Motorola Razr 50 Ultra (2024)

First Impressions

The Motorola Razr 50 Ultra’s big 4-inch cover screen steals the show, and with a more robust design, better cameras and fashion-focused colour options, Samsung might have trouble on its hands.

Introduction

Motorola has revealed this year’s top-end clamshell foldable, the Razr 50 Ultra, and I’ve had a chance to play with it ahead of launch.

The Razr 50 Ultra may not look that different from its predecessor but it makes improvements in key areas like cover screen tech, performance, camera capabilities and, crucially, AI, to create one of the more interesting foldables to the market in recent months.

While I’m not yet ready to deliver my final thoughts, only having used the Razr 50 Ultra for a few hours so far, here are my early thoughts on Motorola’s latest foldable.

Design and screens

• Fashion-focused design
• Massive 4-inch cover screen
• 6.9-inch 165Hz internal screen

The Motorola Razr 50 Ultra doesn’t look all that different from the Razr 40 Ultra from last year – but considering it was a pretty slim, stylish foldable with vibrant colours and a lovely vegan leather rear, that’s not really a bad thing.

There are a few key differences on offer this year however; the biggest of which is the cover screen. While the Razr 40 Ultra already had the biggest cover screen on the market at 3.6 inches, the Razr 50 Ultra takes it all the way up to 4 inches, practically taking up the entire cover of the phone. This may not sound like a big difference on paper, but it’s hugely different in real life.

The bigger screen makes it easier to read notifications and enjoy the Motorola-designed cover screen widgets and even easier to use full Android apps without unfolding the phone. It was already a strong point of the Razr 40 Ultra compared to the likes of the rather limited Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5, and it’s continuing to get better with the 50 Ultra this year.

And, like last year, the dual cameras are embedded within the cover screen for a rather Sci-fi look. I have noticed that the cameras protrude much farther than those of last year’s Razr 40 Ultra, but there’s a good reason for that – more on that in a bit.

Continuing Motorola’s partnership with colour experts Pantone, the Razr 50 Ultra is available in four colours including green, blue, peach fuzz (Pantone’s colour of the year) and a pink finish that’s a nice hat-tilt to the OG pink Razr that launched 20 years ago. This is definitely a fashion-focused smartphone, especially combined with AI-generated wallpapers that can match your outfit and accessories that turn it into a little handbag.

These all come with vegan leather rears, but interestingly, the texture depends on the colour option. The blue finish, for example, has a subtle race-strip design on the vegan leather with two slightly differing textures, while the green finish has a uniform feel to it.

Other improvements come in the form of Gorilla Glass Victus screen protection on the cover screen and full IPX8 water resistance that’ll protect it from water damage in up to 1.5m of water for up to 30 minutes, although doing so has meant that dust-proofing has fallen by the wayside.

However, Motorola has reassured me that, even without an official rating, the company has worked to minimise the areas – particularly around the hinge – that can let dust in.

The hinge has also been reworked this year, making it not only easier to open and close the phone one-handed, but further reduces the crease on the inner 6.9-inch screen. Considering it was barely noticeable on the Razr 40 Ultra, it’s practically invisible on the 50 Ultra, and there’s no real change in tactile feel as you swipe over it in use.

Speaking of, the internal screen isn’t one to sleep on; it’s a whopping 6.9-inch pOLED screen with a 165Hz refresh rate and 3000nits peak brightness that should make it easy to use in outdoor conditions.

I’ve not managed to use it in any particularly bright environments so far, but it does seem pretty bright, and combined with the deep blacks and vivid colours that OLED tech is known for, it should deliver a pretty decent viewing experience.

And that’s the nice thing about the foldable nature of the Razr 50 Ultra; while a 6.9-inch screen would be too big as a regular candybar phone, the fact that it folds down into two to easily slip into a pocket or bag is a massive plus.

Cameras

• Dual 50MP camera setup
• New 2x telephoto camera
• No ultrawide lens

Motorola has made a rather interesting decision when it comes to the camera offering of the Razr 50 Ultra – and it might not be what you expect.

While most smartphone companies seem to prioritise including primary and ultrawide cameras on dual camera smartphones, Motorola has decided to ditch the 13MP ultrawide of last year’s model for a high-res 50MP 2x telephoto that sits alongside the 50MP main.

This means that the Razr 50 Ultra should be much better at handling portrait photography, as well as general zoom shots, but it does mean that you won’t be able to take those cool ultra-wide scenic shots that have become so popular in recent years with mass adoption of ultrawide lenses.

There’s also an upgraded 32MP camera on the foldable screen within. With the ability to take selfies using the cover display and the high-res cameras, you likely won’t be using it often, but it is a handy upgrade for video calls and the like.

It certainly seems like a big upgrade for the Razr 50 Ultra and the few test shots I’ve snapped so far do seem promising, with plenty of detail and impressive dynamic range, but it’ll be interesting to see how it performs in low-light scenarios – especially with added AI smarts this year, but more on that in a bit.

Performance and features

• Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset
• GenAI features
• 4000mAh battery with 40W charging

Within the Razr 50 Ultra you’ll find Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset. While it’s not quite as performant as the truly top-end Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, it’s not that far behind either.

Crucially, it’s a massive upgrade from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 found in the Razr 40 Ultra – a chipset that was already ‘old’ by the time it was launched last year. This way, Motorola closes the gap between it and the competing Galaxy Z Flip 5, as well as, I’m assuming, the Z Flip 6 when that materialises.

While I’ve not had enough time to play games on the phone or run any benchmarking apps, the Razr 50 Ultra feels about as slick as you’d expect from a phone with a top-end processor. It feels responsive, apps open instantly and camera processing is pretty quick from what I’ve seen so far too. For the time being, at least, this is the most powerful foldable around.

Motorola has gone all-in on AI with the Razr 50 Ultra too. It offers AI-powered features like the Photo Enhancement Engine, image generation in the form of Magic Canvas and improved low-light photography, but goes further than that. You can, for example, use GenAI to create a wallpaper that compliments your outfit, and it’s the first phone to run Google Gemini out of the box rather than Google Assistant.

The truly exciting AI features aren’t coming until later this year – sometime in the autumn – but it’ll be worth the wait.

Moto AI seems to be one of the more fully featured implementations of AI so far. While Moto hasn’t fully revealed its capabilities, it has teased that you’ll be able to tell it to ‘pay attention’ when chatting with friends to record and summarise your conversations, as well as remind you of anything timely from the chat at the relevant time. It’ll also be able to look through photos to get information, as well as summarising notifications and more.

It doesn’t have some of the flashy features of Galaxy AI and co, lacking elements like the ability to remove people from images, but given that Google Photos ships with the phone and offers this functionality, I don’t think it’s a dealbreaker.

Elsewhere, the Razr 50 Ultra packs a 4000mAh battery – oddly 200mAh smaller than the regular Razr 50 – that, when combined with the power efficiency of the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, Motorola claims has no issues lasting all day. I’ll certainly be putting that to the test in the coming days.

It should also be marginally faster to charge than its predecessor with 40W fast charging, as well as 15W wireless charging and 5W reverse wireless charging to charge accessories like earbuds.

Latest deals

A 'hands on review' is our first impression of a product only - it is not a full test and verdict. Our writer must have spent some time with the product to describe an early sense of what it's like to use. We call these 'hands on reviews' to make them visible in search. However these are always unscored and don't give recommendations. Read more about our reviews policy.