n’tthat
gships run
stlose 15-20%.
e,which
leDoc word
andwatching
e tolast a dayntthat the
vesmore
ou’re
smaller screen
notifications
artphone. That
t, however
ankopen the
thit in anynga small
hone
ckly,even
umcharging
charger. There’s
mode for eking
henyou’reather good,
andwillturnheadswhen you pull it
outinpublic.It’sslimmerthan the
Samsung Galaxy Fold, and has a
much more satisfying snap-to-close
feel to it. It feels like a throwback to
the days when phones were more
than identikit black rectangles, and
it’s functional to boot.
There’s no shame in missing a
phone design that really worked.
Flip phones were the future when
Motorola unleashed the StarTAC on
the world back in 1996, and the
Razr v3 cemented the company’s
reputation as an innovator. The
new Razr is a great reminder that
phones used to be physically small
yet loud – both in terms of design
and volume, and especially when
you snapped it closed to hang up
on some fool.An inspired effort to liberate the
world from the dominant glass
rectangle phone design.denserthanexpected,andits
width,combinedwitha resistant
hinge (to keep it shut), make it
difficult to open one-handed...
which sort of defeats the whole
point of a flip phone. Given the
hard-to-grip sides, which narrow
to a sharp edge, you have to stab
a finger in between both sides and
pry it open.
Furthermore the volume rocker
and lock buttons have been
slimmed down to fit this narrowed
edge. They’re hard to tell apart and
tough to press. This is especially
annoying when it’s closed, as the
buttons are the prime controls for
media and selfie photos.
The thick chin, containing the
USB-C port and speakers, also has
drawbacks, as you’ll have to dig to
the bottom edge of the display to
access navigation (either the
standard three-button nav or the
Moto bar, a gesture control bar). On
the chin’s front is an ovoid
fingerprint sensor which doesn’t
read fingers in any orientation but
upright, and even then it’s a bit
Performance
TheMotorola Razr is pricier than
flagshipsmartphones, yet is less
powerful. While it doesn’t hang or
stutter with basic navigation or
media watching, its Snapdragon
710 processor and 6GB of RAM are
more suited to mid-range phones.It’s far from inadequate for basic
tasks, but more intensive tasks will
tax the chipset: the phone scored
1,522 on Geekbench 5’s multi-core
test. For comparison, last year’s
Samsung Galaxy S10 scored 2,056
in the same test, while the OnePlus
7 Pro hit 2666. The Razr is far from
the fastest on the block.
The other drawback to its
performance is the operating
system version: the Motorola Razr
ships with Android 9 Pie. While it’s
not a dealbreaker, it’s an odd choice
to launch this phone without the
latest version, Android 10... which
was released in September 2019.
Our standard battery-drain test- a 90-minute video at full
brightness – dropped the battery
from full charge down to 84%, and
“This phone feels like a throwback to the days when
phones were more than identikit black rectangles”
a 16%batterylossisn
extreme,asmostflag
throughthesametes
Withmoderateusage
includedsomeGoog
processing,gaming,a
videos,it didmanage
beforerecharging.
There’sanargumen
minifrontdisplaysav
battery,giventhatyo
illuminatinga muchs
tocheckthetimeorn
thanonatypicalsma
doesn’treallyplayou- you’llstillneedtoy
phonetointeractwit
meaningfulfashion.
Theupsideofhavin
capacityis thatthe ph
rechargesratherquic
withthe18Wmaximu
speedofthein-boxc
alsoa batterysaverm
outa bitmorelifewh
runninglow.
This phone looksra
hadthedeviceit’s startedtomake
creakingnoiseswhilebending
inward.Therearen’tanycreases
yet,butthe soundisdisquieting.
Anotherannoyanceis inactually
flippingthephoneopen– it is a
bit tough to do. The handset is
finicky.Sadly,allthistightdesign
hasrequiredthetrimmingofperks
suchasa 3.5mmheadphonejack
or,moreimportantly, a microSD
slot–you’llhavetomakedo with
the128GB of on-board storage.P f
Upgrade
Motorola Razr
April 2020 | |^85
MotorolaRazr
Supplier http://www.motorola.com
CPU Octa-core (2x2.2 GHz 360 Gold +
6x1.7 GHz Kryo 360 Silver)
RAM 6GB
Storage 128 G B
Screen 876 x 2142 pixels
Weight 205gSpecs as reviewed