Motorola Razr+ Review | Tom's Guide

  • last year
Motorola's no stranger when it comes to foldable phones, but it's in desperate need of a home run with its third-generation device.

Thankfully, the Motorola Razr+ is a bolder, more polished clamshell foldable that's perfect for content creators and vloggers. For the company, it looks like the third time is a charm.
Transcript
00:00 Motorola, for example, is now on its third generation foldable, and you know what, it
00:05 could be its best one yet.
00:07 Hey guys, it's Jon B. here with Tom's Guide, and this is our review of the Motorola Razr
00:13 Plus.
00:15 Okay, so the design of the Razr Plus, I like it.
00:21 It's thin, lightweight, holds in the hand very nicely, rounded edges, you get this combination
00:25 of this polished metal finish with the vegan leather back, so it looks really good, and
00:30 you gotta hand it to Motorola's engineers, they really did a great job as far as designing
00:34 the phone, because now, there's no gap when you fold the phone into one, so that's good.
00:39 But I know some people were complaining about it on other phones, to me it's not a big deal,
00:42 but Motorola solved it here.
00:44 I want to also tell you that this phone is IP52, so while it does withstand some splashes,
00:50 you really can't submerge it, so that's one thing to know.
00:54 Besides that, you know, it's compact, really lightweight, I love the design, looks good,
00:59 I'm just kind of questioning about the vegan leather, how that's going to hold up over
01:02 time.
01:03 While it looks good now, who knows what it's going to be like in a couple years.
01:07 So to stand out, of course, is the foldable display.
01:10 Here you have a 6.9 inch full HD OLED display, it looks good, the aspect ratio is a lot wider,
01:16 so it might look weird watching videos, but it's great otherwise.
01:20 Detailed, bright, so using it outdoors is not a problem.
01:24 You do kind of see the crease here in the middle of the phone where it folds in half.
01:28 You see it only when the phone's off, to me it's not a big deal, especially when it's
01:32 on and you're watching a video because you don't even notice it at that point.
01:35 But the other thing I want to take note of is the display on the outside of the phone.
01:40 This is what makes the Razr really special.
01:43 There's a 3.6 inch plastic OLED display, it's super sharp and quite usable because you can
01:48 actually do some of the stuff with the external display as you would with the internal display.
01:54 So you could run apps and I find this level of utility is great when you just want to
01:58 use the phone without having to actually open it up.
02:01 Alright, so let's talk about the camera here with the Razr+.
02:07 There's a 12 megapixel main camera that's paired with the 13 megapixel ultra wide camera.
02:12 The ultra wide camera also doubles as a macro.
02:14 I want to point out though, there is no telephoto, which I guess you kind of expect with most
02:20 of today's high end phones, especially at this price range.
02:22 But to be fair, the Flip 4 also didn't have one.
02:25 As far as the image quality, I say it's usable.
02:28 It's good for outdoor shots when there's a lot of light, you get some good details.
02:33 Colors though, they seem to skew a little bit on the greenish side, so that's something
02:36 you want to take note of.
02:38 Unfortunately though, when it comes to low light photography, it's pretty much more or
02:42 less the same as the last two Razrs.
02:44 It doesn't get the job done because it just looks muddy, there's a lot of noise in the
02:48 shots and when I compared its night vision mode versus the low lighting mode in the Flip
02:54 4, the Flip 4 just beat it.
02:55 It was bright, it was better exposed and just looked better overall.
03:01 Now I got to say though, if you're into vlogging, if you're into YouTube videos, TikTok videos,
03:06 the Razr+ is the phone for you just because you're going to get that handy external display.
03:12 You'll be able to see yourself in the frame, know what you'll look like before you shoot
03:15 the video and it's just great for that.
03:18 The stabilization is also wonderful.
03:20 If you're doing a live vlogging, it keeps it steady for the most part and you could
03:24 switch between the main camera and also the ultra wide, so you get more of yourself in
03:30 that frame.
03:31 So in that regard, while yes, it doesn't do well in the low light performance, it's still
03:36 a usable camera and especially given the utility of the way it folds like this, you could handheld
03:41 using the front or rear cameras.
03:43 It just adds more to the experience that you're not going to get on other phones.
03:47 So the Razr+ is running Android 13 right now and I think it's a pretty useful experience
03:54 because it has the minimalist UI, you have some elements there for productivity, but
03:58 most of all, I want to say that I love the gestures that Motorola continues to have in
04:02 its phones because I find it very useful.
04:04 For example, you do the flip gesture to actually launch the camera, you do the chop gesture
04:09 to launch the light.
04:11 So these are all handy features that I still enjoy having and it's nice that Motorola has
04:15 kept them here.
04:16 Besides that, like I said, it's running Android 13, it's responsive for the most part, it's
04:21 powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip.
04:25 So pair that with the 144 hertz refresh rate display, everything looks buttery smooth,
04:31 whether you're scrolling through the interface or playing game.
04:34 I didn't find too many instances of it slowing down.
04:36 Overall, the experience is what you expect from Motorola.
04:40 It's really thin, right?
04:41 So Motorola has put in a 3800 mAh battery into this.
04:46 It's not quite the beefiest battery in a smartphone, but I would say compared to other clamshell
04:51 foldables like the Flip 4, the battery life is average.
04:55 So in our own custom battery benchmark test, it kind of edged out the Flip 4 by only an
04:59 hour.
05:00 It's an hour difference there.
05:02 From my real world experience, I still find it average too because I got at least a day
05:06 out of it.
05:07 By the end of night, it was at 20%.
05:10 So it's not really the longest lasting battery life, nor is it actually the shortest.
05:15 So it gets the job done in my opinion.
05:17 There is built in wireless charging, which is a nice feature of course, when you have
05:21 a foldable and on top of that, it has a 30 watt charging.
05:24 So if you're in desperate need to recharge it quickly, you have that ability to quickly
05:29 get a charge to a decent level.
05:31 All right, so I didn't have high expectations for the Razr Plus when I first got it, but
05:37 the more I got to use it, got to experience what it could do, especially the utility of
05:42 those cameras paired with the external display.
05:44 I did find it to be great for video.
05:47 So self shoots for YouTube video.
05:49 So in that regard, if you're into content creation, I think it's great.
05:53 It's priced at $999, which is exactly like its competitors like the Flip 4.
05:59 So it has an advantage that there are a lot of deals going on right now for it.
06:03 But the thing that stands out here is that yes, it's still missing optical zoom.
06:07 I'm not going to be nitpicking too much about that, but I know for some people who are used
06:11 to paying a thousand bucks, you're expected to have at least one optical zoom lens.
06:16 It still kind of doesn't do well with low light photography.
06:19 So if you're going to do a lot of that, then this might not be the phone for you.
06:23 But besides that, it's a polished looking phone, great design.
06:27 So if you guys want to learn more about the Motorola Razr Plus, you can check out our
06:30 website, TomSka.com.
06:32 Don't forget to check us out on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook @TomSka.
06:37 And I'll see you in my next video.
06:38 [MUSIC]