If you miss the heady days of early 2000s Britain and want to reminisce then the latest phones from Motorola could lend you a helping hand. It’s been 20 years since the original Motorola Razr launched in 2004 and revolutionised the mobile phone market with its stunning thin design and cool factor that gave serious competition to Nokia. Nowadays Motorola’s main competition in the Android smartphone world is Samsung and its Galaxy line, and two new Motorola flip phones are taking the fight to the Galaxy Z Flip 5.
The Motorola Razr 50 and Motorola Razr 50 Ultra are Android folding phones that keep the classic Razr branding but are modern devices with clever foldable displays. The devices snap shut – just like you used to do when you sassily hang up a call – making them much smaller to slip into a pocket or bag than a regular slab style smartphone.
They’re coated in either vegan leather or vegan suede on the back in several eye-catching colours, so they should feel luxurious while also being slightly more smash resistant – though both new phones have large external glass screens that you can use when they’re closed to take calls, reply to texts, change song, check the weather and loads more besides thanks to clever widget.
You can also easily run entire apps on the screen too without having to fiddle extensively with the phone’s settings, something Samsung buries in the settings menus of its Z Flip 5 to stop you doing. The screen on the outside of the pricier Razr 50 Ultra is a whopping four inches, giving you enough room to use Google Maps or load up a spotify playlist without having to unfold your phone.
When you do flip it open there’s a generous 6.9 inch OLED screen inside, the same size as the one on the cheaper Razr 50, which has a slightly smaller 3.6 inch cover screen that still lets you do a lot on it. Foldable tech gets better with each passing year too, and Moto says the hinge on these flips is smaller, collects less dust than before and is more durable. Impressively, the phones will also survive a dunk in the bath or pool thanks to their IPX8 water resistance rating.
The pair will act like regular phones most of the time, but have clever features that only a flip with an outer screen can have, like using it as a viewfinder so people can see what they look like before you take a snap of them, while bending the phone to 90 degrees lets you use it like a 90s-style camcorder for video.
Both flips also come with Google’s Gemini app built-in for new AI features that link up with your Google services, as well as Moto’s own Moto AI for things ike creating unique wallpapers, and a tool that uses AI to improve the look of your photos.
If you fancy a flip for your next phone, the Motorola Razr 50 Ultra goes on sale on 26 June and will cost £999 – £50 less than the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5. The Razr 50 will cost £799 and will be available later in July.
