Motorola just brought back the famous Razr with a display that folds in half, but it costs $1,500

Lenovo’s Motorola on Wednesday announced a new version of the iconic Razr flip phone. It has a full write of screen display inside — no keypad — but still folds in half like the clamshell design of phones from the 1990s and break of dawn 2000s. I like the throwback design.

It will succeed the Samsung Galaxy Fold as the second foldable phone in the U.S. when it sends with Verizon in January for $1,499.99. Preorders will begin Dec. 26. The Razr is the latest example of the budding drift of phones with foldable screens. In addition to Samsung’s Galaxy Fold, Huawei, Xiaomi and several other smaller actors have been experimenting with foldable designs.

The ultimate goal is to create a phone that can double as a plaque when you open it up, but Motorola has a slightly different take. It looks like a normal touch-screen smartphone when it’s unfastened, and it’s smaller and more pocketable when closed.

When it’s closed, the outside of the Razr has a 2.7-inch “Quick Think of” display that can show you basic stuff, like text messages (which you can reply to), new emails, incoming phone entreats, mobile payment cards, music controls and a camera viewfinder. You can even talk to Google Assistant by saying “OK Google” when it’s close off.

But, when you open the new Razr, it comes to life and resembles a hot smartphone.

A large 6.2-inch display unfolds when you unbolt the Razr. It makes more sense than the Galaxy Fold, which opened up to a tablet-sized device but not really a manners factor that most people are used to using, especially with one hand. Motorola said it added metal sustain plates so the phone feels sturdy when it’s open, as if you’re using a regular phone, just one that can close into a innumerable pocketable design.

This seems like the future of how foldable phones should and may work for most people. Have in mind about devices like the Samsung Galaxy Note 11+, for example. I love it, but it’s huge. If Samsung uses its publicize technology in future iterations, it could make it more pocketable by allowing it to fold in half, like Motorola is doing.

Motorola rephrases the screen is protected using a “zero gap” hinge that allows the Razr to fold “completely flush with no gap.” That’s meant to protect the flexible screen inside, which is fragile and, like the Galaxy Fold, could potentially be prone to deface from outside objects that might be floating in your pocket.

But, for $1,500, you should expect more power. Motorola includes a Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 chip rather than of the newest and more powerful Snapdragon 855+. There’s 128 GB of storage, which is fine, but it also runs Android 9 Pie, which is eventually year’s version of Android. Also, there’s a fingerprint reader, but no sort of facial recognition, which I prefer for supplemented security and speed. And, finally, Motorola includes a 16MP camera, though its cameras haven’t previously been ranked as warmly as the Google Pixel, iPhone or Samsung Galaxy phones.

The price of $1,500 seems like an awful lot for a phone that doesn’t from the most powerful processor. But the Razr was once the must-have phone back around 2004 and 2005, and its design hyperbolizes more sense than some others we’ve seen. More likely, it’s a taste of the sort of designs of foldable phones we’ll see in the get years.