Motorola Razr 40 review: Cheap (the good kind)

By Anula Wiwatowska

Last updated 09 August 2023

Motorola Razr 40 Review: The Verdict

The Motorola Razr 40 is the cheapest foldable so far, but if you didn’t know you wouldn’t guess that was the case. Compared to last year’s Razr, which was much the same as the Razr 40 technically speaking, the budget Motorola foldable looks, feels, and performs better - for $500 less.

What we love

Excellent price
Premium finishes
BATTERY LIFE!

What could be improved

Lowlight performance poor
Small external display isn't very useful

The essentials

Performance: Great. No complaints.
Battery: Insane. Seven hours of screen time!
Screen: Best crease on a foldable, but the external display is very small.
Camera: An improvement from last year, but still has some problems with motion and lowlight

85/100

RRP $999

Little treats are the cornerstone of an economic downturn. As the cost of living goes up, we’re more likely to get ourselves something small “as a treat” than we are to splurge on luxury items. With phones being seen more and more as a necessity than a luxury, the Motorola Razr 40 has come at the perfect time. A premium design with a bargainous price tag. A little treat, wrapped in utility.

Battery and performance

Where “cheap” has often been synonymous with “poor quality” for the Motorola Razr 40 it simply means “competitive”. Released as the most affordable foldable to date, the Razr 40 is ostensibly last year’s flagship model with a couple tweaks, but in reality the two devices are worlds apart.

Just like all of us watching our spending, some compromises were made for the Razr 40 but none of these are to the detriment of the user. The most obvious downgrade for the discounted price is the external display. Rather than the 2.7-inch external display from last year that can run any app, the Razr 40 has a 1.5-inch external display with limited functionality. You can select from a handful of widgets to run on the front display like weather, and a timer, you can use it as a viewing screen to take pictures, and scroll through notifications, but otherwise it is mostly a clock.

The upside of this small display, however, is there is plenty of room for a bigger battery. Last year’s Razr had a 3,500mAh capacity and lasted around four hours of screen time between charges. This model has a 4,200mAh capacity and easily manages seven hours of screen time per charge. Battery has historically been the downfall of flip-style foldables. Early Samsung Z Flip iterations haven’t been able to get through a full day without switching off features, and CNET reported similar findings from the revived 2020 Razr which wasn’t widely available to review.

Despite having a Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 chipset rather than the beefier series 8 processor in last year’s, and this year’s flagship models, Motorola has improved its updates. Where last year’s Razr came with just two system and three security updates, both the Razr 40 and 40 Ultra come with three system updates and four years of security updates. Ultimately this gives the new foldables a longer shelf-life, bringing the yearly cost down to around $250 which is a bargain in this economy.

When it comes to cost compromises, I’m happy to trade external-display real estate for a battery and update schedules with some longevity. Especially when a phone is this pretty.

Look and feel

Where the 2022 Razr looked cheap (the bad kind), the cheap (good kind) 2023 model’s premium finishes feel expensive.

Last year I called the Razr’s monochromatic choice “kind of boring”. It was two shades of black, and I love black, but it was such a fall from grace from the glorious hot pink Razr of 2005. This year Motorola returned to form, offering the Razr 40 in three bright colours with a vegan leather finish and aluminium frame.

Even though the vegan leather is undoubtedly cheaper to manufacture, the updated design repels some of the pitfalls that make budget phones look tawdry. It is unlikely to scratch, or pick up fingerprints which will keep the phone looking better for longer. It's an illusion of luxury, and an effective one.

Not only does the vegan leather look sleeker, it gives the phone better grip. Motorola provides a matching case in the box, but I found the phone slipped less in my hands without the case. Plus I really didn’t want to cover up the purple.

Once unfolded, Motorola continues to have the one of the smoothest creases in any foldable, even compared to the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Z Fold 5 Samsung released in July. While you can still see the fold, my thumb barely registers it while sliding across.

Camera performance

Camera performance is generally one of the casualties in both mid-range and foldable phones, and while the Razr 40 isn’t at Pixel 7 level, it is a surprising treat.

The Razr 40’s primary, ultrawide, and selfie lenses take vibrant and focused pictures in most conditions. Although it still struggles in low light and with movement like many other phones in this price range.

The detail and focus on daylight snaps are excellent, with minimal blowout around bright lights. Android phones all tend to up the saturation and contrast a little bit by default, so some of these colours can come out almost cartoonish - like my dog’s snake toy - but by and large the quality of well-lit pictures is better than expected.

Motorola Razr 40 Camera Gallery

Check out these camera samples taken on the Motorola Razr 40. Click or tap on any photo to see a larger version.

Picture quality does degrade in low light, however. In the best case, low light pictures lost a good amount of detail, and in the worst, night mode entirely upended the colour balance. Take the garlic bread below; the night mode shot looks like the saturation has been pushed up, the shadows have been deepened, and the camera has abandoned a focal point. Rather than using focus to create depth in the picture, it overcompensates with colour ‘correction’ making the photo look like Instagram in 2016.

Low light mode: off

Low light mode: on

The rear camera also struggles with movement, making for some blurry photos of my dog. Once again this is a focus issue - rather than focusing on the moving subject the camera picks something still in the foreground or background. While this is most obvious on pictures of my fast moving kelpie, even small motion like the movement of a ponytail can throw off the focus.

Although it's not best in class, the Razr 40’s camera performance is an improvement on last year’s device despite the price drop. If you’re one for capturing memories rather than aesthetic pictures, the Razr will exceed your needs. But if you’re a camera nerd, you’re probably so embroiled in the Apple ecosystem that you’re not reading this review anyway.

Motorola Razr 40 - Final Thoughts

With phone sales down, and the cost of living at an all-time high, it's likely more consumers will be considering cheaper devices when it's time to upgrade. The premium finishes, along with the foldable form factor make the Motorola Razr 40 feel less like a compromise and more like a choice.

Budget-conscious devices can be considered a downgrade for consumers, but taking into account the upgraded camera performance, battery, and design of the device, the Razr 40 is the inverse of our economy right now. You really are getting more, for less.