Motorola RAZR 2022 review: Motorola gets serious about foldables

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Nearly twenty years ago, Motorola was in the absolute dominant position when it came to stylish flip phones, thanks to its iconic RAZR V3. It was the fashionable handset of the day, hands down.

Ever since then, Motorola's tried to recapture that RAZR magic, most recently applying it to its foldable flip smartphone line. While it did offer an alternative to Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip phones, they were never that powerful as phones while having the same high price as their South Korean counterparts.

That changes with the Motorola RAZR 2022. Foldable phones are still expensive, because nobody sane is going to pretend that a $1,599 phone is a budget model. However, comparatively against the Galaxy Z Flip 4, the Motorola RAZR 2022 is an impressive offering.

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Design: Who knew a folding phone could get bigger?

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

It's all but impossible to assess the Motorola RAZR 2022 and not compare it against the very similar Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4. Both phones have the same core idea baked into their design, providing a full sized Android phone within a flip phone folding system.

Samsung can claim to have been there first with four generations of Flip under its belt compared to Motorola's three, but then Moto had the classic RAZR back in the day, and there's still some design nods to that classic design in play here too.

Not that the Motorola RAZR 2022 is a slavish Z Flip clone anyway. For a start, it's notably wider than the Z Flip 4 at 86.5x79.8x17mm compared to the 84.9x71.9x17.1mm of Samsung's handset. There's less of a thinning taper to its more square design overall as well.

But it's the width that matters in this context.

Technically both phones feature 6.7 inch internal displays, but Motorola's opted for a wider internal display compared to the taller and thinner rectangle of the Samsung. That's very much a taste matter depending on hand grip and how you like your information displayed for the most part.

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

The Motorola RAZR 2022's internal 6.7 inch display has a 1080x2400 pixel resolution with support for up to 144Hz refresh rates. It only offers a choice between 60Hz for better battery life or an automatic mode, rather than user-defined switching, so you're very much at the mercy of which apps can and will use those higher refresh rates.

In folded state, that width has a far greater impact, with the Motorola RAZR 2022 offering up a 2.7 inch display compared to the 1.9 inch secondary screen on Samsung's foldable.

You wouldn't think that 0.8 inches would make that much difference, but it really does make for a very different impact. Not quite to the level of making it a full secondary screen a la the Galaxy Z Fold 4 (https://www.finder.com.au/samsung-galaxy-z-fold4-review), but still with more utility across a range of smaller screen widgets.

Folding phones have notable issues with durability, and the comparison here between the Motorola RAZR 2022 and the Z Flip 4 is an odd one.

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

The Motorola RAZR 2022 is rated at IP52, so it's only good for a spray of water, but there is some more serious dust ingress protection here.

Comparably, the Z Flip 4 is IPX8, so you can (theoretically) dunk it in water, but there's no promises made at all if any dust floats near its frame. Ideally, neither should happen to your shiny new Motorola RAZR 2022, but given how many of Motorola's phones omit any kind of IP rating at all, it's nice to at least see some engineering grunt being shifted this way.

Motorola only sells the Motorola RAZR 2022 in a single black colour, although it's not a consistent black colour, especially at the back. The bottom rear of the phone is a slightly grippy matte finish with a Motorola batwing logo on it.

It's very resistant to fingerprint smudges and looks the part of a premium phone. The top of the phone – which becomes the "front" when it's folded – is mostly that 2.7 display, and it loves fingerprint smudges like few phones I've tested previously.

Camera: Flip phones still struggle to provide premium cameras

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The Motorola RAZR 2022 has the same challenge that the comparable Z Flip 4 has in camera terms. There's just not a lot of space for camera lenses, and there's a need to keep costs within the range where consumers will actually buy the phone. What that leads to is a somewhat familiar combination of a dual "rear" camera setup and single "selfie" camera to play with.

I've dropped those in quotes simply because as a foldable phone, there are plenty of points where you might be using the rear dual cameras at the front, when the Motorola RAZR 2022 is folded up. At that time, the single selfie camera is an internal camera, no good for taking photos at all.

At a technical level, what that leaves the Motorola RAZR 2022 is a 50MP f/1.8 wide camera, 13MP f/2.2 ultrawide 120˚ camera and 32MP f/2.4 selfie camera. It's a decent array, but nothing really all that special when you consider the Motorola RAZR 2022's $1599 asking price.

Camera quality as a result is fair, but not that exciting. By default, if you use the phone folded up it produces square Instagram ready shots, identical to the frame it can place on that front screen.

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

The actual selfie camera can produce decent results, even though its bokeh is 100% artificial:

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

You do get a degree of zoom, but it's fully digital and quickly limited in appeal. As an example, playing the role of tourist I headed down to Sydney's iconic Circular Quay for a trio of shots of one of the city's most notable landmarks.

With the ultra wide lens, there's a pleasing shot:

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

And it's a similar story from the standard wide lens:

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

With digital zoom if you were hoping to get in the flags on the top of the bridge? Much less compelling:

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

This, aside from the wallet hit is the price you pay right now for these compact foldable phones. The cameras aren't abjectly awful, because they're mostly functional – but it's very easy at this price to get a far more capable camera phone.

Motorola RAZR 2022 Sample Photos

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

Performance: RAZR steps into the big leagues

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

When Motorola first relaunched the RAZR as a foldable a few years back, you paid a serious price for the folding technology alone, but Motorola clawed back some of that cost by equipping prior models with more mid-range processor choices.

That's not the way it's built the Motorola RAZR 2022, which runs from a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of onboard storage. There's no storage expansion capacity, but that's not uncommon for folding phones.

All of that fits very comfortably into the recipe for "premium 2022 phone", and predictably that leads to performance from the Motorola RAZR 2022 that matches up very nicely with its counterparts.

Here's how it compares against a range of similarly priced phones, as well as – once again – the competing Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 using Geekbench 5's CPU test:

Here's how it compares using 3DMark's more intense Wild Life Extreme graphics benchmark:

The Motorola RAZR 2022 jostles with the Z Flip 4 in pure numeric terms, but they're both very nicely equipped for just about any Android task you'd care to throw at them.

The Motorola RAZR 2022 is an Android 12 phone, which is an odd choice for a phone given that Android 13 is widely available right now. What's more disappointing here is that Motorola Australia's official spec sheet only suggests that it'll get a single OS upgrade officially. Given that competitors are pitching 3-5 year upgrades for their flagships, a single year just won't cut it, Motorola.

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

The other aspect of any foldable phone is how well it handles that folding aspect within software. You can do the usual tricks like propping the Motorola RAZR 2022 up on a bench to watch video while cooking dinner, and Motorola's typical range of physical actions is also supported for fast flashlight or camera snapping as well.

The external 2.7 inch display on the Motorola RAZR 2022 dwarfs the comparable 1.9 inch screen on the "outside" of the Z Flip 4, and that does mean that it can do a little more than Samsung's phone. It's capable of YouTube playback for example, although I'm struggling to come up with a use case where you wouldn't open it for that.

Likewise, while you can open Google Sheets on the external display, I can't quite see why you would, because it's so tiny as to be mostly useless.

Where it does shine brighter is with longer notifications on the notification blind, a more rich media player and better framing for quick photo taking with the dual rear cameras which are, because it's a foldable, now on the "front" of the phone as you're looking at it. Yes, that's possible on the Z Flip 4 as well, but through a tiny thin line photo screen compared to the larger rectangle the Motorola RAZR 2022 offers you.

Battery: Surprisingly great

Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

Folding phones all have a problem when it comes to battery capacity. Sure, they might expand out into larger devices, but fitting in batteries as well as the necessary mechanisms for folding mean that they typically don't match up to the same sized full phones when it comes to battery capacity. There's just no space left to pack in the power cells.

On paper, that's true for the Motorola RAZR 2022 as well. Underneath its folding frame you'll find a meagre 3,500mAh battery. Combine the power of the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 and that 144Hz screen, and I had some serious worries about its battery life. Again drawing up the comparison against the Galaxy Flip line, it's only this year that I've seen anything approaching reasonable battery life there.

However, Motorola seems to have worked some true magic with the Motorola RAZR 2022. It just keeps on ticking all day long even under heavy use case scenarios. Finder's battery test is on the milder side, looking for over 90% battery after an hour of video streaming as a decent guide to a phone that can last at least a day. Every percentage point over 90% is a big plus.

Here's how the Motorola RAZR 2022 compares:

Unlike its competitors, the Motorola RAZR 2022 ships with a charger in the box, capable of up to 33W fast charging over USB-C. The big caveat here for such a pricey phone is that wireless charging is notably absent. While that does dodge the wireless charging problem I've observed with the Galaxy Z Flip 4 (https://youtu.be/S5lxfo7gIOY), it's still a feature that a phone of this price really ought to offer.

Should you buy the Motorola RAZR 2022?

Despite the fact that foldables have now been around for a few years, they're still a niche part of the overall smartphone market, even at premium price points. There's really only one flip foldable to compare the Motorola RAZR 2022 against, after all. Buying a flip phone is very much a choice to say that this compact form is more important to you than other factors.

Prior Motorola RAZR generations were easily outclassed by Samsung's Flips of that year, if only because Motorola used to provide lesser processors at the same high price.

That changes with the Motorola RAZR 2022, which matches the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4's performance in most cases, while very much outclassing it in battery endurance terms.

It's very much worth your while considering if a foldable is worth it, because the Motorola RAZR 2022's $1599 asking price could score you a wide array of standard smartphones, many of which run just as fast and with better cameras and enhanced durability. But if you've got your heart set on a flip-style foldable, the Motorola RAZR 2022 is the one to buy right now.

Pricing and availability

The Motorola RAZR 2022 retails in Australia for $1,599

Price

RRP: $1,599.00

Where to buy

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Specifications

How we tested

Motorola loaned me a Motorola RAZR 2022 for the purposes of review. I tested it using a range of standard benchmarks, as well as for more ad-hoc usage across a range of apps and usage scenarios.

As a product reviewer I've got more than 20 years of experience covering the consumer tech space including nearly every smartphone released in that timeframe. I'm a multi-time Australian IT Journo award winner, including winner of the 2022 Best Reviewer award.