Moto’s back with a new family of Razrs for 2023, offering a flagship ‘Ultra’ model and a regular model that’s more accessible. The Ultra is the phone that pushes the boundaries (literally in the case of the cover display), offering an experience we’ve not seen yet.

We’ve had a little while to play with it and have come away impressed at how polished, premium and practical it seems.

Design and displays

• 170.83 x 73.95 x 6.99mm (open) – 88.42 x 73.95 x 15.1mm (closed)
• Gorilla Glass Victus front and back – Vegan leather option – IP52 water/dust resistant
• 6.9-inch pOLED flexible display – 1080 x 2840 – 165hz refresh LTPO
• 3.6-inch pOLED cover display – 1066 x 1056 – 413ppi

The revamped cover display on the Razr 40 Ultra is undoubtedly its highlight feature. As we’d seen in leaks leading up to the launch event, the phone features a large display on the outside that pushes down to the edge and envelopes the dual camera system.

It’s the largest cover screen we’ve seen on a modern folding flip phone and – crucially – massively bigger than Samsung’s own Z Flip 4 display.

To make the most of it, Moto has refreshed the cover screen software to give you easy access to interactive elements like notifications, quick settings, weather, calendar and even a dedicated full-screen Spotify player interface. If you want you can even reply to messages on it or use it as your camera monitor.

Thanks to the revamped hinge on the phone you can set the cover to almost any angle to get the shot that you want and use a hand gesture to take a hands-free selfie. On first impressions, the hinge feels smooth and does seem to hold better than previous models once you start pushing it to more extreme angles. It doesn’t feel as eager to spring open.

It’s a good-looking phone that snaps shut leaving no gap between the two halves of the phone. That means you’re not likely to find dust and debris finding its way in there. Its matte frosted glass back feels smooth, and the rounded aluminium edges help give it a comfy in-hand feel.

Moto will launch the phone in three colours: Infinite Black, Glacier Blue and the Viva Magenta which is the only one that features a soft vegan leather back rather than glass. The glass models use Gorilla Glass Victus, so should survive the test of time (at least on the outside of the phone).

Open it up and you get a large 6.9-inch pOLED flexible display with some impressive specs. It’s an LTPO panel so it can ramp up and decrease refresh rates quickly and efficiently, from as low as 1Hz and 165Hz. It’s HDR10+ compatible too.

We’ve only had our hands on it a short while, but it does look good. Colours are vibrant, saturated and the screen seems bright too.

Hardware, battery and software

• Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 – 8GB RAM – 256GB storage
• 3800mAh battery – 30W wired charging – Wireless charging
• Android 13 – Flex Mode

It may seem unusual for a pretty expensive phone in 2023, but Motorola opted to fit the Razr 40 Ultra with last year’s flagship chipset. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though, because that chipset is the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. It’s fast, powerful and battery-friendly.

That was one of the reasons Motorola chose it and suggests that you should still get a full day’s use from the battery despite its relatively small 3800mAh capacity. We’ll reserve judgement on that until we’ve tested it properly.

It’s worth noting here though that it’s only 100mAh more than the capacity of Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 4 which just about gets through a full day with light/moderate usage, and has a much smaller display on the outside.

When it does eventually empty, Moto’s included 30W wired charger should fill it up again pretty quickly. It’s obviously not going to be as fast as some of the really quick chargers out there, but it will still top your battery up at a decent enough pace to be convenient in a pinch. It’ll top up wirelessly too.

Cameras

• 12MP f/1.5 primary camera – PDAF
• 13MP ultrawide and macro camera
• 32MP selfie camera

As cameras go, the system on the Moto seems to be pretty standard in its makeup. The primary camera could be interesting. It has a large sensor f/1.5 aperture for great light capture and has OIS for stabilisation. It’s joined by an ultrawide camera which also doubles as a macro camera. That’ll mean you can get right up close to small objects and get an in-focus shot.

The last camera in the story is the selfie camera inside the phone. Motorola has punched through the folding display with a 32-megapixel selfie camera.

While we expect results to be decent enough, it’s the software we think will make the biggest impact using the camera. The Flex mode that allows you to shoot video and photo with the phone sitting at an angle, hands-free, enables creativity that’s hard to get with a standard smartphone slab. Once more, we’ll reserve full judgement until after proper testing.

First impressions

The Razr 40 Ultra represents quite a big step forward for the foldable smartphone market. The big screen on the outside is surely hinting at what’s to come from the market, and we’d be very surprised if it wasn’t the start of a new trend of maximising that outer cover space and using it all for screen.

Otherwise, the revamped hinge, premium design and flagship processor inside should mean it’s a great all-rounder and one that – comparatively – doesn’t cost a huge amount.