Moto RAZR foldable could be the phone of your dreams

Foldable phones are all the rage these days, so it’s no surprise to see a new foldable phone being revealed by leaked patent filings. What is surprising is exactly what that phone is called: the Motorola Razr. If you weren’t around in the early 00s, the Razr was the phone to have, thanks to its incredibly thin clamshell design and near-constant placement in movies and TV. Now, it seems like the Razr is about to make a comeback.

Patents discovered by 91Mobiles and issued by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) show a phone with an unmistakable resemblance to the classic Razr flip phone - and granted to Motorola. These are diagrams intended to satisfy intellectual property requirements rather than full press renders meant to sell a product, but you can still make out a very tall phone with a prominent chin and top notch. Hinges in the middle of the phone allow it to fold in half vertically.

On the back, there’s a secondary screen in precisely the same position as the classic Razr V3. Presumably, it’ll fulfil a similar purpose too: showing messages and other incoming notifications without the need to open the phone and check the main display. It’ll likely be a touch screen of course, so you could presumably also use it to take photos, type out quick responses to messages and other features that wouldn’t have been possible on a non-touch screen. There’s a camera above the second screen and a fingerprint sensor below.

The Wall Street Journal reported on the Razr’s potential return suggesting that we’d see a limited run of 200,000 units - each selling for a price of $1500 (!) in the United States, equivalent to about £1400 here when you take VAT into account.

Interestingly, Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing - who owns the Motorola brand - has already hinted that the Razr phone could be ripe for a remake. Speaking to TechRadar in February last year, Yang showed an interest in bringing the phone back - and specifically as a foldable model:

“With the new technology, particularly foldable screens, I think you will see more and more innovation on our smartphone design", he said. He went on to tease that the Razr brand “…will be developed or realized very soon” and would be “a stronger product than the original.”

So there you have it. While the Royole Flexpai has become the first shipping foldable phone and Samsung’s Galaxy F seems set to be one of the most popular folding phones, Motorola’s Razr may yet carve out a nostalgic niche for itself.

Liked this article? Excited for the return of the Razr? Give me some feedback on Twitter @wsjudd. Thanks for reading and we’ll catch you on the next one!