Motorola Razr 50 smartphone review – The most affordable flip phone gets a large second display

The Motorola Razr 50 (internationally also called "Razr 2024") is a foldable smartphone that is folded on the short case side, reminding us of the good old flip phones.

This also seems to be the intent of Motorola, since the Razr phones were real sales hits around the year 2000. Last year's soft relaunch of the Razr smartphone series was also quite a success for Motorola. The Razr 40 was then the more affordable model and had to be content with a very small 1.5-inch external display next to the camera.

With the successor, the Razr 50 that we are examining in more detail in this test, Motorola has changed this. The manufacturer has equipped the smartphone with an external display that is almost as large as that of the significantly more expensive Razr 50 Ultra. This makes the more affordable model considerably more attractive, allowing you to complete many tasks without even unfolding the smartphone.

Note that we have updated our rating system and the results of version 8 are not comparable with those of version 7. You can find additional information on this here.

At first glance, the case looks significantly changed compared to the predecessor. And we are not speaking about the minimal changes in the weight or the slightly slimmer thickness. The display area that is covered by Gorilla Glass Victus now dominates the folded up front, where we mostly saw artificial leather with the predecessor. Interestingly, the new design with its slightly wider strip above the external display corresponds almost exactly to that of the top model from last year, the Razr 40 Ultra.

Even folded up, the Motorola Razr 50 feels very comfortable to hold, offering a very high-quality feel with its artificial leather surface (or artificial suede in Koala Grey color). Our test unit comes in Splash Orange color, and you can also get a light brown model called Beach Sand as a third color option. This time, there is no cooperation with Pantone with the colors like last year anymore, but the scented packaging remained.

The hinge appears very solid and is easy enough to operate, allowing you to also flip open the phone with a single hand. At the same time, it still keeps the smartphone stable in many positions. It can also keep the "tent" position, for example, which allows you stand the phone on its ends. 

It is possible to twist both halves above and below the hinge slightly, shifting the halves noticeably. Although this isn't problematic by itself, it mars the otherwise very stable haptic impression.

The case is now protected according to IPX8 for submersion under freshwater.

With the security updates, Motorola only shows itself as average in terms of sustainability. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to find out information on the CO2 consumption of Motorola devices during the time of production and usage. Despite searching for a while, we were unable to find out anything on the Internet about the Razr 50 in this regard.

Everything in the packaging is made from cardboard, making it easy to recycle. The packaging also doesn't use any oil-based inks.

Particularly foldable smartphones continue to be very difficult to repair. Motorola basically offers a self-repair hub in cooperation with iFixit, where you can also get replacement parts. However, there are no entries for the current Razr phones yet.

WiFi 6E in the Razr 50 supports communicating in WLAN networks using the lesser used 6-GHz band, allowing you to avoid the overloaded other bands. In the test with our Asus ROG Rapture AXE11000 reference router, the smartphone doesn't turn out to be quite as fast as comparable devices and is also unable to keep up with its own predecessor:

We measure 923 Mbit/s on average for data reception. While this makes fairly good use of a Gigabit Internet connection, those who want higher speeds in the internal network will be better served with other foldable smartphones. The transfer rates are relatively stable overall.

The signal strength in the WLAN shows the maximum near the router, with websites loading quickly here. In 10 meters distance and through three walls, we still get 3/4 of the reception, and websites load slightly slower.

The Razr 50 is able to communicate in mobile communication networks using many frequency bands, both in the 4G and the 5G network. This means that you shouldn't run into any problems accessing the mobile Internet when traveling to various locations.

During our testing period, we also repeatedly perform random tests of the reception to compare it with that of other high-end smartphones. While you have to accept some slight compromises in the reception quality of the Razr 50, we never lost the reception completely.

Motorola uses Google's Phone app, which is the standard in Android. This means that it should be familiar to many users, including those of smartphones from other manufacturers. It offers all the necessary features and is designed clearly.

The voice quality using the internal earpiece and microphone of the smartphone turns out fairly good. Even though our conversation partner doesn't sound absolutely present, and the maximum volume could have been higher, we can easily understand what is said by our conversation partner. Our own voice is also transferred fairly cleanly.

What is less convincing is handsfree calling. At times the volume is even lower, our conversation partner sounds tinny, or the microphone only records our voice when we talk loudly.

We take another look at the image quality of the main camera under controlled light conditions in the test lab. In full studio illumination, we observe a slightly strange color reproduction, some of which we also already noticed in the test images: Strong red color appears pinkish and brown has a clear green tint. The text also doesn't always look sharp.

The box of the Motorola Razr 50 doesn't include a charger, and there is only a charging cable and SIM tool.

The manufacturer offers a 24-month warranty for smartphones purchased in the EU. If you purchase directly from the manufacturer, you get a year of protection from a cracked display for free. In addition, you can purchase accident protection for 2 or 3 years. However, to make sure you get the best deal, you should also compare this with other smartphone insurances.

In terms of the GPU, the differences between the Motorola Razr 50 and its predecessor are also minimal, at most. While you get upper mid-range performance, the Samsung comparison device is able to move far ahead.

We also take a closer look at the effect of the SoC selection on the gaming performance in the section below.

Even though you might have to wait for a bit from time to time until images are loaded in larger websites, surfing the Internet with the Razr 50 is fairly smooth overall. Some other flip phones are even significantly faster, though.

For storage, Motorola continues to use UFS 2.2 flash, which is unable to keep up anymore with more modern UFS 4.0 storage, particularly when writing larger files. The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip6 5G uses UFS 4.0, for example. With smaller files, the difference isn't quite as pronounced, although still noticeable.

From time to time, you have to wait a bit longer for copying a file, and the load times are also not quite as fast as those of devices with more modern storage.

The smartphone can warm up quite a bit, particularly in the top half (the section with the external display), where the SoC is housed.

After longer load, we measure up to 46.9 °C (116.4 °F) in room temperature here. In hot surroundings, the maximum temperature could go considerably higher. This is noticeable and can even feel slightly uncomfortable when using the phone for long periods of time.

On the other hand, the SoC isn't really affected by this high temperature development. The stress tests of 3DMark show that the performance hardly decreases because of it.

The combination of the earpiece and dedicated speaker on the bottom edge allows for some stereo effects in opened mode. As already in the predecessor, the maximum volume is rather subdued, but the sound spectrum is attractive overall, allowing for a fairly good reproduction of music and movie sounds.

For sound output to external devices, you have the options of either using the USB-C port or Bluetooth. If you choose the wireless connection, you don't have to be particularly careful when choosing your end point, since the Razr 50 supports almost all the wireless audio codecs that are available, starting from AAC to LDAC and aptX up to Opus and LDHC.

After our measurements with Metrahit Energy, we can call the Razr 50 frugal with battery power: a minimum consumption of 0.6 watts when the phone is turned on without any particular tasks being performed is a really good value.

Even if you perform some easy tasks, the value hardly increases, and only under very high load can the power consumption reach up to 10.2 watts.

The smartphone can be charged at up to 30 watts via cable. Although a corresponding charger is not included, the Razr had no problems with any of the chargers we tested. However, if you buy a charger, you should get one that is compatible with Power Delivery, to be sure.

A complete charging process takes about 1:30 hours. The wireless charging speed was increased and now uses 15 watts. Reverse charging is also supported.

Nothing has changed in the battery size compared to the Razr 40, and 4,200 mAh continue to be available.

You can surf the Internet for almost 13 hours before you need to find an outlet or charging pad. When watching movies stored on the smartphone, the battery will last for almost 16:37 hours, which is easily sufficient for a mini series or even a whole season of episodes.

Some other flip phones offer an even longer battery life, such as the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip6, which has an even slightly smaller battery. Although the battery life should be sufficient for everyday operation, it isn't quite able to keep up with the usual high-end smartphones.

In the US and many other countries, the Motorola Razr 50 is sold as Motorola Razr 2024. It is available unlocked from Motorola directly for ~$700, and Amazon lists it for the same price. You can find it in the US from some service providers for even $100 less.

Note that we have updated our rating system and the results of version 8 are not comparable with those of version 7. You can find additional information on this here.