Motorola was always clear that the Razr is a “design-first” device, and it went to great lengths to recreate the visual vibe that its classic flip phones ran with for its first foldable. To pack some much-needed extras into this new model, though, Motorola had to make some changes: The new Razr is a little chubbier, and a features a “chin” that’s a bit less prominent than the original’s. Personally, these changes are enough to make the Razr just a little less visually striking, but they’re worth it when you consider what Motorola could pack in here as a result.

Motorola

For one, Motorola squeezed a better camera into the Razr’s top half. My biggest gripe with the original Razr’s 16-megapixel rear shooter wasn’t that it was bad, per se — it just wasn’t great compared to every other camera you’d find in a similarly priced phone. In response, Motorola chose a 48-megapixel camera for this new model, which should improve photo quality substantially. (Seeing as we haven’t even touched this thing yet, we’ll have to see about that.)

The somewhat pokey Snapdragon 710 found in the first Razr also is gone, replaced here by a more modern Snapdragon 765G and 8GB of RAM. That’s the same great-but-not-quite-premium chipset you’ll see in a new batch of affordable, 5G-friendly smartphones, like the OnePlus Nord, the TCL 10 5G, and certain versions of the LG Velvet. As I said, we’re not working with flagship power here, but the new Razr has everything it needs to run much more smoothly this time around.

And speaking of speed boosts, the new Razr was built to play nice with sub-6 5G networks, like those operated by its US carrier partners, T-Mobile and AT&T. (That’s right. Despite Verizon carrying the first Razr, there are apparently no plans for it to offer this significantly upgraded model.) Naturally, that extra horsepower and networking support are likely to impact power consumption, so Motorola also gave the new Razr a slightly bigger battery. I do mean slightly bigger, too — its full capacity tops out at 2,800mAh, up from 2,510mAh in the original. I suppose any improvement is a good thing, but it also means Razr owners are working with a battery that’s still significantly smaller than most other phones out there.

Motorola’s latest leak shows how its budget smartphones are offering pretty decent value. The entry-level Moto G9 Plus (appearing in an Orange Slovakia listing, via Roland Quandt) has four rear cameras including a 64-megapixel main camera, along with a huge 5,000 mAh battery — all for €255, or about $300.

It also comes with a 6.81-inch 1080p display, 4GB of RAM, 128GB of expandable storage and Android 10. On the front left corner, there’s a hole-punch selfie camera, though no mention of its resolution.

Motorola will announce its next major device, which the company says will “flip the smartphone experience once again,” next month. Earlier today, the company sent out media invites asking journalists to set time aside on September 9th.

The teaser doesn’t provide too many hints about what we can expect, but between the included GIF and Motorola’s choice of words, it’s likely we’ll see the company announce a new version of its Razr foldable display phone.

Motorola is bringing its One Fusion+ to North America tomorrow. The $399 phone was previously only available in India and Latin America, and the company hadn’t announced plans to introduce it elsewhere.

A few things make the One Fusion+ standout. Not only does it have a quad-camera set up — with a 64 megapixel high-resolution sensor, an eight megapixel ultra-wide angle lens, five megapixel Macro Vision camera and two megapixel depth sensor — it also has a 16 megapixel pop-up selfie camera.

A few weeks ago we asked you to review Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip, one of the few foldable smartphones on the market. Now we want to know if any of you early adopters opted for the Motorola Razr instead — it’s an updated version of the much loved V3 from 2004. This year’s model has two displays, 128GB of storage, a 16-megapixel main camera and a hefty price tag of $1500. Our reviewer Chris Velazco liked the design and hardware, but wasn’t impressed by its battery life, dull screen or mid-range chipset. He gave the smartphone a rather weak score of 61. 

If you took a gamble on Motorola’s folding phone, how did you feel about it? Did you experience a creaking hinge when opening or closing the handset? Were you underwhelmed by the cameras? Do you feel the device was worth its high cost? As usual, we want to hear all about your purchase on our Motorola Razr product page. Remember, your writeup could get included in an upcoming user review roundup article! 

Looks aside, there are some significant differences between this new Edge and the Plus model that launched earlier this year. Instead of a truly top-of-the-line chipset, Motorola used Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 765 in the Edge. It’s certainly no slouch, though: We’ve recently seen this potent processor used in LG’s Velvet, and has long been rumored to power Google’s new Pixel 5 smartphone. That choice of chipset also means the Edge loses the mmWave 5G support the Edge Plus had, which isn’t much of a surprise — those network deployments aren’t as common as sub-6 5G networks, which the cheaper Edge does support.

The standard Edge also uses a slightly tamer configuration of cameras than the Edge Plus. Its main, rear shooter is a 64MP affair with an f/1.8 aperture (compared to a 128MP sensor in the Edge Plus), and it’s flanked by a 16MP wide-angle camera, along with an 8MP telephoto camera with 2x optical zoom. Motorola also confirmed the US version of the Edge would ship with 6GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, a notable bump up from the 128GB of storage we’ve seen in some international variants.

We were fond of the Edge despite a clear lack of polish at times, and with luck, Motorola has ironed out some of its issues since then. Still, when you consider just how many high-profile phones will use the same chipset, we can’t help but wonder if the Edge will face the same issues standing out as its pricey counterpart did.

The new policy doesn’t propel the Edge+ into a category of its own, but it does make it at least competitive against some other Android devices. For instance, like most of Samsung’s high-end devices, the recently released Galaxy S20 and Galaxy Z Flip will receive two major Android upgrades. If software updates are the thing you care about the most, then Google’s Pixel’s lineup is still unmatched — at least when it comes to Android. 

Still, this is at least a step in the right direction for Motorola, particularly for a phone that will cost $1,000 when it comes out. Since Google sold the company to Lenovo, it hasn’t had the best track record of updating its devices in a timely matter, nor has it done a great job of supporting them over time. But between today’s announcement and the Android 10 update the company released for the Razr, things are starting to look up.   

Motorola is finally updating the new Razr to Android 10, but it’s not just an under-the-hood update — it should deliver genuinely functional improvements, particularly when the foldable phone is closed. You can now use more apps on the outer (aka Quick View) screen, including Google Maps’ turn-by-turn navigation and music control for apps like Pandora, Spotify and YouTube Music. You can also access favorite contacts to make calls from that external display, and you can reply to messages directly from the screen using either a new Quick View keyboard or canned Smart Replies.

More camera modes are available from the closed Razr, including group selfies and portrait modes. You can quickly access the camera by either swiping right or twisting your wrist.

Aside from the assembly of cameras on the back, there’s also a fingerprint reader masked by the Motorola logo. This worked as well as you’d expect. Only a few ports and buttons live on the edges of the device: the right side has the power button and volume rocker, the left side has the combination SIM card and microSD card slot and the bottom has the USB-C charging port and a headphone jack (#blessed). However, a disappointing yet unsurprising thing left out of the Moto G Stylus is support for wireless charging.

The 6.4-inch, 19:9 LCD screen running at HD+ (2300 x 1080p) ups the ante on the Moto G Stylus. It gets quite bright, produces vibrant colors and is generally lovely to use for watching videos and reading long articles on Pocket or Kindle. It’s not marred by a top-notch either, as the front-facing, 16MP selfie camera is a simple cutout at the top-left corner of the handset. The Dolby-tuned speakers inside the Moto G Stylus get sufficiently loud, but sound quality suffers a bit when you crank it up to 100-percent volume. I wouldn’t use this smartphone to play music at a party, but it’ll be just for fine tiny desk concerts and while watching music videos on YouTube.

Software

The Moto G Stylus runs a mostly clean version of Android 10, just like Motorola’s flagship Edge Plus. Those looking for the purest version of Android (outside of a Pixel) need look no further. I’ve never been a fan of the skins that some manufacturers like Samsung add to their handsets, and I’ve never met someone who likes bloatware. Motorola skips all of those faux pas and instead leans on a handful of software quirks tied to the phone’s hardware to make its mark.

We’ve talked about the stylus’ unique features and we’ll get to the cameras soon. Moto Actions is really the only other collection of Moto-specific things on this handset. Twist the phone in your hand twice to launch the camera app, karate-chop twice to quickly turn on or off the flashlight — you get the idea. There’s a dedicated Actions menu in Settings that you can view at any time, too, just in case you forget which gestures are available.

But Motorola did leave out a few other features that will disappoint some — 5G and NFC. The lack of the former isn’t surprising on a midrange phone. However, the lack of NFC is much more disappointing. Contactless payments have become ubiquitous and many consumers may assume that every smartphone has it. But, they’ll be frustrated if they go to set up Google Pay on the G Stylus only to find that it’s not an option. 

Cameras

The camera array on the back of the Moto G Stylus is pretty capable, especially for a $300 smartphone. It has a 48MP f/1.7 main camera that uses pixel binning to let more light in, a 16MP f/2.2 ultrawide lens and 2MP f/2.2 macro lens. The first shooter is fairly standard and produced lovely images, even if those with the most natural light appeared slightly overexposed.

That’s the biggest difference I noticed between the G Stylus’ camera and those on the Pixel 3a and the new iPhone SE — the more natural light available, the more likely it was that the shot would come out slightly overexposed. Nevertheless, the camera was at its best when more light was available (graininess quickly crept in when light disappeared) and the pixel binning came in handy when taking indoor shots on overcast days or when lit only by sparse light bulbs. The best shots had colors that were similar to colors in Pixel 3a photos, but colors in the overexposed shots often appeared oversaturated.