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Motorola Razr 2022 will try for foldable glory again on August 2

Nadeem Sarwar
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Motorola has just announced that its next clamshell foldable phone, the Motorola Razr 2022, will make its highly anticipated debut on August 2 in China. It will be joined on the launch stage by the flagship Moto X30 Pro, which is rumored to pack a massive 200-megapixel primary camera.

The company has already given us an official preview of its next foldable phone, teasing a refined device with a curvy profile, dual rear cameras, a larger cover display, and a chinless modern design. So far, Motorola has only shared release plans in China, but given the market availability status of its predecessors, the Razr 2022 should soon be making its way to the U. S. and European markets as well.

Moto Razr 2022 official teaser
Motorola

However, there might be a slight delay in its overseas availability. Reliable leaker DigitalChatStation posted on Weibo that the Motorola Razr 2022 might be delayed. So far, we haven’t heard any plans for the foldable phone’s international launch from Motorola’s smartphone marketing teams outside of China.

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Leveling the playing field with Samsung

To date, Motorola’s foldable phones have offered a midrange processor, despite commanding a sky-high price. Samsung, on the other hand, has been arming its Z Flip clamshell foldable with a top-tier Qualcomm chip for the past three generations. That disparity really stood out, as the Motorola Razr 5G commanded $1,200 for all its folding tricks, while the Galaxy Z Flip 3 was up for grabs at $999.

A Motorola executive showing the Moto Razr 2022
Chen Jin / Weibo

With the Razr 2022, Motorola is trying to close that firepower gap with its archrival, the Galaxy Z Flip 4, which is slated to debut at Samsung’s Unpacked event on August 10. If leaks are to be believed, Motorola’s next foldable offering will go with Qualcomm’s latest and greatest Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, which is also touted to be the same silicon that Samsung is eyeing for the Galaxy Z Flip 4.

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The inner foldable display will reportedly be a larger 6.7-inch FHD+ pOLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate. There will reportedly be upgrades in the camera department as well, thanks to a new 50-megapixel main snapper that is joined by a 13MP ultrawide camera. Motorola is also going big on the selfie camera, putting a 32MP sensor behind it.

Official teaser for the next-gen Motorola RAZR foldable phone. pic.twitter.com/bhchRD7A7B

— Nadeemonics (@nsnadeemsarwar) July 13, 2022

More importantly, Motorola is finally moving past a divisive design element – that thick physical chin at the bottom of previous Razr foldables. This time around, Motorola is going with a cleaner look that ditches the physical chin in favor of thinner bezels on all sides, akin to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip clamshell foldable phones.

Another area where Motorola appears to be catching up with Samsung in the innovation department is that darn crease. Or, to put it more accurately, the lack of it. From the leaked renders that we’ve seen so far, it appears that Motorola has finally cracked the code to get rid of the crease.

Alleged renders of Galaxy Z Flip 4.
Alleged renders of Samsung Galaxy Flip 4, the phone Motorola will be going against. (Credit: OnLeaks/91Mobiles) Image used with permission by copyright holder

Samsung, on the other hand, also appears to be making steady progress with its in-house Ultra-Thin Glass (UTG) solution for foldable panels. Motorola’s next foldable phone will reportedly be priced at a rather competitive 1,149 euros. Given the current conversion rates, the same figures might also be applicable for its retail price in the U.S. as well.

With solid hardware updates on its side, combined with an attractive price point, it appears that the Motorola Razr 2022 will finally be competitive enough against the Galaxy Z Fold 4. It’s not going to be easy, as Samsung’s phone has seen roughly 10 million units of its foldable siblings shipped so far.

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Nadeem Sarwar
Nadeem Sarwar
Contributor
Nadeem is a tech journalist who started reading about cool smartphone tech out of curiosity and soon started writing…
Motorola’s folding phone just had a durability test — and it’s painful to watch
Motorola Razr 40 Ultra broken cover screen.

Motorola’s latest clamshell foldable, the Motorola Razr Plus, has won well-deserved praise for its design and the functionally rewarding cover screen that occupies almost one-half of the rear panel. In my brief time with the phone, I felt that Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Z Flip 5 will have a hard time beating this one.
Praise aside, it looks like the Razr Plus' top selling point could also be its undoing. Zack Nelson of JerryRigEverything put the phone through his customarily brutal stress and bend test, and the Razr Plus failed at an unexpected point.
This has NEVER happened before...
While applying pressure on the rear side of the phone to check the hinge strength, the lower edge of the cover display breaks rather awkwardly. First, the screen shatters, and then, the glass assembly can be seen caving inside.
“Never have we ever been able to break a screen with a single finger,” says Nelson. However, it appears that the cover screen’s fragility has more to do with the gap underneath than the structural integrity of the glass itself.
It seems the area right above the hinge is hollow, which means putting pressure on the cover display could damage the screen, as there is no solid support underneath. Simply put, don’t put the phone in the back pocket of your denim jeans, and take care about putting heavy objects over the phone.
What’s really surprising is that unlike the Google Pixel Fold’s fragile frame and hinge mechanism, the Motorola Razr Plus didn’t show any such signs of damage. There was no permanent damage recorded due to the phone bending in the reverse direction, and the flexible OLED screen also remained intact.

It’s quite paradoxical that the cover display — which Motorola markets as the Razr Plus's standout feature — is also the part that is uncannily fragile. But the rest of the package seems solid.
Motorola told Digital Trends in an emailed interview that the Razr Plus ships “with an optimized inner structure stacking and stronger housing design” and that it also features “the industry’s first dual-axis tracking in the teardrop hinge.”
Compared to the previous-generation Razr foldable phones, this one can survive 400,000 folding cycles, twice that of its predecessors. It’s a great phone, and if you want to see how it stands out, Digital Trends Prakhar Khanna had some fun with its cover screen to see everything that it can accomplish. And it's great! So long as you don't accidentally shatter it like this.

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5 awesome things you can do on the Motorola Razr Plus cover screen
Moo on Motorola Razr Plus

The Motorola Razr Plus is easily one of the best, if not the best, flip phones right now. The 3.6-inch cover display is the biggest you can get on a clamshell foldable, and Motorola has put in serious efforts to utilize the outer screen to its full potential — unlike what Oppo did with its Oppo Find N2 Flip.

I’ve had the Razr Plus for a week now, and I keep discovering new ways to utilize the cover display. Here are five awesome things that you can do with it.
Moo time is the best

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The Galaxy Z Flip 5 may steal the Razr Plus’ best feature
Galaxy Z Flip 4 closed on top of a Galaxy Z Fold 4's box.

One of the Galaxy Z Flip 5's most anticipated features is its larger cover screen, and a new report now suggests that the screen will be just as useful as we've been hoping.

According to SamMobile, most, if not all, of the Z Flip 5's apps will be usable on the rumored 3.4-inch display. This means that Flip 5 owners should have no problem using the outer screen to do just about everything they want with the phone without needing to unfold it. The report also says that Google is working on optimizing its most used first-party apps for the smaller display — namely, YouTube, Google Maps, and Google Messages.

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