Motorola Razr 50 Ultra Flip Phone Review: A Trip to Nostalgia

Dhaka
July 28, 2024, 09:43 AM
by Shahriar Rabab

UNB News
Dhaka
Publish- July 28, 2024, 09:43 AM
Shahriar Rabab
Update- July 28, 2024, 10:07 AM

Motorola Razr 50 Ultra

In the early 2000s, the Razr lineup took the world by storm with the Razr V3. The feature phone was the slimmest flip phone with a futuristic design that looked decades ahead. Over two decades later, the Razr line now represents cutting-edge foldable smartphones from Motorola. The new Razr 50 Ultra was released on June 25, 2024, as a successor to last year’s 40 Ultra. Here’s a detailed take on this year’s flip from Moto.

Key Specs of Motorola Razr 50 Ultra

Design and Build Quality

By all means, the Razr 50 Ultra brings a similar aesthetic to the bygone era of feature flip phones. The same compact form factor has now incorporated a large cover display and a foldable inner display, among a host of other improvements.

The device has a dimension of 73.99 mm by 171.42 mm by 7.09 mm (open) and 73.99 mm by 88.09 mm by 15.32 mm (closed). The effective weight comes in at 189 g with a 6000 series high-strength aluminum frame, Gorilla Glass Victus front, and a vegan leather back.

The 50 Ultra brings improvements over last year's 40 Ultra in several aspects. Users will now get a larger cover display, a revamped camera system, and an improved stainless steel hinge mechanism. The crease on the inner display looks even more minimal than last year, visible only under direct light.

Ports and buttons are all in their usual positions. As with all flip phones, the in-display fingerprint scanner is scrapped in favor of a side-mounted power button. This year, the device's IPX8 water and dust resistance has also improved. The 50 Ultra will be available in four color options, Midnight Blue, Spring Green, Peach Fuzz, and Hot Pink.

The Display

Both the cover and inner display on the 50 Ultra use the LTPO AMOLED panel, which has been a trademark choice for Motorola in its high-end offerings. The cover display now comes in at 4 inches with a 1272 by 1080 pixels resolution, 417 ppi, and a 165 Hz refresh rate. It also supports a 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, while the inner screen bumps it up to 120%. This is by far one of the largest cover displays among any flip phone out there.

The inner display comes in at 6.9 inches with 1B colors, Dolby Vision, a 165Hz high refresh rate, HDR10+, and 3000 nits of peak brightness. The resolution is 1080 by 2640 pixels with a 413 ppi density. The aspect ratio on the inner screen is 85.33% due to the tall aspect ratio of 22:9.

Both the cover and inner screen look every bit flagship-worthy. Especially the cover screen, which now supports Google Maps, photos, and Gmail natively. Other apps are available as widgets. App functions are also seamlessly transitioned between the cover and inner screen, making it convenient to use at a glance.

The Camera

There’s a dual camera setup on the 50 Ultra, with the main camera being a 50 MP, f/1.7, 24mm wide-angle shooter with a 1/1.95" sensor. The secondary camera is a 50 MP, f/2.0, telephoto lens with a 1/2.76” sensor. It supports up to 2x optical zoom.

The front camera is a 32 MP f/2.4 wide-angle shooter.

In terms of performance, the camera won’t exactly blow you away. Foldable and flip phones have a track record of prioritizing cameras less, and the 50 Ultra is no different. But it's an improvement over the 40 Ultra.

The main camera can take well-exposed and detailed pictures in daylight. The color balance and contrast were on point, with great dynamic range. However, the white balance appears to be a bit saturated, which doesn’t translate to natural images.

The low-light performance was also pretty decent, thanks to the night mode. The details may look a bit oversharpened when zoomed in, but other than that, it was a smooth sail.

As for the front camera, it also produced decent selfies. However, you can easily use the main 50 MP camera as your selfie cam thanks to the large cover screen.

The videography on the 50 Ultra is rated at 4K at 30/60fps and 1080P at 30/60/120/240/960fps. It supports HDR10+ thanks to the OIS and EIS of the main shooter.

Processor and Performance

The processor on the 50 Ultra is Qualcomm SM8635 Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 based on a 4 Nm architecture. It has a chip design of 1x3.0 GHz Cortex-X4, 4x2.8 GHz Cortex-A720 & 3x2.0 GHz Cortex-A520 with an Adreno 735 GPU.

On paper, the 8s Gen 3 is slightly below the flagship 8 Gen 3 and more on par with the outgoing 8 Gen 2. But in day-to-day use, you’ll hardly notice any difference. Gaming titles like PUBG and Genshin Impact could be easily played at max settings. Optimized titles like Asphalt 9 ran smoothly without any hiccups.

However, the thermal management hasn’t been great on the 50 Ultra. As is typical of most flip phones, this device also suffers from thermal throttling. We noticed a 51% rating on the CPU throttling test, which isn’t all that great.

Benchmark

Geekbench 6: 1866 (single-core); 4441 (multi-core)

Antutu 10: 1140567

3D Mark Wild Life: 12024

The Razr 50 Ultra falls short of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 and the Motorola Edge 50 Ultra in all the benchmarks except for the 3D Mark test.

Software

The Razr 50 Ultra is running Hello UI based on Android 14. It is an AOSP UI with several of Moto’s in-house additions. The tweaks are neatly arranged in the Moto Hub, including Smart Connect options. Motorola has committed to 3 years of major software updates and 4 years of security patches.

Battery and Charge Time

The Motorola Razr 50 Ultra comes with a 4000 mAh battery. The relatively smaller battery can be charged up by the included 45W TurboPowerTM charging support. Additionally, the device supports 15W of wireless charging and 5W of reverse wireless charging.

Pros and Cons of Motorola Razr 50 Ultra

Pros:

- Foldable LTPO AMOLED panel with FHD+ resolution
- 165 Hz refresh rate on both the cover and inner screen
- Larger cover screen
- Up to 3000 nits of HBM
- Stereo speakers
- Upgraded camera system
- IPX8 water resistance
- 45W wired fast charging, 15W wireless charging, and 5W reverse charging.

Cons:

- No headphone jack
- Thermal throttling issues
- Cameras are still not on par with traditional flagships
- Lower battery life.

Price of Motorola Razr 50 Ultra

The Razr 50 Ultra is available in only 12/512 GB variants. The price of the device is 94,999 INR (with a discount). It roughly translates to around 1,33,127 BDT (1 INR = 1.40 BDT). However, the official price of the Motorola Razr 50 Ultra in Bangladesh may vary depending on tax and other issues.

Verdict

The Razr 50 Ultra brings a host of improvements in terms of the hinge mechanism, cover display, inner crease, and camera. With its improvements, the 50 Ultra feels like a strong contender to this year’s industry-leading flip phone, the Galaxy Z Flip 6. Although the Razr falls short in terms of performance and other metrics, it also comes at a reduced price point.

If you are looking for a solid flip phone with a dash of Razr nostalgia from the yester-decades, then the Motorola Razr 50 Ultra will be an easy pick for you. But if budget is not an issue, the Flip 6 would still be a better deal overall.