Although Motorola has been teasing the release of the next Razr foldable for some time, the company has now officially set a launch date for the arrival of its next foldable of August 2.
The 'dual flagship' event that Motorola shared news of via Chinese social media platform Weibo is also set to play host to the launch of the Moto X30 Pro, which will reportedly be the world's first phone with a 200MP camera.
Samsung recently confirmed the date of its next launch – August 10 – at which we're expecting to see the new Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Galaxy Z Flip 4, however, Motorola's new announcement places the Motorola Razr 3's launch date ahead of Samsung's by eight days. The caveat is that Motorola's dual flagship launch looks to be a China-exclusive for the time being, while the Korean company's new foldables are thought to be releasing in multiple markets, internationally, from the outset.
Analysis: more widespread and affordable
Unlike the last two generations of Razr foldable, Motorola is thought to be dressing the Razr 3 with more traditional flagship-class hardware, up from the mid-range internals that we saw on the 2019 and 2020 models.
The main difference is expected to be the move to a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, while the phone is also set to sport a 6.7-inch 120Hz AMOLED main display, a 3-inch cover display, a 50MP main camera paired with a 13MP ultrawide and up to 512GB of internal storage.
Although this spec sheet suggests that Motorola is finally addressing the current Razr line's biggest shortcomings, it may be a case of too little too late.
Samsung's Z Flip clamshell foldable line now sets the pace for this particular form-factor and based on the announcement article Samsung's Dr. TM Roh, President & Head of MX Business shared on July 21, fans can expect more of what the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 brought to the table: high-end performance with increased affordability.
The Z Flip 3 launched at a price of $999 / £949 / AU$1,499, while the next Motorola Razr 3 is expected to clock in at around €1,149 (around $1,205 / £980 / AU$1,725), despite a hardware rundown that – although showing improvement – doesn't render it the most competitive clamshell to Samsung's forthcoming Z Flip 4.
