Motorola Hypes Razr Flip Phone Launch Event And A Glorious Return To The US Market

Motorola was early to the foldable game with the Razr brand, but it didn't stick with it initially. Samsung has since surpassed Motorola as the undisputed king of foldable phones, in both tablet and flip phone form factors. Moto is teasing the next phase of its foldable journey, however, announcing that the expected Razr foldables will be revealed on June 1.

The teaser posted to Twitter doesn't tell us much of anything at just six seconds long. It shows two foldable phones, which are only visible for the first second. Not much to go on, but that's all the confirmation we really need. The Motorola Razr 40 and 40 Ultra have been leaked a few times, including just last week by @evleaks on Twitter.

As you can see in the leaked image above, the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra is slated to have a huge 3.5-inch external screen that covers almost the entire face of the phone. The non-Ultra variant will have a smaller outer display. Inside, the new Razrs have a 6.7-inch foldable OLED at 1080p with a high refresh rate (either 120 or 144Hz). Interestingly, leaks have pointed to the Razr 40 running last year's Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 instead of the newer Gen 2. You'll also be able to get up to 12GB of RAM, but it's unclear if that's the base allocation.

Flip the script. June 1. pic.twitter.com/gOhSmzhGzL — motorola (@Moto) May 16, 2023

So far, Motorola has released two clamshell-style foldables in the US. It launched a third model last year, but that one was exclusive to China. By all accounts, the new Razrs will launch in the US—Motorola's US Twitter account brought attention to the teaser, after all. This will mark the first time in almost three years that a new Razr has launched in the US. However, the specific launch details are still anyone's guess until June 1.

Pricing is going to be key here. Motorola demanded about $1,500 for both its US foldables at launch, but things have changed in two and a half years since the 2nd Gen Razr debuted. Samsung has now released four successful generations of clamshell foldables, and they retail for $1,000 before trade-in discounts. Moto might be able to get away with a higher price for the Razr 40 Ultra, but it's going to have to undercut Samsung with the base model to have any hope of gaining traction.