Motorola Razr review: flip flop
Motorola Razr, Motorola Razr. It is definitely a phonethat folds in half. I just wish that I had othernice things to say about it. (soft music) The Motorola Razr is a $1,500 dollar phone that's available exclusivelyon Verizon in the US, although available is kind of optimistic. There have been shipping delays and it's not reallyshowing up in stores yet in a consistent way. It's almost like this phone isn't really ready to be sold yet and that's because it isn't. I'm not gonna beat around the bush here. The Razr is bad and evenif you think you can deal with its trade-offs, I'm telling you not to really try at all. But the Razr is at leastbad in interesting ways because this foldingthing, it really is neat. You can see the good phonethat's inside this bad one. See, every phone has trade-offs, but the Razrs trade-offsare a little different than what you're used to with most phones. What are you willing to trade in order to get a flipphone with a folding screen? Something that can fit in your pocket and that isn't too thick andthat folds completely flat and even has a seconddisplay on the outside. Well, first you're gonnahave to trade a lot of money, it's $1,500 which is a sky high cost relative to this Razr's capabilities.
If this phone didn't fold in half and it cost a penny over say, 250, bucks, I would tell you not to buy it. Even at that price, I don'tknow if I'd even be sure. Motorola makes the Moto G Power which is much better thanthis phone and costs $250. That is six times less than this Razr. Next you trade on camera quality. I'm sorry but the 16-megapixelcamera on this phone is middling at best. It's kind of camera that you'dexpect on a mid-range phone from a couple of years ago. It's passable but it's super hard to justify this camera in 2020 and definitely not forhow much this phone costs. It's just behind. Too many of the shots have blur, there's terrible low-lightresults and, you know what? Just getting focused withthis thing is kind of a chore. Now, don't get me wrong, I can sometimes get somenice shots with this camera, but you can pretty muchsay that about any camera. I do like some of thecamera features though, it shows this cute little facewhen you're taking a photo. You can take selfies with the main camera instead of the bad selfiecamera which is good. And there are some neat camera effects like there's a cinemagraph effect and there's a spot color effect for making just one part of the photograph have a little pop of color. Basically, the camera isretro in pretty much bad ways but also weirdly sometimes,that's good every now and then. Like, take a look at the shot of Aaron. It's objectively a badphoto but I kind of love it. Another trade-off is the screen.
Look, it's a folding screen so it's just not gonna be asnice on the overall merits as a Samsung or Apple screen but I still think it's passable. The crease is actually less visible here than it was on the GalaxyFold but you can feel the fact that it's a flexible screen. It's got weird gaps behind the hinge. And that doesn't bother me that much but what does bother me is thescreen actually feels loose in the bottom left hand corner like you can feel itkind of jostling around every time you hit the back button. The reason the screendoes all that weird stuff is because it has to move and it has to havethose gaps underneath it so that the thing canfold completely flat, I mean here, look, you can see it moving as I fold it down and the way it closes is actually really clever. It forms this teardrop on the inside that lets it fold completely flat. The trade-off is maybe worth it, but I don't know, just barely. The next trade-off thatyou're gonna have to make is just overall performance. In order to make everything fit in this teeny tiny little package, Motorola had to go with aslower than usual processor for Android phones but that really shouldn't affect yourexperience for day-to-day stuff.
I was actually fine with it. One of the reasons that Motorola went with that tiny littleprocessor is for battery life and it turns out the batterylife is kind of (laughs). I did manage to get afull day a couple of days but I really had to work for it. Most days I was toppingoff in the late afternoon. It does not support wireless charging but it does support fast charging when you plug it in via the USB-C port. Oh, also this is running Android 9 which is another trade-off and since it's a Verizonphone, there is a ton, and I mean, just a ton ofVerizon crap around this thing. There were 12 extra apps by my account, they're pushing the user messaging app, their cloud backup app, and there's a bunch oftheir spammy little games. On the bright side Motorolasoftware enhancements are actually pretty good. I like their gestures forturning on the camera or whatever and this retro RazrEaster egg is pretty neat. And overall, this justfeels like basic Android. There's also this peakscreen on the front, which mostly just shows younotifications and it's okay.
You have to do a lot of weirdswiping and holding the icons so it's a little limited. It's not even as good anotification management system as like a smartwatch butit's better than nothing. So those are the four big trade-offs, price, camera, screen, and performance. And maybe you're tellingyourself, "Hey you know what? "I'm okay with all those things", because this is a sick, flip phone, and I'm tired of big giantslab sticking out of my pocket, plus, it's just cooland I like cool things. It is so satisfying to openthis thing to take calls and slam it close when youwanna hang up on somebody, so cool, all those things are true. The whole point of thisphone is how cool it is to have a folding phone and the experience of opening and closing it and the experience of openingand closing it kinda sucks. That creaking that you heardat the top of the video, it is very real and it'sonly gotten worse every day as I've used this phone.
In fact, Motorola even had toissue a statement about it. Here it is, "When foldingand unfolding Razr, "you may hear a sound which is intrinsic "to the mechanical movement of the phone. "Razr has undergonerigorous durability testing, "and the reported sounds in no way "affect the quality of the product." Sorry, but it does affectthe quality of the product. The sound and the feelof the flip on this phone really do matter. I mean, here's the new Razrcan barely do it one handed, but I could do it but it's a little slow and just sort of eh, andthen here is the OG Razr and this, way more satisfying. Let's just go back for asecond to this folding screen. It is plastic and so it'snot gonna be as durable as a regular glass screen, but Motorola says that it willlast the life of the phone. I don't know, I'm not so sure. But let's just take themat their word on that. There's still the fact that theexperience here isn't great. Motorola says that bumpsand lumps are normal and I don't know, but it's so fragile that they even tell you youcan't put it in your pocket with the phone open,you've gotta close it first and that doesn't really inspire confidence for the long-term, but the whole thing that's supposed to justifyall those trade-offs, the experience of it,it's just not that good and if it's not that goodthen, well, what's the point? Now, look, the Razr issuper cool when it's closed. I think it looks good, it'sgot this retro aesthetic and the first few times you do it, it is really neat to unfold it. The 6.2 inch screen givesyou all the benefits of a huge phone, exceptfor the width, I guess, but it is a tiny little pocketable package and I think I like theidea of this form factor more than I do of phonethat folds out into a tablet like the Galaxy Fold.
But I can't stop thinkingabout those trade-offs. How much should you payextra for the folding part? Like I said, this phone, if it costs $250 and didn't fold would be unacceptable. And this thing costs $1,500. How much are you willingto trade for a fold? You know, another word fortrade-off is compromise and that's what the MotorolaRazr is, a compromised phone. Hey, thank you so much for watching. There is another flip phonethat just got announced, it's Samsung's phone,it's the Galaxy Z Flip. We just did a hands on with it so you should click to look at that. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait,wait, wait, wait, take one. Just think of the stuff, end card. Thanks for watching.
If this phone didn't fold in half and it cost a penny over say, 250, bucks, I would tell you not to buy it. Even at that price, I don'tknow if I'd even be sure. Motorola makes the Moto G Power which is much better thanthis phone and costs $250. That is six times less than this Razr. Next you trade on camera quality. I'm sorry but the 16-megapixelcamera on this phone is middling at best. It's kind of camera that you'dexpect on a mid-range phone from a couple of years ago. It's passable but it's super hard to justify this camera in 2020 and definitely not forhow much this phone costs. It's just behind. Too many of the shots have blur, there's terrible low-lightresults and, you know what? Just getting focused withthis thing is kind of a chore. Now, don't get me wrong, I can sometimes get somenice shots with this camera, but you can pretty muchsay that about any camera. I do like some of thecamera features though, it shows this cute little facewhen you're taking a photo. You can take selfies with the main camera instead of the bad selfiecamera which is good. And there are some neat camera effects like there's a cinemagraph effect and there's a spot color effect for making just one part of the photograph have a little pop of color. Basically, the camera isretro in pretty much bad ways but also weirdly sometimes,that's good every now and then. Like, take a look at the shot of Aaron. It's objectively a badphoto but I kind of love it. Another trade-off is the screen.
Look, it's a folding screen so it's just not gonna be asnice on the overall merits as a Samsung or Apple screen but I still think it's passable. The crease is actually less visible here than it was on the GalaxyFold but you can feel the fact that it's a flexible screen. It's got weird gaps behind the hinge. And that doesn't bother me that much but what does bother me is thescreen actually feels loose in the bottom left hand corner like you can feel itkind of jostling around every time you hit the back button. The reason the screendoes all that weird stuff is because it has to move and it has to havethose gaps underneath it so that the thing canfold completely flat, I mean here, look, you can see it moving as I fold it down and the way it closes is actually really clever. It forms this teardrop on the inside that lets it fold completely flat. The trade-off is maybe worth it, but I don't know, just barely. The next trade-off thatyou're gonna have to make is just overall performance. In order to make everything fit in this teeny tiny little package, Motorola had to go with aslower than usual processor for Android phones but that really shouldn't affect yourexperience for day-to-day stuff.
I was actually fine with it. One of the reasons that Motorola went with that tiny littleprocessor is for battery life and it turns out the batterylife is kind of (laughs). I did manage to get afull day a couple of days but I really had to work for it. Most days I was toppingoff in the late afternoon. It does not support wireless charging but it does support fast charging when you plug it in via the USB-C port. Oh, also this is running Android 9 which is another trade-off and since it's a Verizonphone, there is a ton, and I mean, just a ton ofVerizon crap around this thing. There were 12 extra apps by my account, they're pushing the user messaging app, their cloud backup app, and there's a bunch oftheir spammy little games. On the bright side Motorolasoftware enhancements are actually pretty good. I like their gestures forturning on the camera or whatever and this retro RazrEaster egg is pretty neat. And overall, this justfeels like basic Android. There's also this peakscreen on the front, which mostly just shows younotifications and it's okay.
You have to do a lot of weirdswiping and holding the icons so it's a little limited. It's not even as good anotification management system as like a smartwatch butit's better than nothing. So those are the four big trade-offs, price, camera, screen, and performance. And maybe you're tellingyourself, "Hey you know what? "I'm okay with all those things", because this is a sick, flip phone, and I'm tired of big giantslab sticking out of my pocket, plus, it's just cooland I like cool things. It is so satisfying to openthis thing to take calls and slam it close when youwanna hang up on somebody, so cool, all those things are true. The whole point of thisphone is how cool it is to have a folding phone and the experience of opening and closing it and the experience of openingand closing it kinda sucks. That creaking that you heardat the top of the video, it is very real and it'sonly gotten worse every day as I've used this phone.
In fact, Motorola even had toissue a statement about it. Here it is, "When foldingand unfolding Razr, "you may hear a sound which is intrinsic "to the mechanical movement of the phone. "Razr has undergonerigorous durability testing, "and the reported sounds in no way "affect the quality of the product." Sorry, but it does affectthe quality of the product. The sound and the feelof the flip on this phone really do matter. I mean, here's the new Razrcan barely do it one handed, but I could do it but it's a little slow and just sort of eh, andthen here is the OG Razr and this, way more satisfying. Let's just go back for asecond to this folding screen. It is plastic and so it'snot gonna be as durable as a regular glass screen, but Motorola says that it willlast the life of the phone. I don't know, I'm not so sure. But let's just take themat their word on that. There's still the fact that theexperience here isn't great. Motorola says that bumpsand lumps are normal and I don't know, but it's so fragile that they even tell you youcan't put it in your pocket with the phone open,you've gotta close it first and that doesn't really inspire confidence for the long-term, but the whole thing that's supposed to justifyall those trade-offs, the experience of it,it's just not that good and if it's not that goodthen, well, what's the point? Now, look, the Razr issuper cool when it's closed. I think it looks good, it'sgot this retro aesthetic and the first few times you do it, it is really neat to unfold it. The 6.2 inch screen givesyou all the benefits of a huge phone, exceptfor the width, I guess, but it is a tiny little pocketable package and I think I like theidea of this form factor more than I do of phonethat folds out into a tablet like the Galaxy Fold.
But I can't stop thinkingabout those trade-offs. How much should you payextra for the folding part? Like I said, this phone, if it costs $250 and didn't fold would be unacceptable. And this thing costs $1,500. How much are you willingto trade for a fold? You know, another word fortrade-off is compromise and that's what the MotorolaRazr is, a compromised phone. Hey, thank you so much for watching. There is another flip phonethat just got announced, it's Samsung's phone,it's the Galaxy Z Flip. We just did a hands on with it so you should click to look at that. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait,wait, wait, wait, take one. Just think of the stuff, end card. Thanks for watching.
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