the Razr series of phones in 2004, but their most recent series of clamshell folding smartphones really kicked off in 2019. The brand has always been about style, and most recently nostalgia, but the Motorola Razr 50 Ultra is anything but old fashioned. With a sleek, fashionable design on the outside and cutting-edge use of AI on the inside, Motorola’s newest entry has enough new tricks up its sleeve to provide a compelling alternative to the big players in the market.

   

 

The design of the Motorola Razr 50 Ultra

Let’s get this out of the way early – there are just some questions that everybody asks when they see the Motorola Razr 50 Ultra’s flip design.

Q: Can you see the fold on the screen?

A: For the most part, no. There is a slight dip in the centre, at the ‘fold’, but you can only really see this viewed at an extreme angle. For the most part the screen actually looks indistinguishable from a flat phone’s screen.

However, you can feel it, especially when you’re scrolling. Personally I didn’t mind it at all.

Q: Does the hinge seem like it’s going to break?

A: The Razr 50 feels like a precise, sturdy piece of equipment. Every time you unfold it out into a flat position it gently snaps into place in a way that feels quite satisfying. Folding it closed has a similar experience, and the hinge feels quite solid.

Q: Is there any point to having a flip phone?

A: Phones and pockets of jeans have been in an extended battle, with phones steadily growing and pockets rapidly shrinking. I have to say the Motorola Razr is a lot comfier in the pocket than my usual phone. The ability to fold the phone into its own camera stand is also frequently useful.

 

External Screen

The back of the Razr 50 Ultra is a 4 inch AMOLED touch screen. There are a few useful features associated with this screen, such as giving easy access to the clock, music controls or maps while the phone is flipped shut.

The most interesting use of the external screen is to give a preview of what the rear camera is seeing. Most people who see this feature in action are instantly quite taken with it, but when they’re actually confronted with the preview of themselves I found it was relatively common for people to react in abject horror. As someone who has been asked more than once to re-take photos until they’re right, I actually think this is a killer feature that feels like it will definitely become more widespread in future. For the moment, however, people need some time to adapt to the concept.

 

Mobile Photography with Motorola Razr 50 Ultra

The Razr 50 Ultra has two rear-facing cameras that it swaps between depending on the distance of the subject; one for close-up portrait shots or video, and one with a telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom, and an ‘Ultra res’ mode that can take 50 MP photos.

As with all modern phones, the Razr 50 Ultra’s cameras make extensive use of AI to optimise photos in a myriad of ways. The most impressive of these is the Portrait mode, which does a great job of using AI powered blurring to mimic the look of a professional 24, 35, 50 or 85mm camera lens, as well as generally make your loved ones look more attractive by subtly smoothing out minor blemishes. I took this phone to a number of gatherings, and people were consistently impressed by the stunning shots it can take.

The downside of this mode is that there is a relatively high failure rate where the AI gets the blurring entirely wrong. I have so many shots that are almost perfect, but an earring has been erroneously blurred as if it’s far off in the distance. The AI also frequently has trouble discerning people from complex backgrounds (especially if they have long hair). I’d estimate around 25% of photos I took ended up with some kind of incorrect/dodgy looking background blur. Even so, I still routinely use this mode because when it works, it works extremely well. Just as past generations of photographers learned to direct their subjects, with an understanding of the limitations of their cameras, I suspect we will all soon learn how to take shots that make the best use of the AI.

Unfortunately the lush AI powered Portrait mode is too compute-intensive for shooting video with today’s hardware, however the Razr 50 Ultra uses AI when shooting video in the form of adaptive stabilisation, which results in terrifically smooth video capture regardless of how shaky your hands are.

 

Operating System and Software

Some Android phone providers have a tendency to stuff their phones full of mandatory bloatware (Samsung, I’m looking at you). Motorola have been fairly restrained here; the majority of their own bundled software is either inoffensive (like their Notes app), or else provides useful customisation options for the Razr 50 Ultra’s unique hardware.

One interesting use of AI here is the “Magic Canvas”, which leverages Google Cloud AI to generate wallpapers based on your prompts. This is a fun idea that I killed some time with, and did end up using it for my wallpapers long-term.

One issue with the AI generated images (as of time of this writing) is that it seems like they’ve been trained on other people’s fairly average images. Generally speaking what the Magic Canvas comes up with are images that are less stunning than the ones you’ll be able to take yourself with the Razr 50 Ultra’s fantastic cameras. As a free service, it is fun to play with, but you will probably find yourself more drawn to the nicer looking curated wallpapers the phone comes with.

One of these photos was taken with the Razr’s camera, the other three are AI generated using Motorola’s Magic Canvas:

      

The Razr 50 Ultra uses Google’s new Gemini AI as the default assistant. When this is connected to the rest of your Google products it can do interesting things like summarise your day’s emails. At the moment we’re still in an awkward phase where Gemini is offering to do creative jobs for me, like writing this review (which I personally have no interest in outsourcing to AI), but is incapable of doing the fiddly work I actually want it to do for me (like figuring out which is the closest cinema to me that’s playing Deadpool & Wolverine around 8pm tonight). That said, Gemini now will probably be incomparable to Gemini in a couple of months, so doubtlessly this is on the cusp of being incredibly useful.

 

Issues

On the subject of the Operating System, one drawback of the Razr 50 Ultra is that Motorola are only committing to passing along 3 of Android’s major Operating System upgrades (so Android 15, 16 and 17), and 4 years of security updates. This lags far behind Google & Samsung’s commitment of 7 OS upgrades for their recent phones, and Apple’s 6 for their new iPhone. If you are someone who keeps their phones long-term, this could be a major consideration for you.

Personally, the only thing about this phone that I genuinely hate is its very patchy detection of when I am holding it up to my ear. It is a basic expectation of smartphones that when you are on a call, and you hold the phone to your ear, the touch screen disables. I can’t tell you how many times I was in the midst of a call only to be interrupted by the realisation my ear was placing the caller on hold, calling someone else entirely, or drafting a gibberish text message to a distant acquaintance in my Contacts list. Hopefully this is the kind of thing Motorola can tweak with a patch update sometime soon.

 

Other features

With a IPX8 water resistant rating, Motorola say the Razr 50 Ultra can be “submerged up to 1.5 metres in still, fresh water for up to 30 minutes”. I was certainly not game enough to test that claim out in this review, so I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one!

The 4000mAh battery saw me finishing each day with about 40% of charge when I plugged it in for the night. If your usage is heavier than mine, fast charging mode can get you another 12 hours or so of usage from about 12 minutes of charging. If you’re into wireless charging, the Razr 50 Ultra can support up to 15W wireless.

 

Final thoughts on the Motorola Razr 50 Ultra

The Motorola Razr 50 Ultra is a sleek, beautiful phone. I have been a long-standing cynic of the entire modern flip-phone design, but it’s funny how once you have a thing you start finding uses for it. There have been many occasions where I’ve found myself bending the phone into a useful shape to have it self-stand for a posed photo, and its compact fold-away profile is very handy.

The main winner in this phone for me is its gorgeous Portrait mode photos, and the preview it displays to your subjects on the rear display. If your loved ones or friends get opinionated about the quality of the shots you take of them, this is going to improve your life and theirs.

If you kept your last smartphone for longer than 4 years, the Razr 50 Ultra’s relatively meagre commitment of long-term security patches should be a cause for concern. Otherwise, this is a solid, slick phone that is a dream to use.

Thanks to Motorola for providing the hardware for this review. You can get your own from all the major shops in store or online for $1,699.00.

 

Specifications

• Operating System: Android™ 14
• Storage: 512 GB built-in, UFS 4.0
• Processor: Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 Mobile Platform
• Memory (RAM): 12 GB, LPDDR5X
• Security: Side fingerprint sensor, face detection
• Battery: 4000 mAh non-removable
• Charging: 45W TurboPower™ charging support (68W In-box charger) 15W wireless charging support (charger sold separately) 5W reverse charging
• Display Size
  • Main display: 6.9″ FHD+ pOLED display
  • External display: 4.0″ pOLED display
• Resolution:
  • Main display: FHD+ (2640 x 1080) | 413 ppi
  • External display: 1272 x 1080 | 417 ppi
• Screen to Body Ratio: Active Area-Body 85.33%
• Aspect Ratio: Main display is 22:9
• Dimensions:
  • Open: 73.99 x 171.42 x 7.09 mm
  • Closed: 73.99 x 88.09 x 15.32 mm
• Water Protection: IPX8 Water-resistant design
• Weight: 189 g