The Motorola Razr series has been one of the most recognisable phones in human history. It also sold well and made much money for the now Lenovo-owned Motorola. The flip phones took the foldable flip route in late 2020 and are currently in their 5th generation. We got two phones this year, the Razr 50 Ultra and Razr 50. While the latter looks similar to last year’s model, the new Razr 50 is a big upgrade in terms of design when compared to the Razr 40.
Samples from the primary 50-megapixel camera [Tap to expand]
Switching to the ultrawide camera, the results look very different, with less detail, darker shadows, and colour inconsistency. The ultrawide also doesn’t do dynamic range and white balance well. Photos are usable, but nothing great.
Samples from the Ultrawide camera [Tap to Expand]
There’s also a 2x digital zoom option and a Macro mode available. The 2x zoom produces good photos in daylight, but you will find plenty of noise if you zoom in. Meanwhile, the macro photo can produce good results.
Macro photos come out good when there’s plenty of light [Tap to Expand]
In low light conditions, the main camera still does a good job of preserving details and shadows, but the white balance can be off. Saturation and exposures are handled well, though. The ultrawide doesn’t really do well in low light conditions unless you give it a lot of light. A Night mode is available, but that works better with the main camera.
Lowlight samples: Top – Main camera; Bottom – Ultrawide [Tap to Expand]
The selfie camera on the inner display produces good results in daylight conditions with pretty realistic skin tones, good colours, and a wide dynamic range. There’s a good amount of detail as well. However, it’s just better to use the main external camera for selfies, which produces better details.
Coming to video performance, the Razr 50 can shoot 4k 30fps on all cameras with stabilisation. The primary camera takes good daylight videos with lots of detail and slightly saturated colours. Stabilisation is decent, but you’ll notice the shakes if you’re walking or running. Motorola claims it uses AI to reduce the shakiness, but it doesn’t really work that well most of the time. The ultrawide camera doesn’t do that well in videos.
Motorola Razr 50 Battery: You can flip it all day
- Capacity – 4,200mAh
- Charging – 30W
- Charger – 33W included in-box
The Motorola Razr 50 offers impressive battery life for a flip phone even though it receives the same battery capacity as last year. I constantly got over 7 hours of screen time on the phone, and this is probably because I did most of the messaging on the outer display. Thanks to this, the phone easily lasted over a day of usage. I’d flip open the screen only for using the camera, some gaming, checking emails, watching videos, and scrolling Instagram. Gaming continuously drains the battery a lot, though.
The battery life on the phone is impressive
In our battery test, the phone lasted over 25 hours on a single charge. Talking about charging, the Razr 50 supports 30W fast charging and takes about 1 hour and 10 minutes to go from 10 percent to full. There’s also support for wireless charging at 15W.
Motorola Razr 50 Verdict
At Rs. 64,999, there are not a lot of other options in the market. You can check out the Oppo Find N3 Flip (Review), which offers much better performance and a better pair of cameras. Unfortunately, it does have a less usable outer screen. You also have the Tecno Phantom V Flip (Review) from last year, but that’s not really better in any way. It’s also an excellent alternative to the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 if performance isn’t your main concern.
The Motorola Razr 50 is a great-looking phone with a lot of nostalgia and features that are somewhat let down by its processor. The outer display is great, you get a nice camera setup, excellent battery life for a phone with two screens, fast charging, an IPX8 rating, a super compact form factor, AI features, good software, and 9,999 style points. If you don’t want to spend much money but want a flip-style foldable, the Motorola Razr 50 is mostly excellent. It’s also a worthy upgrade from the Razr 40.
