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Motorola’s newest folding phone is cheaper than the iPhone 15

The open Motorola Razr 40, seen from the back.
Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Motorola is finally putting its most affordable foldable phone on the shelves in the U.S. The Motorola Razr (2023) will be up for preorder from Motorola’s official website starting October 12, while AT&T, Boost Infinite, Boost Mobile, Consumer Cellular, T-Mobile, US Cellular, and Xfinity Mobile will get it a week later.

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The most alluring aspect of the Motorola phone is its asking price, which puts it strictly in the midrange segment despite offering sophisticated foldable phone engineering. For a limited spell, the device will go for an irresistible sticker price of $600. It will also be sold unlocked via Amazon and Best Buy, in addition to Motorola’s own storefront.

T-Mobile subscribers, both new and old, can get the Razr (2023) for free when exchanging a phone tethered to the Go5G Plus and Go5G Next plans. Xfinity Mobile is giving $400 off for its customers, while AT&T will sell the Razr for just $2 per month without any trade-in caveats for select plans.

Even without the carrier offers and a lower introductory price, the official retail price of the Razr (2023) has been set at $700, which still undercuts the likes of Apple and Samsung. The iPhone 15 starts at $799, while the Google Pixel 8 will set you back $699.

A person opening the Motorola Razr 40.
Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

At that asking price, the Motorola Razr (2023) is the most affordable foldable phone from a mainstream brand out there. But it still has quite some identity of its own, rocking a vegan leather build with a sturdy metallic chassis that comes in multiple peppy colors and impressive work done to minimize the display crease.

“I haven’t noticed the crease at all,” Digital Trends’ Andy Boxall wrote in his review of the Motorola Razr (2023). It offers a 6.9-inch FHD+ pOLED display with a neat 144Hz refresh rate and 1,400 nits of peak brightness. On the outside is a 1.5-inch OLED cover display that is also sufficiently bright but serves more like an at-a-glance screen for checking on notifications and alerts. A less distracting screen, if you will!

Motorola’s foldable device draws power from Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7 Gen 1, ticking alongside 8GB of RAM and 256GB of onboard storage. Authentication duties are shouldered by a side-mounted fingerprint scanner integrated into the power button. The battery capacity is 4,200 mAh, and it supports 33W fast charging, which once again surpasses what Apple has to offer.

A person holding the closed Motorola Razr 40.
Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

The primary camera relies on a 64-megapixel sensor, while the 13MP ultrawide camera is also capable of taking macro shots. For selfies and video calls, you get a 32MP selfie camera on the Motorola Razr (2023). Camera features include night vision and audio zoom, but you don’t get the ability to capture 4K videos.

But at a starting price of $599 — and even $699 once the initial promotional pricing is gone — the Motorola Razr (2023) punches way above its weight class, not just with the sheer strength of the specs sheet, but also because it offers the flexibility of an adorably pocketable foldable phone. It just so happens that it looks damn good while at it. The only chink in its armor is that Motorola’s software support assurance isn’t quite up to the mark, but for a foldable this cheap, that’s hardly reason enough not to consider it.

Nadeem Sarwar
Nadeem is a tech and science journalist who started reading about cool smartphone tech out of curiosity and soon started…
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