Motorola Razr 40 review: Flip phone for the masses

Foldable smartphones have been around for quite sometime now and over the years, the brands have witnessed a significant hike when it comes to the sales of foldable phone segment. Despite the growing numbers, a foldable smartphone isn’t a common sight and there are multiple reasons behind it. However, the scenario will likely see a major shift and that is due to Motorola’s new offering, the Motorola Razr 40. The Motorola Razr 40 Ultra has been getting everyone’s attention since it was first unveiled by the company but the vanilla Motorola Razr 40 is the underdog that can not only help the company but also to the foldable smartphone segment. We recently got a chance to use the new Motorola Razr 40 and here’s what we think of it.

Motorola Razr 40: Design

Motorola Razr 40 features the conventional flip phone design and just by looking at it you won’t notice a major difference when compared to other flip phones in the market. However, the thoughts instantly change when you hold the smartphone in your hand. The Motorola Razr 40 feels premium to hold thanks to the rounded edges, neat finishes, metal frame and vegan leather material on the outer side. The vegan leather offers a distinct appeal to the phone and offers confidence to use and feel the smartphone without a case.

Motorola Razr 40 is unlike the most Razr phones launched till date. It gets a minimalistic design and small outer display that looks quite similar to the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4. The outer display panel is integrated with the rear camera and luckily the phone doesn’t have a large camera bump, unlike most flagship smartphones available in the market.

The edges of the lower side are left untouched. The left edge on the upper end houses a SIM card tray and the left edge sports the volume rockers along with a power button that also functions as a fingerprint scanner. The phone gets two mics, one at the top and one at the bottom edge along with USB-C charging port and speaker grille.

The Motorola Razr 40 gets an IP52 certification for water and dust resistance. The lightweight design and vegan leather makes the phone easy to use with a single hand. Motorola Razr 40 doesn't leave a gap when closed down unlike other flip phones which means the crease is almost invisible and hardly bothers.

Motorola Razr 40 review: Display

Let’s talk about the primary display first. The front of the Motorola Razr 40 is occupied by a 6.9-inch pOLED display with a punch-hole cutout at the top centre that houses the selfie camera. The device gets very thin bezels and the display is the same as its premium sibling apart from the refresh rate. The Motorola Razr 40 comes with 144Hz refresh rate and support for HDR10+ playback. The overall display experience on the Motorola Razr 40 turned out to be quite enjoyable due to rich colour production. The folding crease didn’t affect the usage.

Streaming videos on the Motorola Razr 40 is quite fun due to the thin bezels and vibrant output. The Android 13-based MyUX allows you to tweak the settings to get the best out of Razr 40’s display. With 1,400 nits of peak brightness, the display is quite easy on the eyes even in harsh sunlight. We did not face any issues with the viewing angles either. The high refresh rate of Motorola Razr 40 added to the viewing experience on the device.

Motorola Razr 40 also features a 1.5-inch AMOLED cover screen with a 194x368-pixel resolution. The outer display is also quite bright with 1000 nits of peak brightness. Although many may use it to check the notifications, it offers a lot more than that. The outer display can be used to access contacts, weather, music and more. It also acts as a viewfinder if you are taking a selfie with the rear camera.

Motorola Razr 40 review: Camera

When it comes to camera, the Motorola Razr 40 features a dual-camera setup at the rear that consists of a 64MP primary sensor with OIS and 13MP ultra wide sensor. The images that we clicked from the Motorola Razr 40 turned out to be pretty decent. The best thing about the Razr 40 camera is that it does not add unnecessary filters or enhance colours in the photo while processing. The camera provides good output under well-lit conditions however, the low-light photography of Motorola Razr 40 was also pretty decent. The best thing about this device is the grip. Holding the phone with the lower-end while the camera’s on the upper side do the job makes capturing photos and videos fun. The stability and confidence that is offered by the Razr 40 thanks to the vegan leather back and hinge, adds to the overall photography experience.

Another thing worth appreciating about the Motorola Razr 40’s camera is the user interface. The UI of Razr 40’s camera app is simple. We also tried our hand on the portrait mode in the camera. The mode was quite neat and the customisable effect strength feature worked fine. The images were a bit hazy in the low light conditions. You can also use the rear camera to take selfies by using the outer display and smart gestures.,

At the front, the Motorola Razr 40 gets a 32MP camera. The punch-hole selfie camera is quite clear and produces decent photos to share on social media platforms.

Motorola Razr 40 review: Performance

Under the hood, the Motorola Razr 40 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 chipset. The SoC is paired with 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB of UFS 2.2 storage. The smartphone offers smooth day-to-day performance and we did not notice any lag or delay while continuously using the flip functionality. If you keep the foldable feature aside, the Motorola Razr 40 works like any premium flagship-level smartphone available in the market.

The smartphone runs Android 13-based MyUX out of the box making it quite customisable. Just like its name, the Razr 40 literally has shaved away everything when it comes to bloatware, making the device really easy to use and set up. The OS experience is quite similar to the other Motorola phones out there, which in our opinion is the only for the better.


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Gaming on the smartphone is pretty decent. The device didn’t heat up while charging or while recording long videos but it did start to warm up after a couple of matches in Call of Duty. The wide viewing angles, responsive touch and high refresh rate adds to the overall gaming experience. For daily usage, this device will easily cater to your needs without much hassle.

Motorola Razr 40 review: Battery

The Motorola Razr 40 is backed by a 4,200 mAh battery with support for 33W fast charging. The Razr 40 can easily last more than a day with mixed usage that includes light gaming, video streaming, social media and video calls. The outer display does helps to extend the battery life as you don’t go on using the phone whenever you see a notification.

Motorola Razr 40 review: Verdict

Motorola Razr 40 at Rs 59,999 is a deal to steal and as we said earlier, the phone has the potential to turn the tide in favour of foldable phones. The price being the key thing that will surely attract the buyers. For the review, we ditched an iPhone to try the Motorola Razr 40 and that turned out to be a safe bet. The quality and UI of Motorola can get the buyer to trust the device in this range. Even if you are not planning to buy a foldable smartphone, the specs that Razr 40 offers are enough to attract you. Motorola Razr 40 is a powerful and value for money smartphone that surely must have given nightmares to its competitors. The design, camera, battery and performance, Motorola Razr 40 wins big in all the segments.