Motorola Razr 50 review: premium flip design without the premium price tag

In this Motorola Razr 50 review, we take a look at the smartphone's real world performance, camera capabilities, battery life, and more.

• By Ashish Kumar
Published On: 13 September 2024 | 11:36 IST Last Updated On: 5 November 2024 | 11:49 IST

The Motorola Razr 50 is the most affordable flip smartphone of the year in India (so far). Priced at Rs 64,999, it offers many of the same features as the more expensive Motorola Razr 50 Ultra (review), which launched earlier this year at Rs 94,999. Read on to find out what the Motorola Razr 50 offers for its attractive price and if it is a worthwhile purchase.

Verdict

The Motorola Razr 50 is an appealing choice for its flip form factor, offering a compact foldable experience similar to pricier models. However, to make it more affordable, a few compromises have been made in performance, camera quality, battery life, and other aspects. That said, it’s worth considering for its stylish flip form factor, which is unmatched in this price segment.

Design and display

Except for the smaller outer screen, the Motorola Razr 50 design is identical to its elder sibling Razr 50 Ultra. The handset features a 3.63-inch cover display with a sizable bezel around the hinge, as opposed to the 4-inch screen of the Razr 50 Ultra. The hinge is adorned with a vegan leather stripe that complements the smartphone’s overall colour profile. We received the Spritz Orange colour variant for review, which is quite flashy and immediately draws attention.

The bottom half of the back panel also features vegan leather, which feels pleasant against your palm and provides a premium feel. The company includes a two-part hard case with the device, featuring a textured matte finish that offers a good grip while effectively repelling fingerprints and smudges. Even with the case, the handset doesn’t feel bulky. It is sleek and super comfortable to carry all day, thanks to its curved edges and 188 grams weight.

The Motorola Razr 50 is IPX8 certified, offering water resistance but not dust protection. The hinge feels sturdy and operates smoothly, allowing for easy one-handed opening and closing with a bit of practice. When folded, there is no visible gap between the two parts of the screen. Moreover, the hinge is robust enough to hold the smartphone at any angle between 45 and 135 degrees, and unlike the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip6, doesn’t bite your finger.

As for I/O, the smartphone features a USB Type-C port for charging and data transfer on the bottom edge, along with a couple of microphones and a speaker grille. The Razr 50 features Dolby Atmos-powered stereo speakers with Spatial Audio, which provides a crisp listening experience.

Turning to the viewing experience, the Motorola Razr 50 features a 6.9-inch LTPO pOLED main display with FHD+ resolution, a peak brightness of 3,000 nits, and a refresh rate of up to 120Hz. Apart from the superior 165Hz refresh rate found on the more expensive Razr 50 Ultra, this is the same display technology. The crease on the display is nearly imperceptible — visible only from certain angles but not noticeable during use. Notably, there are raised bezels around the display, a common feature in foldables designed to prevent the screen from rubbing against itself when folded.

It is a tall display, which is optimum for vertical content, but horizontal content such as YouTube videos comes with a grey or white border – compromising the immersive experience. Nevertheless, the display is excellent for content consumption both indoors and outdoors. It delivers vivid colours by default, with an option to customise the colour profile in the settings to your liking. The handset supports FHD streaming on platforms like Netflix and other OTT services. With HDR10+ compatibility, you can enjoy crisp, vibrant visuals when watching compatible content.

The 3.63-inch cover display is also a pOLED panel that bears FHD+ resolution. However, the refresh rate is down to 90Hz and the peak brightness is 1,700 nits. Despite its small form factor, you can make the most out of the cover display with different panels that offer support for multiple productivity apps, such as maps, messages, Gmail, WhatsApp, and more, games, along with widgets for weather, calendar, stopwatch, music, etc. In fact, with its on-screen keyboard, you don’t have to flip open the smartphone to respond to a message. The continuation feature also works quite seamlessly – with just a tap you can move a YouTube video, navigation, and other tasks from the main screen to the cover and vice versa.

Cameras

Talking about the cameras, the Motorola Razr 50 sports 50MP OIS and 13MP ultrawide + macro dual cameras on the back. The same setup can be used to click selfies using the cover display. There is a dedicated 32MP front camera in the punch-hole setup on the main display as well. The cameras are loaded with features such as smart colour segmentation, AI-powered action shots, and camcorder mode, among other things. However, the camera setup is not as versatile as the other smartphones in the segment, and the quality is also underwhelming for the price, except for portraits and selfies.

We compared the Motorola Razr 50 camera performance with the OnePlus 12 and here are our findings.

Daylight

Motorola Razr 50

OnePlus 12

The Motorola Razr 50 captures vibrant images from its 50MP primary camera with boosted colours, which may look good on social media. However, the OnePlus 12’s 50MP main shooter beats them with superior detailing and dynamic range. The handset also delivers less saturated colours, resulting in brighter images than its counterpart.

Ultrawide

Motorola Razr 50

OnePlus 12

Switching to the OnePlus 12’s 48MP ultrawide lens results in more saturated images compared to its main camera. However, the difference is less pronounced than with the Motorola Razr 50’s 13MP ultrawide sensor, which preserves more consistent colours between its primary and ultrawide lenses. While the improvement in detail is subtle, the OnePlus 12 does capture sharper images overall. It also offers a wider field of view than the Razr 50. That said, both smartphones exhibit some image distortion around the edges of the frame.

Macro

Motorola Razr 50

OnePlus 12

Both smartphones are capable of capturing macro shots from their ultrawide cameras. The OnePlus 12 automatically switches to macro when moved closer to the subject, whereas it needs to be enabled manually on the Razr 50. The OnePlus smartphone offers better macro images with close-to-reality colours than the Motorola offering.

Portrait

Motorola Razr 50

OnePlus 12

Despite its 64MP dedicated telephoto lens for portraits, the OnePlus 12 underperforms. It often overexposes images, resulting in a loss of detail and undersaturated colours. In contrast, the Motorola Edge 50 leverages its 50MP primary sensor and computational enhancements to deliver portraits with superior detail and more accurate colours.

Selfie

Motorola Razr 50

OnePlus 12

When it comes to selfies, the Motorola Razr 50 outshines the OnePlus 12. Its 32MP front-facing camera captures sharper, more contrasty images than its rival. However, the skin tones can appear slightly off, while the OnePlus delivers more natural and realistic skin tones.

Low light (night mode)

Motorola Razr 50

OnePlus 12

The OnePlus 12 and Motorola Edge 50 both capture long-exposure images in low light. While the OnePlus 12 allows you to disable this feature, the Razr 50 does not. Talking about the results, the OnePlus 12 delivers images with better details and colour accuracy than its counterpart. In contrast, the Razr 50’s images are noticeably grainier and show a purplish tint in the sky.

Performance and software

At the core of the Motorola Razr 50 lies the MediaTek Dimensity 7300X SoC, specifically designed for dual-screen phones. The performance and specs of the chipset are similar to other variants of the Dimensity 7300 SoC that we have seen in affordable and mid-range smartphones, including the CMF Phone 1 and OPPO Reno 12 series. However, for the sub-Rs 70k segment it’s in, the Motorola Razr 50 performance seems subliminal. Rivals like the OnePlus 12, Vivo X100, and other similarly priced phones deliver significantly more power. However, one does need to keep in mind that the Razr 50 is not a regular smartphone and performance is not its USP.

The handset achieves 6,19,345 on AnTuTu, which is roughly 14 lakh points short of the segment-best Vivo X100 score. On Geekbench, the Razr 50 scored 1,051 in single-core and 3,032 in the multi-core tests. Additionally, the phone’s performance dropped to 62.1 percent during the Burnout CPU throttle test. The device doesn’t feel very snappy in real-world use either, with a slight jitter noticeable while scrolling and navigating between apps. Even the side-mounted fingerprint scanner feels slow to respond. Nevertheless, the phone did not freeze or experience any app crashes during our usage.

The Motorola Razr 50 is capable of running graphically demanding games such as BGMI, Call of Duty, and Real Racing 3. We played all three games during which it maintained decent frame rates. However, its thermals increased by 23.4 on aggregate after playing games for 30 minutes each.

When it comes to software, the Motorola Razr 50 runs Android 14-based Hello UI out of the box. The UI is close to stock Android, with only four third-party apps pre-installed — Facebook, LinkedIn, Spotify, and Adobe Scan, which have millions of downloads in India. The remaining 38 pre-installed apps are from Google and Motorola. The list of features remains pretty much the same as the Motorola Razr 50 Ultra. Check out its review to dive deep into the smartphone’s software features.

The Razr 50 includes Moto gestures, allowing you to quickly launch the camera or turn on the flashlight with just a few taps or shakes. It also offers several AI-powered features, such as Magic Canvas and Google’s Gemini, which let you summarise text, write emails, generate images from text, and more. The handset is highly customisable with Style Sync, which creates wallpapers based on the colours of your outfits. Additionally, you can edit images by removing unwanted objects using Magic Editor, and create custom reactions or stickers from any image in your camera roll with Photomojis.

Similar to its Ultra cousin, the Razr 50 will be relevant till at least until 2028 with 3 years of major software and 4 years of security updates.

Battery and charging

The Motorola Razr 50 is equipped with a 4,200mAh battery, supporting 30W wired charging and 15W wireless charging. The compatible wired charger is included in the box and takes 50 minutes to charge the device from 20 percent to 100 percent. The full charge should be seen to you throughout the day if you are a regular user. The handset consumed 5 percent battery on our 30-minute YouTube video streaming test with 50 percent screen brightness and volume levels. The PCMark battery test refused to run on the device.

As far as gaming goes, which involved playing BGMI, Call of Duty, and Real Racing for 30 minutes each, the handset’s battery drained by an average of 23 percent. This means that heavier use might require a quick top-up during the day.

Final verdict

The Motorola Razr 50 stands out from typical smartphones as a flip phone designed for lifestyle users who value style over performance. It excels in this area, offering a unique compact foldable design that no other phone in its price range matches. However, if you’re a power user or a camera enthusiast, you might find better options in smartphones like the Vivo X100 (review) and the OnePlus 12 (review).

The Motorola Razr 50 delivers a premium experience with its flip design and compact form factor, all at a price well below a lakh. It offers reasonable performance and battery life for everyday use, and its camera quality —particularly for portraits and selfies — remains commendable.

Editor’s rating: 7.5 / 10

Reasons to buy

• The Razr 50 boasts a stylish flip design at an affordable price.
• The hinge feels sturdy and operates smoothly.
• The 6.9-inch display with HDR10+ offers vivid and vibrant colours.

Reasons not to buy

• The performance is underwhelming for the price.
• Slower charging speeds compared to rivals.