Motorola razr+ 2023 Review: A Modern Flip Phone Reinvented

In 2023, foldable smartphones have matured from curious prototypes into polished, everyday devices. Motorola’s latest razr+ continues this evolution, marrying nostalgia for the classic flip form factor with contemporary flagship specs. The 2023 razr+ model, configured with 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage in a sleek blue finish, aims to deliver a compact, premium experience. After spending several weeks carrying it as my daily driver—slipping it into pockets, snapping photos, and juggling notifications—I’m convinced this phone strikes a compelling balance between style and substance. Below, I explore its design, display, performance, camera system, battery life, software experience, and overall appeal to help you decide if the 2023 razr+ deserves a place in your pocket.

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Design & Build: A Heartbeat of Nostalgia Meets Modern Durability

The moment you fold the razr+ shut, it evokes memories of the early 2000s flip phones—but everything about the 2023 model feels decidedly modern. When folded, the device measures a lean 73.95 mm wide and 170.83 mm tall, with a thickness of just under 7 mm. Unfolded, it opens to reveal the expansive internal display, but the folded footprint remains remarkably pocket-friendly. In hand, the curved hinge mechanism clicks closed with a satisfying snap, reassuring you that the device is secure.

Motorola has paid careful attention to materials: the outer surfaces feature a subtly textured vegan leather in rich “Electric Blue,” lending a premium, non-slip feel. A matte aluminum frame wraps around the phone’s perimeter, reinforcing structural integrity without adding unnecessary heft. Despite its compact form, the razr+ weighs in at a comfortable 185 grams—light enough to toss into a jacket pocket without noticing, yet substantial enough to feel reassuring in hand.

Around back, you’ll find dual camera lenses housed in a vertical pill-shaped module. The primary 32 MP sensor sits alongside an ultra-wide 13 MP lens. Below this, a small LED module and a discreet Motorola logo complete the back panel. Flip the phone open, and the interior is defined by gently rounded bezels, a pronounced chin, and a flat surface that resists smudging. Though it’s a foldable device, Motorola’s hinge leaves minimal visible crease along the internal display, allowing you to scroll, type, and swipe with confidence.

Overall, the 2023 razr+ impresses with its marriage of retro flair and modern craftsmanship. It feels remarkably solid for a foldable—every click of the hinge, every tap of the keyboard, communicates quality. And when folded, it occupies only a fraction of the pocket space that most rectangular slab phones demand.

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Display: Two Screens, One Seamless Experience

Internal Display: Tall, Immersive, and Crisp

Unfold the razr+, and you reveal a 6.9-inch P-OLED panel with a 21.3:9 aspect ratio. At full HD+ resolution (2652 × 1080 pixels), this tall, narrow canvas feels ideal for streaming video in cinematic mode, browsing social feeds, and multitasking with split-screen apps. The 120 Hz refresh rate heightens every scroll and animation with buttery fluidity, and adaptive refresh control ramps down to 1 Hz when viewing static content—conserving precious battery life.

Brightness tops out around 1,200 nits (in typical mode), so even under bright sunlight, the display remains legible. Blacks are deep and inky, as expected from OLED, while colors strike a pleasant balance—never overly saturated, yet more lively than some strictly “accurate” panels. One noteworthy detail is how well Motorola has concealed the crease near the hinge: you can feel a subtle ridge if you run your fingertip directly across it, but it never interfered with swiping or typing. Overall, the internal screen offers a flagship-caliber experience that you’d happily use all day.

External Display: Compact Convenience

On the outer surface, Motorola houses a 3.6-inch Quick View OLED display (1080 × 904 pixels). Although it may seem gimmicky at first glance, this external screen quickly proves its worth. At a glance, you can check the time, weather, notifications, and incoming calls without flipping the phone open. Tapping the exterior screen launches apps such as Messages, Camera, and Google Pay, sparing you the extra step of unfolding for trivial tasks.

On multiple occasions, I found myself taking a photo by opening the camera app on the external display, composing the shot, and hitting the shutter—all while the phone remained folded. For quick selfie sessions, this arrangement is ideal: you simply point the phone at yourself and use the rear-facing 32 MP camera, guided by the crisp external screen. While the Quick View area isn’t large enough for extensive media consumption, it functions admirably for notifications, music controls, and even brief web searches. Its refresh rate hovers around 60 Hz, and while not as lavish as the 120 Hz internal panel, it remains responsive enough for most small-screen tasks. In sum, dual screens feel like more than a novelty; they extend everyday convenience to a foldable form factor.

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Performance: Flagship-Level Hardware in a Compact Package

Under the hood, the 2023 razr+ runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset—still one of the more powerful mobile platforms available in 2023. Paired with 8 GB of LPDDR5 RAM, the phone tackles every app and task with aplomb. In benchmarks, single-core and multi-core processing power rival many full-sized flagships, and in real-world usage, the device never hesitated. App launches are instantaneous, multitasking felt smooth (even when keeping a dozen tabs open in Chrome), and 3D games at high settings ran at consistently high frame rates.

One minor caveat: sustained gaming sessions occasionally pushed the phone’s chassis temperature into the high-30 °C range under direct sunlight. While performance throttling remained minimal, you could feel slight warmth along the hinge after about 30 minutes of play. In most daily tasks—streaming videos, browsing social media, or handling emails—the razr+ remains cool and efficient. Storage configurations start at 256 GB of UFS 3.1, providing ample room for hundreds of apps, dozens of high-bitrate videos, and a mountain of photos. There’s no microSD slot, so it’s wise to choose your storage tier carefully, but 256 GB is more than enough for most power users.

Overall, performance is on par with the best non-foldable Android phones of 2023. The Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1’s efficiency combined with Motorola’s near-stock Android experience ensures that nothing feels sluggish. Whether you’re editing video, splitting the screen between a chat app and YouTube, or toggling multiple productivity windows, the razr+ handles it all without a hiccup.

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Camera System: A Blend of Simplicity and Versatility

Motorola has streamlined the camera array on the razr+ compared to some triple-lens competitors, opting for a dual-lens setup on the rear:

• 32 MP primary sensor (ƒ/1.7, 0.7 µm pixels, OIS)

• 13 MP ultra-wide sensor (ƒ/2.2, 1.12 µm pixels, 123° field of view)

On the front, a 32 MP selfie camera resides beneath the interior display. These numbers alone don’t tell the whole story: Motorola’s image processing pipeline is tweaked to emphasize natural color reproduction while preserving fine details.

Primary Camera Performance

In bright outdoor conditions, photos exhibit excellent dynamic range. Greens in tree canopies are richly saturated without bleeding, and skies maintain nuanced gradient transitions from azure to white. Textural details—individual grains of sand or the weave in a denim jacket—resolve sharply in 32 MP mode, and optical image stabilization (OIS) prevents most handshake blur. Low-light performance is solid for a foldable: in street-lamp scenarios, Night Mode intelligently merges multiple exposures to brighten shadows without turning the scene into a grainy mess. Noise remains well controlled, and the warm tonality feels natural rather than artificially boosted.

Ultra-Wide & Selfie Capabilities

The 13 MP ultra-wide shooter is a valuable companion when landscapes or large group shots demand a broader perspective. Distortion at the edges is minimal for this class of sensor, and color consistency between primary and ultra-wide lenses ensures that stitching panoramas looks seamless. Detail recovery in ultra-wide mode is slightly less aggressive than the main sensor—some distant textures appear softer—but this trade-off is typical given the constraints of foldable designs.

Selfie enthusiasts will appreciate the 32 MP front camera. With ample lighting, portraits capture skin textures faithfully while employing a gentle software-driven background blur option when in “Portrait” mode. In dimmer indoor conditions, the front sensor’s larger pixel binning helps preserve detail, though noise does creep in once illumination dips below 20 lux. Video recording on both front and rear cameras maxes out at 4K 30 fps (4K 60 fps for the primary camera). Stabilization is effective, making handheld walking shots appear impressively smooth.

External Display Selfie Trick

A notable benefit of dual-screen design is using the primary rear camera for selfies via the external display. When folded, the external screen functions as a viewfinder, allowing you to compose high-quality self-portraits with the superior 32 MP main lens. This is a genuinely practical feature—no more squinting at a grainy front preview. The only trade-off is that holding the phone closed can feel slightly awkward for extended multi-person group selfie sessions, but the crisp external screen makes framing far easier than relying on the internal display.

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Battery Life & Charging: Endurance That Impresses for a Foldable

One of the traditional criticisms of early foldable models was mediocre battery life. Motorola addresses this head-on: the razr+ packs a 3,800 mAh dual-cell battery (effectively two cells split on either side of the hinge) supplemented by aggressive power optimization. In my testing, the phone consistently delivered around 5 ⁺ hours of screen-on time under heavy use (gaming, streaming, camera use, notifications), which easily translated into a full 16–18 hours of real-world operation from morning to night.

On more moderate days—email, web browsing, light social media, a few short calls—you can push toward 24 hours before needing a charge. Bear in mind that opening the displays (especially the 120 Hz internal panel) incurs an immediate power draw; leaving the phone folded most of the day extends longevity. Nevertheless, for a device with two screens running high-refresh-rate OLED panels, the razr+’s endurance rivals many conventional candy-bar flagships.

When it’s time to recharge, Motorola includes a 30 W TurboPower charger in the box. From near empty, you can achieve roughly 50 percent battery in about 20 minutes and top off to 100 percent in just under an hour. While not as aggressive as some competitors offering 80 W or higher, 30 W is more than adequate for daily overnight top-ups, and the phone’s built-in battery health algorithms slow charging speed once it nears full to prolong long-term cell lifespan.

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Software Experience: Near-Stock Android with Foldable-Centric Tweaks

Out of the box, the razr+ runs Android 13 under Motorola’s lightly customized My UX overlay. This nearly stock approach preserves fluid animations, crisp iconography, and swift system updates—Android 14 arrived within a month of the phone’s release. Motorola has layered in foldable-specific conveniences:

• Flex View Mode: When partially folded at angles between 60° and 120°, certain apps (camera, YouTube, video players) adjust to use the hinge as a makeshift stand. In practice, I could prop the phone on a table for hands-free video calls or watch videos without an external kickstand.

• App Continuity: Open an app on the small external panel, then unfold the phone, and the same app transitions seamlessly to the larger internal display. Likewise, unfolding and viewing a notification on the main screen pushes it back to the external display when you close the phone. This continuity feels smarter than a simple “open app on internal display” approach.

• Split-Screen Multitasking: The tall internal display is ideal for two-app multitasking—email on top, messaging on bottom, for example. Dragging an app icon to the edge of the screen triggers split-screen; resizing the two windows is quick and intuitive.

• Quick Gestures & Moto Actions: True to form, Motorola includes a handful of gestures—double-chop for flashlight, twist for camera, three-finger screenshot—minimally intrusive yet genuinely useful once you memorize them.

Unlike some heavily skinned UI layers, Motorola’s My UX doesn’t bog down the system with redundant features or third-party bloatware. Aside from a handful of preinstalled Moto apps for gestures, themes, and health tracking, most of the software experience feels like a pure Android implementation. Performance remains fluid even after installing fifty apps and juggling multiple notifications throughout the day.

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Connectivity & Extra Features: Ticking Every Important Box

Connectivity on the 2023 razr+ is comprehensive:

• Cellular: Compatible with all major U.S. carriers on sub-6 GHz and mmWave 5G networks.

• Wi-Fi / Bluetooth / NFC: Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC for contactless payments.

• GPS & Location: Dual-band GPS with GLONASS and Galileo support ensures precise navigation, even in dense urban canyons.

• Audio: Stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos tuning create surprisingly immersive playback from such a compact hinge design; the bottom-firing earpiece functions as a second channel for stereo separation. Although there’s no 3.5 mm headphone jack, Bluetooth audio quality remains excellent with aptX HD and LDAC support.

• Security: Under-display optical fingerprint sensor unlocks swiftly—sub-0.3 seconds in most conditions—while face unlock via the internal camera is a secondary biometric option (though slightly slower in low light).

Beyond connectivity, Motorola offers water-resistance rated at IP52—protected against dripping water and light rain but not fully submersible. In daily life—rain showers, kitchen splashes, sweaty gym sessions—this level of water protection means you need never fear a few drops ruining the device.

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Who Should Choose the Motorola razr+ 2023?

The 2023 razr+ occupies a unique niche in the smartphone market. It’s not a budget flip phone, nor is it simply a “compact” foldable—it’s a fully fledged flagship that folds into a pocket-friendly form factor. If you value a device that stands out in a sea of rectangular slabs, if you relish nostalgia for iconic flip designs while demanding cutting-edge performance, and if you appreciate the blend of two screens into one cohesive experience, the razr+ fits the bill.

Ideal users include:

• Frequent travelers who want a full-size screen for media consumption but prioritize minimal pocket footprint when commuting.

• Content creators who benefit from using the primary rear camera for selfies via the external display, capturing high-quality images without juggling two devices.

• Multitaskers who take advantage of the tall internal display’s split-screen capabilities for email, messaging, and web browsing side by side.

• Style-conscious buyers who crave a conversation starter—a device that looks as distinct folded as it does unfolded.

Conversely, if you crave battery life that stretches into multiple days without a second thought, or if you’re on an extremely tight budget, a traditional slab phone or a simpler foldable may offer better value. Early adopters of foldable technology must accept a slightly higher price point (around $499–$550, depending on retail promotions) and a learning curve for hinge maintenance and care. But for those willing to invest in a unique blend of nostalgia and innovation, the 2023 razr+ rewards you with a curated, polished experience.

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Final Verdict: A Contemporary Classic That Delivers

Motorola’s 2023 razr+ exemplifies how foldable technology has matured beyond “prototype” status into everyday reliability. With flagship-grade performance, a vivid 120 Hz internal display, a clever 3.6 inch external screen, and a refined dual-lens camera system, it offers nearly everything you’d expect from a modern top-tier smartphone—yet in a form factor that folds away to pocket-size when not in use. The vegan leather exterior, aluminum frame, and precise hinge engineering result in a device that both feels and looks premium.

Battery life surpasses expectations for a foldable, hovering around a full day of heavy use and charging rapidly when needed. The near-stock Android 13 experience, enhanced by subtle foldable-specific tweaks, keeps the software layer light and snappy. Despite a few minor quirks—slightly warm chassis under extended gaming, no expandable storage beyond 256 GB, and the obligatory crease across the internal display—Motorola has largely ironed out pain points often associated with earlier foldable phones.

If you’re ready to join the foldable revolution and want a phone that looks forward while nodding to the past, the Motorola razr+ 2023 (8 GB/256 GB, Blue) stands as one of the most polished offerings available. It blends iconic flip design, flagship horsepower, and innovative dual-display functionality into a single package—making it a memorable, capable choice for anyone craving both style and substance in 2023 and beyond.