“The Motorola Razr Plus 2024 is a phenomenal phone. It's fun, well-made, and one of the best foldables you can buy.”
- A smooth, durable hinge
- Lovely leather back
- Fantastic cover screen
- Much-improved cameras
- Reliable battery life
- Ample charging options
- Fun and charming software
- Tinny speakers
- Three years of OS upgrades
When I think back on some of the best phones from 2023, one that remains high on my list is the Motorola Razr Plus. Last year’s Razr Plus was a bold new release for Motorola. It wasn’t the company’s first foldable phone, but it quickly became its best — and one of my all-time favorites.
Fast-forward a little over a year, and we now have the phone’s successor, the Motorola Razr Plus 2024. While not as big or exciting of a release as the first Razr Plus, this year’s model is every bit as good — and in many ways, a lot better. It has the same sense of fun and style as its predecessor, but delivers that in a much more refined package.
In other words, it’s one of the best folding phones you can buy right now.
Motorola Razr Plus 2024: design
Visually, the Razr Plus 2024 doesn’t look very different from the Razr Plus 2023. Personally, I’m totally fine with that. It’s a strong design, and there are some subtle (but important) upgrades for this year’s phone.
For starters, every color of the Razr Plus 2024 now has a vegan leather back. Last year’s phone had a mix of glass and leather finishes, but this time around, it’s all leather all the time. This year’s leather finish is soft and grippy and feels fantastic to the touch. You also get a lot of lovely colors to choose from, including Midnight Blue, Hot Pink, Peach Fuzz, and Spring Green. I have the green color, and it’s my personal favorite of the bunch.
A design change you can’t see, but one that makes a big difference, is Motorola’s new hinge. It’s a completely new design compared to the one on the Razr Plus 2023, and in my experience, it’s a significant change for the better. The new Razr Plus feels so much nicer to open and close, and it’s smooth and silent in all the right ways. I still need two hands to comfortably open it, but once it’s partly unfolded, snapping it the rest of the way open with a flick of the wrist feels better than ever.
Motorola nailed this design.
There are two other things I love about the new hinge. First, the crease on the Razr Plus 2024 is virtually nonexistent. Last year’s Razr phones already did a good job in this department, but this time around, I often forget the crease is there at all. You can see a hint of it in certain lighting conditions, but in daily use, it all but disappears from sight and touch.
Perhaps more importantly, this new hinge inspires much more confidence in the Razr Plus’ durability. You have a lot more freedom to angle the display in a partiak=l fold before it snaps all the way open. The two halves of the phone also don’t move around when you push on them when the Razr Plus is folded shut — which is something I noticed on last year’s Razrs. Similarly, the 2024 Razr Plus now has an IPX8 rating for much greater water resistance compared to the IP52 rating on last year’s model.
Overall, I think Motorola nailed this design. The leather back looks and feels great, the hinge feels noticeably better, and the phone is more durable, too. I don’t love the shiny aluminum frame, and the external speakers are too tinny for my liking, but those are my only real complaints. As far as folding flip phones go, it doesn’t get much better than this.
Motorola Razr Plus 2024: screens
Speaking of having little to complain about, we now come to the screens. On the front of the Razr Plus 2024 is a 4-inch pOLED display with a 1272 x 1080 resolution. It has up to 2400 nits of peak brightness and up to a 165Hz refresh rate. Yes, all of that is for a cover screen. Is it overkill? Perhaps. But I love it. It’s bright and colorful, it looks fantastic, and the larger size (up from 3.6 inches last year) makes it easier to run apps and reply to messages without opening the phone up.
This cover screen is 0.4 inches larger than on the Razr Plus 2023 and essentially takes up the entire front of the phone; last year’s model had a noticeably large bezel at the top. When the Razr Plus is shut, it looks like you’re just holding a tiny display and nothing more in your hand, and it’s an incredibly cool effect. The two main cameras still take up part of the display, but you can choose apps that fill the entire screen (and get partly cut off by the cameras) or run in a smaller window so the cameras aren’t a problem.
The best part about the Razr Plus’s cover screen? It finally has an always-on display (AOD) option. This was critically absent from last year’s Razrs, but it’s here on the Razr Plus 2024, and it’s fantastic. Thanks to this, I have a tiny square on my desk that I can easily glance at to see the time, date, weather, battery life, and notification icons. Now, Motorola just needs to bring the AOD to all of its other phones.
What about the main/inner display? It’s also great! It’s a 6.9-inch pOLED display with a Full HD+ (2640 x 1080) resolution. Here, you get up to 3000 nits of peak brightness and up to a 165Hz refresh rate. It’s bright, colorful, and plenty sharp for all of my apps, games, videos, etc.
There is a preinstalled screen protector that Motorola urges you not to remove, and so far, mine has held up quite well. It’s not peeling at any of the edges and doesn’t have any visible marks on it — even with me picking at it to remove some smudges.
Motorola Razr Plus 2024: cameras
Camera quality was one of the biggest disappointments in last year’s Razr Plus. It was fine, though it suffered from inconsistent photos and a very forgettable ultrawide camera. I’m happy to report that the Razr Plus 2024 is a considerable improvement.
Specs-wise, the phone has a 50-megapixel main camera with optical image stabilization (OIS) and an f/1.7 aperture. It’s joined by a 50MP telephoto camera with 2x optical zoom and an f/2.0 aperture. Finally, there’s a 32MP selfie camera at the top of the inner display.
To my surprise, I’ve been really happy with almost all of the photos I’ve taken with the Razr Plus 2024. All of the above photos were captured with the 50MP main camera, and they’re all great shots. Whether I’m taking pictures outside or in a dimly lit bar, the Razr Plus 2024 has consistently churned out images that present little to complain about.
Photos are sharp and have good colors — though they can be a little too saturated at times. The Razr Plus 2024 is the first Motorola phone with the company’s “Photo Enhancement Engine,” which is supposed to improve dynamic range, image details, zoom quality, etc. Comparing these photos with the ones I took on the Razr Plus 2023, it’s pretty clear that it’s doing a damn fine job.
I’ve also been impressed by the 2x telephoto camera. I know some folks aren’t thrilled that it replaced the ultrawide camera, but considering how mediocre last year’s ultrawide sensor was, I’m happy with this change. Similar to the main camera, it captures very good detail and colors. It can also handle itself surprisingly well in lowlight environments — whether that’s a dark restaurant or a close-up of a glowing sign late at night. You can see a few telephoto camera samples above.
Last year’s Razr Plus camera was one of my least favorite parts about using the phone. Conversely, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed taking pictures with the Razr Plus 2024. It’s not the most technically impressive camera at this price, but it’s one I’ll be happy to keep using. Combine its strengths with the extra utility that naturally comes with a folding flip phone — such as displaying a preview of the viewfinder on the cover screen and propping the phone up as a makeshift tripod — and I have very little to complain about here.
Motorola Razr Plus 2024: performance and battery life
Inside the Motorola Razr Plus 2024 is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chip — the same one you’ll find in the Honor 200 Pro. It’s a step below the regular Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in phones like the Samsung Galaxy S24 and Xiaomi 14 Ultra. Some people may consider that a negative for a phone that costs $1,000. However, after using that Honor phone and now the Razr Plus 2024, I don’t have any real issues with it.
Battery life has been another highlight of the Razr Plus 2024.
The Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 may not technically be Qualcomm’s top-tier chipset, but it sure does feel plenty fast for everything I need it to do. Apps open immediately, and navigating the UI is fast and responsive. Star Wars: Hunters runs very well at the High graphics settings and at 60 frames per second (fps). The Razr Plus warms up a little bit after a couple of back-to-back games, but only slightly. Full-on power users may find the chip lacking, but not once have I found it to be slow, prone to stuttering, or not capable enough. I also really like that you get 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage as standard.
Battery life has been another highlight of the Razr Plus 2024. Last year’s phone saw me ending most days with around 15% battery remaining. Now, I’m ending my day with closer to 40% to 50% of the 4000 mAh battery remaining. One day, for example, I started my day at 6:25 a.m. and ended it a little after 10:50 p.m. That was after 3 hours and 17 minutes of screen time — including over an hour of watching YouTube, 40 minutes scrolling through Twitter/X, and frequent use of other apps like Telegram, Duolingo, Reddit, Day One, and others.
Does this mean the Razr Plus 2024 is still a one-day phone? For most people, yes. But you can do more on it throughout the day and have more battery remaining than you could with the Razr Plus 2023. Plus, if you’re more conservative with your usage, you could very likely stretch this to a day-and-a-half of use before you need to find a charger. For a folding flip phone like this, I’m very happy with this level of endurance.
Speaking of things that make me happy, there are the Razr Plus’s charging options. You get 45-watt wired charging, 15W wireless charging, and 5W reverse wireless charging. While 45W doesn’t hold a candle to the 80W charge speeds you get on theOnePlus 12, it is faster than phones like the Google Pixel 8 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro Max.
Motorola Razr Plus 2024: software and updates
Many Motorola phones released in 2024 have been plagued with bad software — including preinstalled apps and advertisements littered throughout the user interface. Thankfully, the Razr Plus 2024 is devoid of those problems.
It downloads Spotify, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Adobe Scan by default, but that’s it in terms of bloatware. There’s no Glance app to clutter up your lock screen, no app folders filled with advertisements, and no third-party weather app that’s also an ad-riddled mess. It’s a very clean skin of Moto’s software and a huge step up from a phone like the Motorola Edge 2024.
Otherwise, this is the same Motorola software experience you’ve come to expect. Visually, it looks a lot like a Google Pixel phone. You’ll find some extra features bundled in the Moto app, but the overall UI is simple and clutter-free.
My two favorite features — chopping the phone to open the flashlight and twisting it to open the camera — are here and work great. There’s also a new option (which I love) to slide your finger on the power button to open your notifications/quick settings. When Motorola isn’t weighing down its software with ads and bloat, it’s a pretty great experience.
As for the cover screen, its software is very similar to last year’s Razr Plus. You get a lock and home screen that are customizable and separate from those on the inner display. Swiping down on the home screen shows your quick settings, while tapping the notification icons in the bottom-left corner shows a list of your notifications.
Swipe left or right on your home screen, and you can cycle through the Razr Plus’ “panels” — essentially a bunch of widgets designed just for the cover screen. These include:
- Apps
- Calendar
- Contacts
- Games
- Google Stock
- Moto Buds
- Spotify
- Stopwatch
- Timer
- Weather
- Widgets
The weather and calendar panels are among my favorites. They’re quite simple — showing me the weather forecast and my upcoming calendar appointments — but they’re designed really well and look great on the cover screen.
The apps panel lets you find and run any of your apps on the cover screen, while the new widgets panel allows you to add widgets from your favorite apps in a vertically scrolling list. Of all the foldable flip phones I’ve used, Motorola’s cover screen software is easily my favorite. It’s easy to understand, is plenty customizable, and doesn’t make you jump through a dozen hoops to run the apps you want.
I also just love how whimsical the Razr Plus’s software is. Moo returns as one of the cover display lock screens, giving you an unreasonably adorable friend to accompany you each day. When you’re listening to music, you get a lovely record player UI to control the song from your lock screen. They’re small touches, yes, but they give the Razr Plus a sense of fun and whimsy that you seldom see on phones today. It sounds silly, but it’s a big part of why I love using the Razr Plus so much.
What’s not great is Motorola’s software update policy. The Razr Plus 2024 will get three years of Android OS upgrades and four years of bimonthly security updates. That’s the bare minimum level of support for a smartphone in 2024, let alone one that costs $1,000.
In a world where Samsung and Google are offering seven years of updates — even to phones that cost $500 — it’s more apparent than ever just how much ground Motorola has to make up. Three years of Android updates may be just fine for you, but when you’re spending this kind of money on a phone, you should expect it to last a lot longer than that.
Motorola Razr Plus 2024: price and availability
The Motorola Razr Plus 2024 will be available for preorder starting July 10 at Amazon, Best Buy, T-Mobile, AT&T, and Motorola’s website. Regular sales begin on July 24, and the phone costs $1,000.
Although that’s a good chunk of money, it’s the exact same price as last year’s Razr Plus. Considering the improved hinge, much better cameras, and longer battery life, that’s great to see. Motorola also often runs deep discounts on its phones throughout the year, meaning you shouldn’t have any issue getting the Razr Plus 2024 for well under $1,000.
Motorola Razr Plus 2024: verdict
Last year’s Razr Plus was one of my personal favorite smartphones, though my recommendation of it came with some caveats. As much as I enjoyed using it, I also recognized that it had numerous shortcomings. Its cameras were disappointing, its battery life was lacking, and the hinge trailed behind the competition. I was OK looking past those things, but if someone asked me which folding flip phone they should buy, I’d reluctantly recommend the Galaxy Z Flip 5.
The Motorola Razr Plus 2024 retains the fun and charm of its predecessor while improving upon it in virtually every way. The hinge feels better and more reliable. The cover display is larger. Camera quality is significantly improved. Battery life is longer. Charging speeds are faster. To get that many upgrades without a price increase is a mighty impressive feat.
The Razr Plus 2024 is the best foldable to date from Motorola.
How will the Razr Plus 2024 hold up next to the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6? That remains to be seen. But as it stands right now, the new Razr Plus is the foldable flip phone I’m going to recommend to people — and the one I’ll happily keep using even after this review. It’s the best foldable to date from Motorola, and one of the best I’ve ever used.
