Motorola Razr 50 Ultra

An impressive flip phone evolution with a premium design

Motorola has significantly upgraded the Razr 50 Ultra, enhancing its camera technology, boosting battery life, improving performance, and adding a shinier, more stylish design.

Unboxing

In the sleek, elongated box, you’ll find:

– The Motorola Razr 50 Ultra

– A 68-watt power adapter (note that charging speeds don’t quite reach 68 watts with the Razr 50 Ultra)

– A USB charging cable

The flexible protective cover of a similar shade as the phone can also accommodate an optional strap when you have no pocket or convenient storage.

Design and Build

Motorola Razr 50 Ultra maintains the usual flip phone design concept with a front display measuring about four inches wide. Although it has a relatively large camera opening on top, Gorilla Glass Victus still protects this screen from cracking though it might easily get scratched.

The phone comes in four colors: green, Peach fuzz, and Peacock pink. All models now sport a lovely vegan leather finish that feels soft and luxurious to the touch. The Razr 50 Ultra is also rated IPX8 water-resistant allowing it to be submerged fully without damage, though you would want to dry it properly afterwards. The glossy hinge cover is made of stainless steel which contributes towards a stylish and premium look of the phone.

Cover Screen

With HDR10+ support, a 1272×1080 pixel resolution and brightness that stands out even under sunlight thanks to the POLED screen technology with Perfect Black Filter that enhances contrast ratio to infinite levels. This has an LTPO panel with a refresh rate of up to 165Hz- this seems too much for just a cover screen but such can trigger more usage on this display. Motorola has embedded in its cover screen an ability to access any app hence making it flexible for quick tasks or even watching videos.

The cover screen can show notifications, control media playback or even run full applications. Therefore, one can use it conveniently for short interactions without having to open the device completely. Additionally, widgets for basic functions like weather information, calendars as well as fitness tracking are available thus improving productivity by Motorola.

Main Display

Opening the phone will reveal a 6.9-inch POLED panel that features a resolution of 2640×1080 pixels, HDR10+ support, and an update rate of 165Hz. While the crease is subtle and nearly imperceptible head-on, the display is very shiny. The display is highly reflective but it becomes so bright that it can overwhelm the most outdoor glare. According to our brightness meter’s manual slider, we recorded up to about 540 nits on either monitor, while auto mode could raise this figure above 1250 nits in bright conditions only; however, for cover screen only.

The Razr 50 Ultra comes with stereo speakers that offer good audio quality even at high volumes without distortion. In addition, there is an edge-mounted fingerprint scanner for rapid and secure access as well. Main Display has multiple windows giving room for running numerous applications at once which makes it better when it comes to multitasking.

Software and Performance

In terms of everyday performance, the Razr 50 Ultra runs smoothly off Snapdragon’s flagship chipset known as Snapdragon 8 Gen3. It has UFS4 storage (256Gb or 512GB) although microSD cards are not supported. This is further boosted by Motorola’s skin for Android involving features like a fast flashlight and whole security suite plus a number of gestures adding up to its more traditional stock Android experience.

The phone is running Motorola’s Hello UI which is new with Android 14. It almost resembles the stock Android but has some customizations. All of these extra features have been formulated in the Moto app and redesigned for Hello UI. These include many things such as settings, gestures, and dynamic wallpapers which animate when you bend the device. Additionally, you can now even create AI-generated wallpapers.

Gaming Performance

Furthermore, it contains gaming tools like blocking notifications and calls or recording gameplay and others. However, at higher settings, Genshin Impact may experience some lags on this high-end game. The device also has an advanced cooling system to prevent overheating while performing heavy tasks. In comparison to the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen1 used in the Razr 40 Ultra, the performance of the Razr 50 Ultra is a bit higher than its predecessor. Contrary to last year’s Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 which had Snapdragon 8 Gen2 inside it, Razr 50 Ultra also packs considerable juice for multitasking smoothly and playing heavy games.

Thermal Management

This is because poor thermal management occurs in small foldable devices due to form factor issues. This is not a peculiar feature of the Razr since it was found to undergo substantial thermal throttling amounting to about fifty percent during long stress tests.

Battery Life

The battery has been upped to 4000mAh, which is fine for a clamshell phone. For heavy users though, it may not last an entire day; but with the 45-watt turbo power charging and 15-watt wireless charging it will always get filled up soon when required. We managed to charge the phone from zero to 78% within thirty minutes using the included adapter and it took 47 minutes for a complete charge.

The Razr 50 Ultra achieved a very good active use score of 12 hours and 5 minutes. It can also be calculated as approximately 22 hours worth of voice calls, over 10 hours of browsing time on web pages, more than 15 hours streaming videos, or roughly 8 hours for gaming purposes.

Camera

The phone has a main camera with a resolution of about 50 megapixels and an optical image stabilizer as well as a telephoto lens with the same resolution offering two times optical zoom. Here we see that there’s no ultra-wide in it, but some people might miss it. Selfies can be taken with the cover screen serving as a viewfinder while different camera modes and filters are available for customization.

The main camera takes very nice photos with accurate exposures, wide dynamic range, great contrast, and good detail. Although the white balance was sometimes slightly off in several outdoor scenes, the colors were still vivid. The primary camera in dim light conditions produces very decent shots for its class – with balanced exposures, vibrant colors, and acceptable details albeit sometimes sharpened.

Video recordings can go up to four K resolutions while video calls can be made through an internal display fitted with a thirty-two-megapixel front-facing camera too. Moreover, the cover screen is big enough to have video calls on the major one using its rear-facing shooter. The camera software comes with modes such as night mode, portrait mode, and pro mode for controlling photography.

4K videos from the main camera have a warmish white balance like the stills, with just-right color saturation, good dynamic range, and contrast. However, there is room for improvement in the detail as it is a bit soft overall. Electronic stabilization helps but isn’t the smoothest we’ve seen thus leaving some shake from walking. Low-light videos have good detail and respectable dynamic range and color rendition despite some noise.

Sharp, detailed zoom shots with vibrant colors and accurate white balance are delivered by the 50MP telephoto camera. With this lens, you can also get decent results at 4x zoom level. In low light, though under warm streetlights it occasionally has white balance issues, such as when taking photos on a dark day or at night when there are no other lights nearby and all you see is darkness; well low light conditions are ideal situations for testing any camera’s abilities to perform when there is not much light available. Zoom 4K videos show great detailing for this class although the colour temperature is slightly off.

Selfies

One of the advantages of having a foldable phone is that you can use the secondary screen as a viewfinder for shooting selfies using rear cameras. Upon that front face snapper pictures are very closely cropped just like in the case of most portrait images hence showing natural separation from the background while giving out its wide angle shot feel with accurate color reproduction and beautiful details that capture facial features effectively. However, there is no toggle button on the home screen for accessing the telephoto camera. Selfies from the dedicated 32MP selfie camera positioned in the inner display are of lower quality than those taken by the main camera (which has autofocus), but still, they produce good pictures.

Connectivity

The Razr 50 Ultra supports 5G connections ensuring fast streaming, gaming, and browsing. Plus, it has WiFi 6e that enhances performance on compatible networks. With Bluetooth v5.3 it is easy to connect wireless peripherals, while NFC support enables contactless payments and simple device pairing.

Additional Features

Audio: This smartphone has stereo speakers that scored excellent marks in our loudness test and provide great sound quality with clear vocals, well-preserved highs, and enough bass.

Security: The fingerprint reader on its power key which is located at a side is responsive and efficient.

Accessories: For ease of handling Motorola has provided a flexible protective cover alongside an optional strap.

Smart Konnect: Now known as Smart Konnect (formerly Ready For), Motorola’s feature makes it possible to connect with a PC or external monitor thereby improving productivity as well as entertainment options.

Software Support: Motorola did promise to update the OS for 3 years and support security patches for 4 years on its recent phones, so we should expect a similar treatment of Razr 50 Ultra.

Conclusion

Motorola Razr 50 Ultra is an impressive flip phone evolution with premium design, strong performance, and versatile displays. It has been priced at $999, competing with other high-end foldable models. The biggest changes are longer battery life, faster charging, and better camera quality. However thermal management remains a challenge as in any flip phone. In general, the Razr 50 Ultra is a complete product that would work well for anyone looking for a modern flip foldable.