Motorola Razr 40 Ultra review: king of the flips

Motorola is continuing to bet big on foldable phones with the new Razr 40 Ultra. This supersedes the 2022 model and comes with some major improvements. Standout features include a huge new cover screen, a higher-specced internal display, a more compact design, revamped hinge mechanism, powerful internal hardware and more. 

Given there are a few other contenders vying for the flip phone crown, including Samsung’s popular Galaxy Z Flip4 and Oppo’s excellent Find N2 Flip, the stakes have never been higher. So how does Moto’s latest flippy phone stand up?

Motorola Razr 40 Ultra specifications

Operating System	Android™13
Storage	256 GB built-in, UFS 3.1
Processor	Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 Mobile Platform
Memory (RAM)	8GB LPDDR5
Security	Side fingerprint reader, Face unlock
Battery Size and Type	3800mAh non-removable
Charging	30W TurboPower™ charging support (33W In-box charger), 5W wireless charging support (charger sold separately)
Display Size	Main display: 6.9″ FHD+ pOLED, External display: 3.6″ pOLED
Resolution	Main display: FHD+ (2640 x 1080) | 413ppi, External display: 1066 x 1056 | 413ppi
Display Technology	Main display: LTPO Foldable AMOLED, HDR10+, 10-bit, 120% DCI-P3 colour gamut, Up to 165 Hz refresh rate, External display: Flexible AMOLED, HDR10+, 10-bit, 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut, Up to 144Hz refresh rate
Aspect Ratio	Main display: 22:9, External display: 1:1
Dimensions	Open: 73.95 x 170.83 x 6.99mm, Closed: 73.95 x 88.42 x 15.1mm
Body Material	Corning®Gorilla®Glass Victus on both front and rear (Infinite Black and Glacier Blue), Corning®Gorilla®Glass Victus on front, Vegan leather on rear (Viva Magenta), 7000 series aluminium (frame)
Ports	Type-C port (USB 2.0)
Weight	188.5g (Infinite Black, Glacier Blue), 184.5g (Viva Magenta)
Water Protection	IP52 Water-repellent design
Colours Available	Glacier Blue, Viva Magenta, Infinite Black
Rear Camera Hardware	12MP (f/1.5, 1.4µm) | OIS, 13MP (f/2.2, 1.12µm) | Ultra-wide + macro | FOV 108°, Single LED flash
Front Camera Hardware	Main display: 32MP (f/2.4, 0.7 µm) | 8MP (f/2.4, 1.4um) Quad Pixel, External display: Main: 12MP (f/1.5, 1.4µm) | OIS, Wide: 13MP (f/2.2, 1.12µm) | FOV 108°
Rear Camera Video Capture	Main: UHD (30fps) | UHD (60fps) | FHD (30fps) | FHD (60fps), Wide & Macro: UHD (30fps) | FHD (30fps)
Front Camera Video Capture	Main display: 32MP selfie camera UHD(30fps) | UHD(60fps), FHD(30fps), FHD(60fps), External display: Main: UHD(30fps) | UHD(60fps) | FHD(30fps) | FHD(60fps), Wide: UHD (30fps) | FHD (30fps)
Sound/Audio	Support for Dolby Atmos spatial audio
Official website	Motorola Australia
Price (RRP)	$1,499 (256GB model)
Warranty	One year

Outstanding displays

Starting with the most obvious feature, on the outside of the Razr 40 Ultra is a large 3.6-inch pOLED screen. This runs nearly the full width of the phone and takes up most of the available space on the outer lid, save for two camera cutouts and some space towards the hinge.

Moto’s intention with such a large outer display is to allow you to do more things without actually opening the phone. And it’s paid off handsomely – my favourite thing is to use the external screen to preview photos and videos, but more on this later. It’s also great for watching videos, TikTok, controlling your music, browsing the news, getting directions, browsing web pages, reading emails, messages and more. There’s a custom interface that launches apps of your choosing, as well as some dedicated widgets for contacts, calendars, weather, Spotify and a selection of games. 

The screen itself is also surprisingly good quality, which lends to Moto’s intention of this being a display you actually use. It is very sharp, with a 413 pixel-per-inch density, and has a 144Hz refresh rate. For those that don’t know, refresh rate is how many times the screen can ‘redraw’ per second, so the higher the number, the smoother things look, including scrolling web pages, animations, games, videos and more. There’s even a 360Hz game mode, which is both surprising and impressive.

The pOLED display is good with colour too, with a wide DCI-P3 colour gamut, and 10-bit HDR technology. It even handles HDR10+ movies, should you want to watch them without opening the phone. The outer screen’s peak brightness is 1100 NITS, so while not the brightest available, it’s fine in direct sunlight.

The internal foldable display also impresses. This one is huge at 6.9 inches, and slightly longer than the 6.8 inches of both the Samsung Flip4 and Oppo Find N2 Flip. This also has a pin-sharp 413ppi, and the wide 22.9 aspect ratio makes for a long display, ideal for messaging, TikTok and websites. It too is great with colour, handling 120% of the DCI-P3 colour space, along with HDR10+ videos. Shame that Moto doesn’t support DolbyVision, which is a more popular standard, but it’s not a big drawback. The inner pOLED screen has an even higher 165Hz refresh rate, and the gaming mode that cranks up to 360Hz if needed. The inner screen is also brighter and rated at 1400 NITs, so it’s great to use outside.

Razr 40 Ultra Design & hinge

Motorola has put the Razr 40 Ultra on a diet compared to the 2022 version. This is now the slimmest flip phone on the market in Australia, with each half just a hair under 7mm, and a svelte 15mm profile when closed. There’s no gap between the halves either, so no room for crud to collect, and there’s a new ‘Flex View’ hinge. This allows positioning the phone as a tripod, or self-standing screen. There is a still a visible ‘crease’, however, where the screen folds in half but this is slightly less noticeable than the Samsung Flip4, but not as well concealed as the Oppo Find N2 Flip.

The Flex View hinge provides various friction points but it lacks grip near both open and close points. The Samsung Flip4 is the best of the three with plenty of friction at nearly all positions. The Moto’s hinge is solid when the phone is completely open but it can get a bit jiggly at some positions and the action is not as smooth as the Oppo N2 Flip’s hinge, which is smooth as silk.

[UPDATE] The phone we were sent by Moto was not the final production version. We recently received the retail, boxed version and can confirm that the phone’s hinge is much smoother and the ‘jiggliness’ is gone.

Other points to note about the Razr 40 Ultra’s design include scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass Victus on both the front and inside displays, a sturdy chassis made from 7000 series aluminium and an IP52 dust and water resistance rating. This rating means that the Moto can handle exposure to light dustings and a few splashes, but don’t think it’s OK to take it to the beach and get it covered in sand, followed by a dousing in the ocean.

You can choose from three different colours too. Mine was lovely Glacier Blue, and there’s Infinite Black and Viva Magenta as well. The latter has a vegan leather back cover should you want something with a little more grip. Overall, the Razr 40 Ultra is a stylish phone, with glossy metallic edges, a matte rear cover and no unsightly camera protrusions. The only downside of having such a huge outer screen is that it attracts fingerprints. 

Flipping out

It’s great to see that Moto has optimised the operating system for interoperability between the two screens. This means you can run most apps on the smaller outer screen and they are still actually useful. Yes, things may look a bit cramped depending on what you are doing. For example, watching TikTok or Instagram stories is doable but since the videos are tall rather than wide, they get cropped a bit to fit.

However, there’s a special ‘full view’ mode on the outer screen that some apps support, which expands the external screen beyond the two camera lenses. This improves your visible area as long as you don’t mind a couple of circles obscuring a bit of the display, and was my preferred mode for TikTok and Insta stories, browsing web pages, and reading my Microsoft Teams messages and emails.

Also thanks to its width, the on-screen keyboard is roomy and easy to type on, so you really don’t need to rely on the keyboard on the inside screen, which is about the same width anyway.

Otherwise, the external display has an ‘always on’ clock, and you can swipe down on the external screen to reveal your phone’s settings, or up to access the quick-launch menu.

Most apps support a ‘continuation’ feature, so when you close the lid when, say, reading a web page or watching a TikTok video, you will be prompted to continue what you’re doing on the outer display. There may be a small glitch here or there, such as a YouTube video starting from the beginning and not resuming for your current position, but overall it works very well. The same feature operates in reverse, so if you’re browsing TikTok on the outer screen, you just open up the Razr and continue on the big display inside without needing to re-open the app.

And what would a flip phone be without the ability to open it to answer calls and hang up with a satisfying close of the lid? These are both supported and you can also disable this in the settings if you prefer. 

Camera experience

The cameras on the Moto Razr 40 Ultra comprise two ‘external’ cameras, which are the ones on the outside with the case closed, and one ‘internal’ camera, which is the one that appears at the top of the 6.9-inch screen. 

The outer cameras are probably what you’d consider the main ones and they have decent specs that produce good looking photos and videos. The 12 megapixel (MP) main camera has a f/1.5 aperture, enabling for shallow depth of field shots, while the f/2.2 13MP ultra-wide / macro lens enables a 108 degree field of view to help you get creative.

The main camera also has optical image stabilisation, keeping the photos sharper in lower light, and this also comes in handy for stabilising video footage too. Inside, there’s a 32MP ‘selfie’ camera that supports Quad Pixel technology enabling it to leverage pixel binning to improve colour and light sensitivity in 8MP mode, while enabling more ‘zooming-in’ detail in 32MP mode.

On the focusing front, the main camera has Dual Pixel PDAF, which helps it find focus quickly, and in a wide range of lighting conditions. 

Overall, I was pleased with the photos that I took, and it does a nice job of capturing colour and detail, plus the different lens options mean you can mix things up. The Macro mode seemed to work up to about 4 centimeters away from the subject, and the main camera managed low light shots the best, plus there’s support for High Dynamic Range.

While there’s no telephoto, you can use the digital zoom to get in closer without too much distortion, and there are plenty of photo and selfie modes to play around with. 

With videos, the main camera can manage UHD/4K up to 60 frames per second (fps), the ultra-wide camera can manage UHD/4K up to 30fps and the inside camera can do UHD/4K to 60fps. If you want to record a slo-mo video, there’s support for up to 960 frames per second in HD.

Keep in mind that the camera specs are only part of the experience. The Razr 40 Ultra’s unique folding design opens up some cool options. As a photographer, you can see your photo and video previews on the inside screen, while showing your subject a preview on the outer display. You can open the phone halfway to record a hands-free social video while previewing your shot on the outer display. Or even hold the phone slightly closed to get a better angle on a subject. All of these options can work quite well depending on what you want to accomplish and genuinely add to the experience of capturing photos, shooting videos or creating your own social content.

Other photo features

There’s a Mirror Mode for those that want to use the outer screen for checking makeup, and it zooms in so you can see quite a bit of detail. There are some funny screen effects you can apply over your face too, such as smoke and cracking glass, and you can even add a photo frame and snap a pic of how you look.

The Photobooth mode is a bit of fun too, which captures four snaps on a timer and collects them into one photo, just like the old-style photo booths.

Consuming content

Watching movies and videos can be done on the wide 22:9 internal screen, which is very roomy, or you can close it up and watch a smaller version on the external display. I tried a few different titles from Netflix and Disney Plus and Amazon Prime, however, for some reason Amazon Prime movies would only appear on the inner display and not the external screen – just the sound. This is probably a bug that will hopefully be fixed soon. 

Overall, video quality was impressive, with bright and vivid colours, and I found an HDR10+ movie (Citadel on Amazon Prime) that looked wonderful, with extra detail revealed in darker colours and shadows.

You can also ‘flick’ the video playing on the outer screen from the wide 16:9 aspect ratio, which can get quite cramped, to a square / 4:3 version. This takes up the entire front screen, and while you lose some footage on the left and right, it’s not a bad way of watching. 

There’s Dolby Atomos support too, which can add a little spatial kick to the audio experience. Generally, the Razr 40 Ultra’s speakers performed their best when the phone is held open and in landscape orientation. This is because there are speakers at either end, and the more separation they have, the better. They’re quite loud too and suit setting the Moto down while you listen to a few tunes, chat over the speakerphone mode or watch a movie, video, or TikTok.

Chip and performance

Like other premium devices, the Razr 40 Ultra gets a powerful chip thanks to the Qualcomm SnapDragon 8 Gen 1. While some might argue that the Gen 2 chip should be included, this has more than enough power for what it needs to accomplish. The Gen 1 version also keeps the price competitive and there are plenty of AI smarts available for computational photography and the like.

GeekBench 6 test results

Phone model	Single core score	Multi core score	Processor
Motorola Razr 40 Ultra	1801	4658	Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4	1825	4494	Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1
Oppo Find N2 Flip	1191	3389	MediaTek Dimensity 9000+

Otherwise, 8GB of fast LPDDR5 memory keeps apps, browsing and software snappy and there’s 256GB storage available, but no memory card expansion option.

I tested all three phones on Geekbench 6.0. and found that performance between the Razr and Samsung’s Flip4 were very close, as both share the same chip and memory type. The Oppo was not as fast, using a processor system from MediaTek.

Battery life and more

Battery life can be the bane of a foldable phone’s existence. This is due to the battery needing to fit into one side of the phone since it’s split in the middle. Conventional phones can fit larger batteries inside since they can be made longer. The Razr 40 Ultra comes with an upsized 3800mAh battery (vs 3500mAh on the 2022 Razr), which managed a full day’s charge during my testing, however, it might struggle to make it to the end of the day if you’re doing a lot of video recording on it, or playing games for hours. The Oppo Find N2 Flip, on the other hand, has a 4300mAh battery.

Overall, the battery should be fine for most use cases, and, thankfully there is a TurboPower charger included in the box to top the battery up quickly. You can also switch over to the low power mode to stretch your battery life out when it becomes very low. There’s wireless charging (5W) support too.

For connectivity, the Razr 40 Ultra gets the latest Wi-Fi 6E support, along with NFC, Bluetooth 5.3 and, of course, 5G mobile connectivity. There’s no headphone jack, however, but this isn’t included on the Oppo or Samsung flips either.

Who is the Razr 40 Ultra for?

All up, the Razr 40 Ultra has a winning combination of features that place it in the lead out of the available flip phones. The Oppo Find N2 Flip is very polished, with the best hinge and screen crease of the lot, and a good-sized outer screen. Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip4 is well-specced and designed, albeit with the smallest outer display. Bear in mind that Samsung’s Flip5 should be out over the next couple of months, so this could improve on many things including the outer screen size. For now, the Razr’s huge outer screen, slimmest overall design, great camera features and useful software integration make it a fun, fabulous flip for your day-to-day adventures. 

Pricing is also sharp at $1,499, which is on par with the competition. If you pre-order now, you can score a pair of Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II, which are valued at $429.95 and happen to be one of the best earbuds out there. More here on Motorola’s bundle deal. If you order now, deliveries should start appearing by July 10.

If I wanted a flip phone, this would be the one I’d choose because of the large external and internal screens, plus a good mix of capable hardware and software features.