- Motorola announced its new $1,500 Razr smartphone with a nearly identical flip-phone design as the original from the mid 2000s.
- The new Razr has a 6.2-inch foldable screen and a 2.7-inch screen on the outside.
- It’s pretty tall and incredibly thin when it’s unfolded, but it folds down to a compact device that’s smaller than any phone with a 6.2-inch screen.
- The specs aren’t too impressive, at least on paper, but it’s too early to tell the new Razr’s performance.
- The new Razr will be available to pre-order on December 26, and it’ll be fully released in January 2020.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Rejoice, those of you who remember Motorola’s iconic Razr flip phone from the mid 2000s – it’s back.
In 2019, the Razr return in the form of a foldable smartphone with the same name, and even a nearly identical-yet-modernized design.
Even those who don’t remember it, Motorola’s new Razr looks like an ultra-sleek smartphone with a large screen that folds down into a compact square-like device.
The new Motorola Razr was announced on Wednesday, and it’ll be available to pre-order exclusively on Verizon in the US starting December 26. It’ll be fully released in January 2020 at Verizon stores, a few Walmart locations, and Motorola’s website.
Outside the US, the new Razr will be available in Canada in January 2020, and it'll be available to buy in select markets in Europe in December 2019. It'll also be available in Latin America, Asia, and Australia.
Now here's the gut-wrencher. It costs $1,500.
Check out everything you need to know about Motorola's new Razr foldable smartphone:
Motorola's new Razr foldable smartphone is exactly what it sounds like — a modernized foldable smartphone version of the classic Razr from the mid 2000s.
Unfolded, the new Razr will have a 6.2-inch foldable OLED screen with an 876p resolution that's technically sharper than the iPhone 11.
The phone will be pretty tall at 172mm, or 6.8 inches - taller than most phones with large screens. It won't be that much narrower than most regular smartphone designs.
It'll also be incredibly slim when unfolded at 6.9mm. Most phones are more than 8mm thick.
Flip the screen down, and the phone's height is reduced to 94mm, or just 3.7 inches.
That's when the real appeal of foldable smartphones come in. It's way smaller than any phone with a 6.2-inch screen. On the outside, the new Razr looks like a wider version of the original.
Unlike Samsung's Galaxy Fold, the new Razr's screen can fold down completely flat, where it's 14mm thick, which is quite a bit thicker than most smartphones.
The hinge in the new Razr is Motorola's secret sauce when it comes to its ability to fold completely flat.
The exterior has a 2.7-inch OLED touchscreen with 800x600 resolution for basic functions like notifications, music controls, and responding to texts and emails.
It's also a viewfinder for selfies taken with the new Razr's main 16-megapixel camera.
There's also a 5-megapixel selfie camera in the notch at the top of the screen when you flip the new Razr open.
The new Razr retains the original design's bulge at the bottom of the phone, but unlike the original, the bulge is where you'll find the fingerprint sensor to unlock the phone.
The new Razr runs on the Snapdragon 710 chip, 6 GB of RAM, and comes with 128 GB of storage, which places it in the upper mid-range when it comes to performance, at least on paper.
It also runs on Android 9 at launch, even though Android 10 was released in September.
Battery-wise, you're getting 2,510mAh, which isn't very big, especially for a phone with a 6.2-inch screen.
The Pixel 4 XL with a 6.3-inch screen has a 3,700mAh battery, and its battery life isn't stellar. Perhaps the smaller battery won't have to work so hard to power the Snapdragon 710 chip and the 876p resolution screen on the new Razr, and we might still see some decent battery life.
Another spec that stood out was the new Razr's 205g weight.
This makes it heavier than a lot of smartphones. It's a hair heavier than the iPhone 11 at 194g.
Since the new Razr's screen is foldable, it's still presumably fragile.
It has a one year warranty in the US where you can get the screen repaired or replaced for free if it's damaged during normal use, with a free 24-hour turnaround. Outside of the one-year warranty, or if the display was damaged outside of normal use, it'll cost $300 to replace the screen. Motorola will announce warranty information outside the US when the new Razrs become available.
