I’ve always loved Motorola phones. Although I’m often seen as the Samsung guy around these parts, my interest in the world of mobile tech goes a lot further than that. I bought the original Moto G for my Mum and Nan, desperately wanted the original Moto X, and looked with envy at the endless customization once offered with Moto Maker. I was able to satisfy that love of Motorola this year when I got my hands on the Razr+, or Razr 40 Ultra, as it’s called on this side of the pond. The hardware on this phone is as fantastic as I hoped, and it earned its place as the best flip phone. Sadly, the software experience doesn’t hold up as well as I’d like.
Before we get to the complaints, I want to talk about the good side of Motorola’s software. I may be a One UI fan, but even I can find a lot to love here. Motorola’s stock widgets are both playful and useful. The Adapt widget, for example, shows the time and weather along with any two of the following: next alarm, air quality, battery level, or Google Fit data.
Long-press on the home screen, and you’ll find the personalization menu, something I want all other OEMs to copy. You can do the basics, like changing your wallpaper or Material You colours here, but Moto takes things one step further with the other menus. When the original Pixel came out, you could change the shape of the adaptive icons, something Google later removed. That menu is still here, so you can choose between square, round, square, or blob-shaped icons.
Four fonts are available, including Roboto (the best font in the world). On a foldable like this Razr+, you can use this menu to change the clock style and wallpaper, configure widgets, and choose which apps can be used on the cover screen. Speaking of which, you can run almost any app you want when the phone is closed, and you don’t need to download any extra apps to do so — a striking difference compared to the Z Flip 5.
Then there’s the list of gestures Motorola phones come packed with. A double karate chop toggles the torch, a wrist flick opens the camera, and a three-finger long-press takes a screenshot. These gestures are so simple, but they change how you use the phone, and when I go back to my S24 Ultra, it takes at least a day before I stop trying to karate chop its flash into life.
If the software is so fun, what complaints could we possibly have? Well, it’s the age-old story of software updates and disappointment. Motorola says that the Razr+ will get three Android upgrades and four years of bi-monthly security patches. That’s less than Samsung’s old promise of four Android updates and five years of security patches, let alone the seven years Samsung and Google both offer now.
Realistically, Motorola is a smaller company than Samsung and Google, even with Lenovo as its parent company, so expecting them to commit to seven years of software support is, perhaps, unrealistic. Still, it promises the Razr+ more than other Moto devices will get — a step in the right direction, for sure.
For comparison’s sake, the Moto G range has exploded in the ten years since its introduction. Right now, Motorola’s UK website has seven different Moto G variants for sale. The best these phones can hope for is two Android upgrades with three years of security patches. The cheaper the phone, like the newly released Moto G34, the only one Android upgrade. Sure, the phone only costs £150, but the company is manufacturing e-waste at this point. The Galaxy A05s is a £130 phone, and it gets the same three Android upgrades as the Razr+. Motorola should cut back and focus on a few core models to which it can devote its software resources.
Living up to these promises has been a problem for Motorola in the past, and it continues to struggle today. In December, several Razr+ users had an issue where they weren’t receiving software updates other Razr+ users had (via Phone Arena). Most users report that the problem has been fixed, but it hasn’t. The Razr+ got the January 2024 security patch last month, but mine won’t update. The only option I have to make my phone update is to use Motorola’s PC software, which is only available on Windows. The update was detected when I plugged it in, but the phone will be factory reset in the process — I’ll lose all of my data.
Combine that with the disappointment of still rocking Android 13 while phones like the Moto G34 ship with Android 14, and the overall experience has been disappointing. I can mostly live with slow Android platform updates these days, especially when Motorola’s software is so fun to use. But factory resetting my phone to get future security patches is simply unacceptable.
