Motorola is bringing the coolest phone of the 2000s, the RAZR, back as a foldable smartphone

I think in the last decade, when every manufacturer raced to ape Apple’s iPhone design and settled on a template for smartphones, we lost a certain coolness factor that came with the novelty of being able to communicate on the go. In the decade prior to the rise of the black monolith, mobile devices were crazy. Manufacturers were rolling out devices with more gimmicks than early 1990s WWE, throwing ideas at a wall and seeing what would stick.

The best phone of the lot? Easily Motorola’s magnificent RAZR phone. It was sleek, sexy and the flip mechanic was endlessly satisfying. I actually had one of those phones. Emphasis on had, until some complete waste of blood and functioning organs stole it. Anyway, times changed, Motorola fell on some hard times as the market transitioned to high resolution black blocks which could transmit random strangers yelling at you on social media and the overall design for a mainstream phone didn’t exactly allow for risky new designs to take the spotlight.

Until now that is.

Motorola is back with a new take on the RAZR, one that uses foldable technology to create something which simply works. Instead of a phone that folds out to function as a tablet, the new RAZR folds in on itself so that it leaves a smaller footprint behind. Unfolded, you’re looking at a pretty decent device: A 6.2-inch foldable plastic OLED panel, 6GB of RAM, 128GB internal storage and a 16MP rear camera.

Once you fold it up, you’re greeted with an outside 2.7-inch Quick View display, that has an 800 x 600 resolution. It looks stunning in action and after the major brouhaha revolving around Samsung and the disastrous launch of the Galaxy Fold, Motorola reckons they’ve got the design pegged. They’ve got a hinge system that Lenovo helped them develop, which they say can take plenty of stress and will more than hold up to the task of whipping your phone out in public and snapping it into prime shape for whatever it is that you have planned.

There are some caveats to the design though, such as an older Snapdragon 710 chipset and other older hardware that is meant to maximise battery life and keep the phone from burning your hand with overheating due to its thin design. That, and the phone ain’t going to be cheap: American prices have it listed for $1500 when it arrives next year, a price tag that puts it up there with the upper echelon of Samsung, Huawei and Apple smartphones. There’s no local pricing yet or confirmation if the RAZR will make it to our side, but I’ll update as soon as I know more.

The overall picture painted by Motorola is that the new RAZR looks like a decent device with a massive price tag. But by Odin’s beard, it may just be the coolest smartphone on the block and the most exciting thing that the industry has to offer in an ocean of devices that are far too similar to one another.

Motorola made the foldable Razr we've wanted pic.twitter.com/jKlkGNHPFS

— The Verge (@verge) November 14, 2019

Last Updated: November 14, 2019