I got to try Motorola’s foldable smartphone ‘Razr 40 Ultra’, which has been released in Korea for about a month. The Razer 40 Ultra is a clamshell-shaped smartphone that folds up and down like Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy Z Flip 5. Although it was released in Korea a little late, it is one step ahead of the Galaxy Z Flip 5.
The Razer 40 Ultra has a sophisticated design like the Galaxy Z Flip 5. When the screen was unfolded or folded, it was slightly larger than the Galaxy Z Flip 5. When folded like the Galaxy Z Flip 5, there was almost no gap in the hinge area. However, the hinge was not as sturdy as the Galaxy Z Flip 5.
The ability to run various functions on the external screen was also the same as the Galaxy Z Flip 5. It’s also stylish that when you listen to music on Melon on an external screen, a cover image of the song appears. It was also impressive that the current time was displayed large enough to be seen at a glance on the standby screen.
While the Galaxy Z Flip 5 is almost square in shape with the lower left screen protruding slightly, the Razr 40 Ultra is a complete rectangle. When the video was played, it gave the impression of a masking effect (blocking the top and bottom of the screen according to the aspect ratio of how the movie was shot), increasing immersion. The screen’s maximum brightness is 1,100 nits, which is lower than the Galaxy Z Flip (1,600 nits), but I didn’t feel it was significantly lacking.
Camera performance was somewhat below expectations. When I took indoor photos with the Razer 40 Ultra, the photos came out a little yellow depending on the lighting. The Razr 40 Ultra, equipped with Snapdragon 8+ 1st generation, was unable to capture text on the electronic display board more clearly at night than the Galaxy S22+, which uses Snapdragon 8 1st generation.
As a result of measuring device performance through the performance experiment app ‘Geekbench 6’, ‘Laser 40 Ultra’ scored 1828 points in single core and 4557 points in multicore. It is slightly worse than the Galaxy Z Flip 5 equipped with Snapdragon 8 2nd generation (single core 2045 points, multi-core 5348 points), but it is not far behind.
In terms of battery life, the screen on time was maintained for more than 7 hours when performing daily tasks such as web surfing and watching YouTube, showing similar performance to the Galaxy Z Flip 5. However, the heat generation was somewhat severe during fast charging. It took about 1 hour and 30 minutes to charge to 100%.
One thing that is disappointing is that call recording is not supported. Usually, in the case of foreign-made phones, the information that says ‘Call recording will begin’ is sent to the other party while recording, but the ‘Laser 40 Ultra’ does not even do this, so it is difficult to consider for people who need the call recording function.
Looking at the overall performance, there are some disappointing details compared to the Galaxy Z Flip 5, but that does not mean that the functionality is significantly inferior.
For consumers who want to try a smartphone like the Galaxy Z Flip 5 but are concerned about the price or who want to use a smartphone from a manufacturer other than Samsung or Apple, the ‘Razor 40 Ultra’ is an option worth considering.
This is because the Galaxy Z Flip 5 alone costs 1,392,000 won. Currently, Coupang is selling the Razer 40 Ultra airframe for KRW 999,000, and when using the LTE 7GB plan on LG Hello Vision Hello Mobile, you can use the Laser 40 Ultra for KRW 59,590 per month.
[email protected] Reporter Koo Ja-yoon
