The Motorola Razr is an overpriced flip phone with underperforming specs

It’s natural to compare the Razr to the new Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, and it’s not flattering to Motorola

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The hinge design allows the display collapse into a gentle curve instead of a hard crease.

Chris Chang

Published: 5:00am, 7 May 2020Updated: 10:02pm, 7 May 2020

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

The new Motorola Razr foldable smartphone generated a lot of buzz when it was announced late last year. A smartphone with the looks of the original Razr V3 flip phone seems to have elicited a lot of nostalgia.

After spending some time with the phone, I think it does have some benefits when compared with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, a similar style of foldable phone that I also tested. But the new Razr also has a fatal flaw: A squeaky hinge that will annoy you every time you use it.

WHAT I DISLIKE

When I first unfolded the Razr, the first thing I noticed was the squeak. The sound is like squeaky wooden floors, and it’s very unsettling on a US$1,500 device. It’s especially bad considering people tend to check their phones more than 50 times a day. That’s a lot of folding and unfolding.

The sound comes from Razr’s unique hinge design. It allows the screen to curl when the phone is folded up, keeping it from having a visible crease on the screen like other foldable smartphones. So Razr managed to get rid of one of the biggest flaws of other foldables while introducing another terrible one. This isn’t a flaw I could live with in my daily device.

Folding and unfolding the Razr isn’t easy, either. In my first few attempts, I almost dropped it... twice! The top half of the phone is slightly heavier, and the hinge is a lot stronger than the one on the Z Flip, requiring a bit of force to open it.

And once unfolded, it’s not comfortable to hold, and the fingerprint reader is hard to reach. Located on the bottom chin, the sensor isn’t where a user would be expected to naturally put their thumb.