Motorola’s foldable Razr 50 range should scare Samsung

OPINION: Motorola this week revealed its latest update to its foldable Razr range, the Razr 50 and Razr 50 Ultra – or Razr 50 and 50 Plus if you live in the US – and there are meaningful updates to both foldables that make them more capable, and importantly, more tempting than ever.

The Motorola Razr 50 Ultra sports an even bigger cover screen than last year, measuring in at a whopping 4 inches, that practically takes up the entire cover panel. It also boasts an improved camera setup with a new high-res telephoto lens, a much faster Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset, a larger battery and improved IPX8 water resistance.

The more affordable Motorola Razr 50 has also had a significant upgrade in the cover screen department, ditching the narrow ticker-like screen for the same 3.6-inch cover screen as last year’s top-end Razr 40 Ultra, along with a matching 50MP main camera, an even bigger 4200mAh battery than the Ultra model and matching IPX8 water resistance too.

Not to mention that both foldables are available in some pretty vibrant colour options, including a hot pink Razr 50 Ultra as a little hat-tilt to the 20-year-old hot pink Razr, and boast matching vegan leather rears too. 

I went hands-on with both foldables at the launch in New York earlier this week, and they’re just as impressive as they sound on paper. This all spells bad news for Samsung. Potentially, anyway. 

You see, last year’s Razr 40 Ultra not only had a larger external cover at 3.6 inches compared to Samsung’s 3.4-inch Z Flip 5, but it was more capable too. 

While Samsung offered a handful of widgets and limited support for apps on the cover screen, Motorola went all in on usability, including access to any app installed on the phone and better-designed, more useful widgets, translating to a much better experience overall.

Of course, we’re only weeks away from seeing the new Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6, the true competitor to Motorola’s new Razr collection, but it’s not looking good for Team Samsung if recent rumours are to be believed.

What’s to come from Samsung?

Let’s start with the big one; cover screen tech. I’ve already waxed lyrical about just how much better the Motorola cover screen experience is, and it looks like that lead is set to continue even with the release of the Z Flip 6. 

That’s because, despite early rumours of a slight increase in cover screen size to 3.9 inches, more recent rumours suggest it could stick with the same 3.4-inch size as the Z Flip 5. 

Plus, it uses the same odd upside-down-folder cutout rather than encompassing the cameras within the screen. While that arguably helps with usability as app elements don’t end up behind the cameras, it also means that the Z Flip 6 should have pretty thick black bezels, making the tech simply look older. Combined with the smaller screen, the Razr 50 Ultra has an easy win on its hands here. 

There’s no word yet on whether Samsung has improved the usability of the cover screen with the Z Flip 6 and what I imagine will be the OneUI 6.2 update, but you’d better hope for its own sake that it has. 

It’s also worth pointing out that, if the rumoured screen size of 3.4 inches is true, it’s beaten by that of the more affordable Razr 50 and its 3.6-inch cover screen. That means you might be able to get an equal, or possibly even better, cover screen experience for a few hundred quid less than Samsung’s upcoming flagship foldable.

It’s not just the cover screen though; Motorola could potentially have a win in the camera department too. The Motorola Razr 50 Ultra sports a new high-res 50MP main camera with improved aperture, up to f/1.7, complete with dual-pixel PDAF and OIS capabilities. The more impressive addition is a matching 50MP 2x telephoto lens, designed for improved portrait photography, further improved by Motorola’s AI-powered photo enhancement engine. 

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, on the other hand, is rumoured to sport a matching upgraded 50MP f/1.8 main camera – up from a measly 12MP on the Z Flip 5 – though that is set to be matched once again by a 12MP ultrawide and a 10MP selfie camera within. 

Granted, the Razr 50 Ultra doesn’t have an ultrawide like the Z Flip 6 is rumoured to feature, but you know what does feature a matching 50MP main and 13MP ultrawide as well as a more detailed 32MP selfie camera? Yep, the more affordable Razr 50. 

That’s an important element to consider as, despite the rumoured similarities in tech, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 is said to be $100 more in the US at $1099, and that’ll likely translate to a similar price increase in the UK too, potentially taking the price up to as much as £1149. 

Considering that the Razr 50 retails for £799 and the 50 Ultra retails for £999, it seems that the Razrs could not only be the more capable foldables, but foldables that are actually more affordable than Samsung’s clamshell alternative too. 

We’ve only got a couple of weeks to go until we find out for sure, with an announcement scheduled for 10 July, but I’m quietly confident that Motorola has got itself a couple of winners on its hands with the Razr 50 and Razr 50 Ultra this year.