Motorola is preparing to test the truth of the phrase, "Third time's the charm." The Motorola Razr 3 has officially leaked with a stylish, seemingly creaseless display, but after the underwhelming launches of the first two Razr models and the success of the Galaxy Z series in the past year, Motorola has a lot to prove with this year's flagship foldable.

The budget phone-maker returned to its roots with the Motorola Razr (2019), a visually impressive smartphone that ticked the right nostalgia box but was far from perfect. Motorola made some notable improvements with the Razr 5G in 2020 but unfortunately still fell short and failed to compete with Samsung. Now, we look to the Razr 3 to see just how Motorola plans to counter Samsung's foldable assault.

Motorola skipped out on launching a new foldable in 2021, but it evidently used that time to revamp the design and pack in flagship-quality specs that'll give the Razr 3 better longevity. Below, we've collected all the rumors and leaks about the Motorola Razr 3 in terms of design, specs, release date, software, and more — plus a wishlist of all the features and specs we want to see.

Motorola Razr 3: Design

Codenamed "Maven," the Motorola Razr 3 makes some significant design changes from the Razr 5G, as you can see thanks to a recent Evleaks Razr 3 leak. The 2020 foldable looked more like a classic flip phone when closed, thanks to the prominent chin and rounded edges. With the newer model, it has a more square, boxy look when closed, similar to the Z Flip 3, and the chin has vanished. 

Motorola purists may resent the choice to adopt a more modern, mainstream look, but it'll leave room for a larger display — 6.7 inches instead of 6.2 inches, according to DSCC CEO Ross Young (opens in new tab) — and ensure the phone doesn't look behind the times.

A more recent leak gave us a close look at the display in action, also courtesy of Evleaks. It shows that the Razr 3 has very little creasing evident when the phone is open, though Evleaks said in a follow-up tweet (opens in new tab) that "there's some subtle warping and crease evidence" if you look closely. You can also see a standard punch-hole selfie camera instead of the notch used by the Razr 5G, and Evleaks stated the display itself will have FHD+ resolution.

Hello, Maven. May 24, 2022

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Once closed, you can see dual "rear" cameras on the bottom-right of the phone instead of the solitary lens found on the original. And the fingerprint sensor no longer appears on the back, now reportedly relocated to the power button.

As for the cover display, Young claimed it will be a 3-inch screen in the above leak. That adds an extra 0.3 inches on the Razr 5G and is over an inch larger than the Z Flip 3's rectangular cover screen. 

Motorola Razr 3 Specs

The Motorola Razr 3 is all but guaranteed to use the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, the upcoming flagship chip. A leaked Motorola teaser ad shows the word "hellomoto" above the 8+ Gen 1 logo, and a shining foldable phone opened like a book. There isn't much ambiguity there.

According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 has a Cortex-X2 chipset clocked at 3.2GHz and is 30% more efficient than the 8 Gen 1 chip released earlier this year.

A previous Razr 3 specs leak claimed the foldable phone would use 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, matching the hardware power of most other premium phones. And it'll allegedly offer both NFC and Ultra Wideband.

The aforementioned Evleaks leak gave us an apparent look at the camera specs: a 50MP F/1.8 main shooter, a 13MP secondary sensor that'll double as both an ultra-wide and macro camera, and a 32MP selfie camera.

Meanwhile, a separate Razr 3 specifications leak indicated the inner display will use an AMOLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate. 

All of this combines to make the Razr 3 very similar to the Galaxy Z Flip 3, or perhaps the Galaxy Z Flip 4 that is expected to launch this summer. That, too, will likely use the 8+ Gen 1 and a 6.7-inch AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate, though we don't know yet if the RAM or cameras will match.

What don't we know yet? The battery life, charging speed, brightness, or whether it'll have a proper IP rating. 

Motorola Razr 3 Software

The Motorola Razr 3 will launch with Android 12 with the My UX skin. It mostly sticks close to stock Android 12 and adds many of the same features, including conversation widgets, accessibility improvements, approximate location permissions, new microphone and camera indicators, and a privacy dashboard. But it also adds unique Motorola features and UI.

We've yet to see how Android 12 looks on a Motorola foldable, as the Razr 5G currently remains on Android 11. But Motorola will have to adjust the software to work on both the foldable display and the cover display. 

Perhaps the biggest question is how Motorola will handle updates. The Razr 5G will only receive two OS updates to Android 12 despite its $1,400 launch price. With Samsung now promising four OS updates for its flagship devices, Motorola's typical pattern of offering fewer updates at a slower pace will make plenty of buyers cautious. 

Motorola Razr 3 Price and Release Date

Motorola officially confirmed the Razr 3 existed late last year but hasn't given us any concrete info on when to expect it or how much it'll cost.

The Razr 5G launched for $1,400, while the Z Flip 3 cost a mere $1,000 and had tempting carrier deals. The leaked Razr 3 specs and design indicate it's a Z Flip 4 rival rather than a Z Fold 4 rival, so the company can't price it too much higher. 

But the Motorola Edge+ (2022) costs $1,000, and the Razr 3 looks to be a more advanced device. With the 12GB of RAM and cutting-edge chip, Motorola would likely price it somewhere in the middle — perhaps $1,200 like the Galaxy S22 Ultra. Regardless, we can hope Motorola will offer some tempting trade-in offers or make carrier partnerships to offset the price a bit.

As for the release date, rumors indicate it'll release this summer, with German site TechnikNews (opens in new tab) specifically claiming its sources have pointed to a June 2022 release. Whenever it does actually launch, it'll likely preempt the Z Flip 4, which is rumored to arrive in August.

Motorola Razr 3 wishlist

Leaked specs and a seemingly stylish design only tell us half the story. We don't know everything about the Motorola Razr 3 yet, nor how its rumored specs will translate into real life. Keeping that in mind, here is our Razr 3 wishlist of what we really hope to see, if it has any hopes of matching the best Android phones in quality.

Battery and charging upgrades

Even for people that really enjoy the Razr 5G, the common complaint about the phone is that it has poor battery life. That's fairly understandable given the form factor — Motorola likely wanted to keep the phone as thin as possible. However, the 2800mAh battery on the Razr 5G is just paltry, even compared to the 3300mAh battery on the Z Flip 3, and that's just not gonna cut it next time. Battery life needs to be on par with what we get from standard smartphones, especially given how much Motorola liked to tout multi-day battery on its mid-range devices.

Charging is also another thing. While we might be able to get past subpar battery life, the problem with the Razr 5G is that it only charges at 15W. That's pretty abysmal when plenty of mid-range devices charge at the same or faster speeds. Motorola should increase that to 18W or even 25W if it can. That way, it would at least outperform the Galaxy Z Flip 3 on that front. Because, let's be honest, no one has time for slow charging.

Cheaper price point

Samsung has been working hard to bring down the price of its foldable phones to make them more mainstream. The Galaxy Z Flip 3 launched at $999, which was well below the $1400 price point of the Razr 5G while featuring much more powerful specs. If Motorola wants to truly compete, it needs to not only match but undercut Samsung.

That's not to say the Razr 3 couldn't hold its own because, so far, it sounds like we can expect a reasonably impressive phone. However, Samsung just has the marketing power and more mindshare behind it. Motorola is still known for making the best budget Android phones, almost to the point that its flagships are often overlooked. Motorola should play that up by offering a cheaper foldable flagship so that people will think twice about picking up the Z Flip.

Better (and more) updates

Motorola isn't the best at updates. While Samsung continues extending support for its phones, offering as many as four years of OS upgrades, Motorola is known to grant its phones one upgrade, maybe two if it's a flagship. That needs to change, and Samsung has already proved that it's possible to offer extended software support for both OS upgrades and security updates. Motorola has no excuse at this point.

Not only does Motorola need to promise at least a few OS upgrades, but it also needs to give us faster updates. While Samsung had updated dozens of its flagships and some midrange smartphones to Android 12, Motorola has updated only a handful and completely neglected its foldables. Despite the high price users paid for the Razr (2019) and Razr 5G, they're still waiting for the update.

This point also applies to security patches. Android OEMs have been getting better at providing monthly software support for their phones, but Motorola continues to act as if it doesn't care. That needs to change. If Motorola wants us to pay top dollar for a smartphone, it needs to prove that it actually gives a damn.

Durability and design

The Motorola Razr design is pretty iconic, and I would hate to see the company let go of that, especially considering it can close fully flat, unlike the Z Flip 3. I hope the next Razr keeps the sleek design of its predecessors but improves on it a bit to make it stand out. That means more color options, a bigger internal display with no weird notch (we hear the screen will measure at 6.7-inches, much larger than the 6.2-inch display on the 5G), and of course, a tougher build. And let's keep the rear fingerprint sensor.

Samsung has gone out of its way to make sure its foldables are more durable, going as far as giving them an IP rating for water resistance. This was missing on the Razr 5G and isn't something Motorola includes with too many of its smartphones, so it would be nice to see here. If we're paying flagship prices for a smartphone, it should be able to handle a splash or two.

And on the note of durability, Motorola needs to make sure it's to repair the Razr 3 in case something does happen. We should be able to walk into a retail store like Best Buy or a third-party repair shop to have it fixed. We've got enough going on in our lives, so let's not add "chasing down repair shops" to our list. Samsung had a premier service for its foldable phones at one point, so something similar would be ideal, even if it came at an additional cost.

Keep the momentum going

Motorola was the first to bring us a clamshell foldable smartphone at a time when large-screen foldables were the hot new thing. Since then, Samsung has pretty much stolen the spotlight, and other companies like Huawei have also moved in on Motorola's territory. Motorola needs to take back its clamshell crown, and the Razr 3 could be the phone to do exactly that, but only if it has the right specs and an attractive price point.