Folding season is back and Motorola is leading the charge with updated versions of its Razr Plus and Razr phones. It will arrive next month in some pool-friendly colours, with upgraded screens – and big an upgrade in the case of the Razr 2024 — and IPX8 for full water immersion resistance. And you know what else is pretty hot? Prices did not rise.
The Motorola Razr Plus 2024 still starts at $999 and comes with a Snapdragon 8S Gen 3 chipset and 12GB of RAM. The cover screen now measures four inches, a significant upgrade over the previous generation’s 3.6-inch panel. It’s an LTPO display with a refresh rate of up to 165 Hz; the internal screen is still a 6.9-inch 1080p OLED. The main rear camera features an updated 50-megapixel sensor, and the ultra-wide lens of the previous model has been replaced with a 2x telephoto lens.
Honestly, the standard Razr 2024 might be the more impressive device this time around. It’s still $699 with a 6.9-inch internal screen, but its new 3.6-inch cover screen now matches the size of last year’s Razr Plus. The previous generation Razr offered a small 1.5-inch screen that severely limited its functionality. It was the cheapest flip-style foldable device sold in the US, but that didn’t mean much when the cover screen was so limited. This time with a bigger screen cover – and a better water resistance rating – it’s starting to look like a seriously good deal. And the orange spritz variant? So sweet.
The Razr makes a few concessions – there’s a MediaTek Dimensity 7300X chipset and 8GB of RAM. Wired charging tops out at a (still fairly fast) 30W compared to the Razr Plus’ 45W, though both models get a welcome upgrade to 15W wireless charging, up from 5W on last year’s models. The Razr also has a new 50-megapixel main camera, but carries over the 13-megapixel ultra-wide that wasn’t very good in last year’s model.
Both models use a new hinge that they claim offers better dust resistance. Motorola has also made some software improvements to the cover screen. There’s a new widget panel that seems like a handy addition, and you can now zoom out to see all your panels at once. There’s a new smart desktop display mode, so you can put your phone in flexible mode and play a photo slideshow on the start screen that sounds like StandBy.
Always-on screen that rules is now supported. And one more great news for me personally: you can now download Google Gemini Assistant and launch it on your home screen, which will come in handy if you want to turn the Razr into a human-style wearable AI (not Do it). if you do turn this foldable device into a wearable, the pink and spring green color options are sure to catch the eye.
Staying on trend for 2024, Motorola is also announcing a set of new AI tools that sound useful but aren’t shipping yet. That’s the thing. You’ll be able to say “Catch me” to get an AI-generated summary of high-priority alerts – sounds familiar. Or say “Remember this” to have the phone capture something on the screen that you’ll want to refer to later.
There’s also a “Pay Attention” command to automatically record the conversation, transcribe it, and provide a summary. The company also intends to make it all contextual, so it will tailor responses based on where you are and what you’re doing. Sounds nice, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
The 2024 Motorola Razr and Razr Plus will be available for pre-order on July 10th and will go on sale on July 24th.