- The new Motorola Razr will sell at $1,500 making it one of the most expensive smartphones.
- Samsung’s Galaxy Fold is the obvious competitor and the Razr beats it in price.
- In the US Motorola is launching the device well after the holiday shopping season has peaked.
The Motorola Razr from the early noughties is back into the fold, literally. But while the design of the iconic flip phone is nearly identical to the feature phone of the early 2000s, the new Razr is a foldable smartphone running on an Android operating system.
For those familiar with the old Razr, the one thing that’s bound to kill all feelings of nostalgia is the price. Motorola has priced the new Razr at $1,500. While it is not clear which niche Motorola is targeting with the new Razr, it is easy to see who is not on the radar – value hunters.
Lenovo Group which now owns Motorola may have gotten a bargain when Google sold the firm at $2.91 billion after buying it at $12.5 billion, but it is unlikely consumers will have the same sentiment with regards to the new Razr.
Here are five reasons that might make you fold your arms and turn away when Motorola makes that pitch to you:
Already Outdated, for a 2020 Foldable Phone
Specifications of the Motorola Razr smartphone | Source: Screengrab
The new Razr will run the Android 9 Pie operating system. This is a let-down given that it is coming months after Google had already released Android 10 OS which has better support for foldables.
Makes you wonder whether the Razr was built many months ago and then placed on the shelves before someone suddenly remembered it needed to be launched. Similarly, the eye-popping $1,500 should deliver the best hardware specs, but falls short.
Unproven hardware
If the experiences of Samsung with regards to foldable smartphones are anything to go by, these devices have peculiar durability problems.
You will thus have to be careful when handling the Razr as maintenance costs are on the higher side. For instance, just replacing the screen after the warranty runs out will cost about 20% of the device’s buying price.
Coverage restriction – Motorola Razr only launching on one US carrier
In the US, the Razr will only be available with Verizon at launch. This means that the phone employs the CDMA protocol that the largest wireless carrier by market share, alongside Sprint, use. If you are not a Verizon subscriber, you will either have to sign up or wait at a later date when Motorola releases a GSM Razr smartphone for the US market.
The Razr smartphone will also be simultaneously made available on other markets such as Europe, South America and the APAC region.
Limited internal storage
On its website, the Lenovo-owned Motorola suggests that the Razr will initially only offer one internal storage option – 128 GB. For a smartphone in that price range, that’s restrictive.
High-end devices such as the Galaxy S10 and the iPhone 11 Pro are more flexible and offer internal storage options of up to 256 GB and 512GB respectively. Other flagship devices come with an expandable memory slot.
Cheaper than Galaxy Fold but pricier than the usual suspects
At a starting price of $1,500 the Razr is more expensive than Apple’s iPhone 11 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.
The Samsung Galaxy Fold has been a relative failure but not unexpected for an early variant of cutting-edge tech. | Source: AP Photo/Kelvin Chan
It is, however, cheaper than Samsung’s Galaxy Fold which is about 30% more expensive. The Fold, however, does offer a larger screen size when unfolded – 7.3 inches. The Samsung foldable also has a significantly larger-capacity battery – 4,380 mAh versus the Razr’s 2,510 mAh.
This article was edited by Samburaj Das.
Last modified: November 14, 2019 13:29 UTC