Foldable season is back, and Motorola is leading the way with refreshed versions of its Razr Plus and Razr flip phones. They’ll arrive next month in some pool-worthy colors, with upgraded screens – a big improvement in the case of the Razr 2024 — and IPX8 ratings for complete submersion resistance. And you know what else is really hot? Prices have not increased.
The Motorola Razr Plus 2024 still starts at $999 and comes with a Snapdragon 8S Gen 3 chip and 12GB of RAM. The lid display is now four inches, a significant upgrade from the previous generation’s 3.6-inch panel. It’s an LTPO display with a refresh rate of up to 165 Hz; The internal display is still a 6.9-inch 1080p OLED. The main rear camera features an updated 50-megapixel sensor, and the ultra-wide lens on the previous model has been replaced with a 2x telephoto.
Honestly, though, the standard Razr 2024 might be the most compelling device this time around. It’s still $699 with a 6.9-inch internal display, but its new 3.6-inch covered screen now matches the size of last year’s Razr Plus. The previous generation Razr offered a small 1.5-inch screen that seriously limited its functionality. It was the cheapest flip-style folding sold in the US, but that didn’t mean much when the lid’s display was so limited. This time with a larger screen cover – and a stronger water resistance rating – it’s starting to look like a seriously good deal. And that orange spritz color option? How sweet.
The Razr makes some concessions – it has a MediaTek Dimensity 7300X chip and 8GB of RAM. Wired charging comes in at 30W (still pretty fast) compared to the Razr Plus’ 45W, though both models get a welcome upgrade to 15W wireless charging, up from 5W on last year’s models. The Razr also has the new 50-megapixel primary camera, but carries over the 13-megapixel ultra-wide camera that wasn’t very good on last year’s model.
Both models use a new hinge that claims to offer better dust resistance. Motorola has also made some changes to the cover display software. There’s a new widget panel, which looks like a useful addition, and you can now zoom in to see all your panels at once. There’s a clever new desktop display mode so you can set your phone in flexible mode and play a StandBy-ish-sounding photo slideshow on the cover screen.
There is now support for an always-on display, which fixes it. And another great news for me personally: you can now download Google’s Gemini Assistant and use it on the cover screen, which will come in handy if you want to turn the Razr into a human-style AI-clad artificial device ( don’t do this). if you I DO turn this foldable into a wearable, the hot pink and spring green color options are sure to make a statement.
Staying on trend for 2024, Motorola is also announcing a bunch of new AI tools that look useful but aren’t shipping yet. It’s a thing. You’ll be able to say “Catch me up” to get an AI-generated summary of high-priority notifications – sounds familiar. Or you’ll say “Remember this” to have the phone record something on the screen that you want to refer to later.
There’s also a Pay Attention command to automatically record a conversation, transcribe it, and provide a summary. The company also aims to make this context-aware, so it will tailor responses based on where you are and what you’re doing. Sounds cool, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
The 2024 Motorola Razr and Razr Plus will be available for pre-order on July 10th and will go on sale on July 24th.