Engadget Podcast: Motorola's 2024 Razrs make a compelling case for foldables

Motorola is still trying to reclaim the glory of its original Razr phone with its latest foldables. The new Razr and Razr+ are more stylish than the previous models, and at $700 and $1,000 respectively, they're surprisingly affordable for devices with massive folding OLED screens. In other news, we chat about Wikileaks' founder Julian Assange being freed from prison, Rabbit's massive security hole in the R1 AI gadget, and a horrific Sora AI commercial from Toys "R" Us.

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Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News!

Topics

• Moto Razr and Razr+ first look: stylish and (somewhat) affordable – 0:51

• Samsung announces its second Unpacked of the year will be in Paris – 13:14

• Expect a bunch of new hardware at August’s Made by Google event – 19:56

• Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is free – 24:38

• U.S. Supreme Court rules the government can ask social platforms to take down posts – 31:22

• Rabbit R1 modder group discovers massive security holes – 36:11

• Uber blames NYC law for locking drivers out of its app, more cities could come soon – 39:22

• Toys “R” Us released a creepy ad using OpenAI’s Sora video tool – 44:43

• Working on – 49:15

• Pop culture picks – 51:24

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Credits 

Hosts: Devindra Hardawar and Cherlynn Low
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien

Transcript

Devindra: [00:00:00] What's up Internet and welcome back to the Engadget Podcast. I'm Senior Editor Devindra Hardawar.

Cherlynn: I'm Deputy Editor Cherlynn Low.

Devindra: This week, we'll be chatting about Moto's new Razrs. There's new Razr and Razr+ and yeah, their foldables once again, they look pretty cool keeping very pretty affordable prices for foldables too.

So we'll be talking about that. We'll talk about Julian Assange being set free from prison, a couple of Supreme court rulings, and oh man, we're just gonna really look forward to events happening or at least one big event happening in August, which thank you, Google. We all want to do that. We all want to be traveling for work in August.

Thank you so much as always folks. If you're enjoying the show, please be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or your podcaster of choice, leave us a review on iTunes, drop us an email at podcast@engadget.com. Cherlynn, I know you were very excited. You seem so excited about the new Motorola Razr and Razr+.

I'm, you they look really nice. I like the prices. What is it? [00:01:00] 700 for the Razr 1000 for the Razr+. These are nice looking foldables. What's up this year?

Cherlynn: Very excited is a very strong way to put how I feel about these things. I think are we no longer

Devindra: excited about foldables? Is it just

Cherlynn: I've always been, I think I was more excited for, and here's where you could use the right word.

And there's also a story behind this. Motorola did like a whole ass launch event. In Brooklyn for the motor Razr, 2024 lineup. This was this was earlier this week. The news was announced Tuesday. They also had their little event on little, it was more than little event on Tuesday and a featuring one Paris Hilton, who's apparently there's like Big fan of the pink Razr from way back when, right?

Like she was the whole that's hot. And then flip the pink phone thing. Anyway this event also featured a magician. So I was like, all right, look, I guess I'll go. And then I went

Devindra: and I was dragged. You heard there was going to be a magician.

Cherlynn: The main reason I was already out for a different meeting earlier that day.

[00:02:00] So I was like, all right, I'll just go to the office, chill, and then go to this event and see get some light of my own hands on time with the phones. Cause Sam took the hands on demo for us. I was like, all right, I'll go take a look at the phone, but also, yes. Okay. I was like, I'll try to get a selfie with Paris Hilton.

Why not? And it turns out I left the event before Paris Hilton even started to do her DJ set because I was just so impatient. Oh wait, she's doing a

Devindra: DJ set too?

Cherlynn: So she DJed at the launch event, but there was first like this magic show thing. I don't, please, if Lindsay Lohan can DJ in Mykonos Paris Hilton can for sure.

Are we going to have a fight here, Sherilyn? Because listen, if we're going to talk about somebody with, I don't know, talent of any kind, the ability to produce. I don't know if talent is a strong word. Lindsay Lohan is a good actor. I liked her until like her inevitable downfall. Yeah.

Devindra: Paris Hilton, not so much. Come on. Okay. So what was, what did you see at this event? Did you see the magician? Yeah.

Cherlynn: I will say the reason I keep bringing up the magician is because they used the magician to highlight a few of these features that are debuting on the new Motorola Razr and [00:03:00] Razr+.

And you pointed out rightly that the pricing is one of the outstanding things. Sam has it in his hands on headline that they might be the most stylish and affordable foldables of the year. The standard Razr starting at 700. I think the pricing is a little bit confusing because last. With the 2023 lineup, the Razr 40, as it was known, I think in the UK versus the Razr in the U S it was like, it costs about 800 pounds.

And that was quite a lot of money. That's close to a thousand in the U S and I don't know that it ever came to the U S. And so it's, I don't know about that one, but

Devindra: last year's Razr was also 700. So at least the base,

Cherlynn: I don't know, like I'm looking at our review of the Razr, 2023 and the hands on and it's they put Matt's review because Matt Smith who reviewed it for us is based in the UK says it was 800 pounds.

So that's like I'm just so

Devindra: before let me just fill you all in here as we were doing the planning for this because I was just Like looking like how do these compare to last year? It does seem like the pricing last year did launch at 700 and 1000 But what we weirdly happened and i'm sure the uk folks are annoyed [00:04:00]about this apparently the base Razr was on sale like a quote unquote on sale for 80 percent of last year for 500 Which is a crazy price,

Cherlynn: whatever it is, let's put it this way.

Motorola's pricing strategy is strange AF, but this year it seems like the base one starts at 700 and then the higher end, the Razr+ is a thousand to begin with. And for that money, you're getting like a larger external display than ever. You've got more app support on the external screen. You've got some colors like hot pink, which is like that original Razr flip phone. And then this like leather finish on the back. Sans pictures look great. The ones I saw at the event also looked really nice. And you have some AI features now. Look, I don't know how y'all feel about magicians and magic tricks, but they've all been ruined for me because I've read or watched too many, reveal the trick shows.

You did

Devindra: it to yourself. Okay. Yeah.

Cherlynn: And then like the magician was like, Oh everybody hold up your phone and [00:05:00] Google this or a calculator that, and everything, and I was like, all right, fine. And but for example, the motor Razr+ 2024 and the Razr all have new AI based features.

For example, you can take a photo of, by the way, listen to how, listen to this. You can take a photo of your outfit and the. Quote, AI unquote will generate color themes and wallpapers for you. I was like, Alcatel did this circa 2018. Stop it. This is not a new feature. Stop calling things new. But there is another thing called magic canvas on Motorola.

Motorola's AI suite that will let you type in a prompt and then it will create sort of a wallpaper for your phone. So if you like dancing puppies with balloons in the background, you can use that as your wallpaper, for example. And then there's a feature that's coming called catch me up. It will summarize all your notifications.

So you don't have to go through all of them individually and then see. Sam is excited about something called Remember This, which sounds a little bit like Microsoft's Recall. You can ask, or you can first prompt Modo to [00:06:00] be like remembering things for you, and then ask it to record a photo, screenshot, or some audio, and then it will repeat the important details back to you when you ask for those important details later on.

Oh what was in that photo? Or what date did I leave in that screenshot and something like that?

Devindra: So you have to actively tell it to remember things, which I think exactly

Cherlynn: you had to first be exactly. So it's not like in the background, constantly screenshotting and tracking your activity.

I just feel

Devindra: like people won't do a good

Cherlynn:differentiation

Devindra: because like you could just always just take a photo of something and be like, yeah, that's how we wonder if it's going to

Cherlynn: be a ram hog. Too. Yeah.

Devindra: Who knows? Who knows? I do have to say these things look really nice. Tri do they? As far as yeah, they

Cherlynn: look very cool.

Yeah, they

Devindra: look cool. I don't see a huge crease on these And the external displays, especially on the plus looks

Cherlynn: oh yeah. The, to quote Paris, so the other thing that Sam did point out is that the crease there is still there, but that it's very faint and he. Quote, he describes it as a shallow ripple that you only see at acute angles, which is wow.

We're getting somewhere with these things, right? It feels like from the 2023 lineup of the Razrs to the [00:07:00]2024, what we're getting is more refinement. Yes, a larger display, but I think the hardware feels like it's quite Like ready for, to settle, and in the like candy bar format that iPhones have been in for a while, I think many foldables like that are more or less mature in terms of hardware.

And now it's all about the software. And apparently AI is the way, which I have thoughts

Devindra: on. One thing that I've been thinking about is we still don't have a foldable iPhone. I feel like everyone's waiting for Apple to do something around that. The rumor was the iPad mini being some sort of like foldable tablet type of thing.

Yeah. But we've got several foldable Androids now, Cherlynn, and they seem pretty good. The prices are getting down there. At least like most of them are under the price of an iPhone pro max, even. If you're considering Android phone, why don't you just get a foldable? Unless you want something under 500.

Cherlynn: Yeah. I think the main concern has always been like durability and battery life on these things. And the, by the way, the light Razrs get like a slightly higher IP rating than before. And again, with the crease not [00:08:00]looking as bad, and then there's a new hinge on these new Razrs too. There's a lot of good things.

I don't know that we'll ever see a affordable iPhone. I think we see affordable iPad mini first,

Devindra: yeah,

Cherlynn: you're right. That there are cheaper now, a thousand dollars for the higher end ones for the flips anyway, not the bigger folds These are pretty feasible as your daily driver, if you're okay with your phone lasting only a day, not two.

How

Devindra: much is the Galaxy Flip now? Isn't that like 800?

Cherlynn: It's about 999 as well. Like it starts at and it does have that nicer cover display. I want to see Samsung do more with the Flip. I, and speaking of, we'll learn more come July. We'll get to that in a bit. We'll

Devindra: learn more from Samsung. We're also still waiting for Google is not doing like a top down fold.

The flip style, right? It's just, yeah. Yeah. The pixel fold opens up. So I could see them doing something. It just seems like I the main appeal of Android is like, you can get a really killer phone for 500 or less, but if you're willing to bump up a little more, it does seem like if you're going to spend 700 or a thousand [00:09:00]dollars on a phone, get a flippy,

Cherlynn: it seems like we've reached that point.

I do want to point out has Sam in the chat says that the issue with Modo has always been their horrible software update record, which

Devindra: yes,

Cherlynn: very good point. And again, Sam does point out that Motorola says that the Razrs will receive three major Android OS upgrades and four years of software support.

That's a jump from last year, but it's. It's still short of the 7 years you're getting from Samsung and Google's more recent devices. So for bumping the number of years of support up, Modo, but you're still so far behind the competition. That's

Devindra: not great. I feel like the thing when you mentioned Magician, Sherilyn, all I think about, I don't take Magician seriously.

I'm not super excited by them. But I think about Joe Bluth in Arrested Development, and I can imagine if they had gotten Will Arnett to come here and just do his Joe Bluth thing while being sarcastic about Samsung features, that would have been funny. I gotta

Cherlynn: say,

Devindra: I was

Cherlynn: looking around the event.

First of all, they were like, okay, so the event started at six and was going to [00:10:00] end at 10. I bounced before eight, by the way, because like

Devindra: at night,

Cherlynn: yeah, that's why I was able to go out. It was like after work. That's why I was like, all right, it's afterwards. So it's not really.

Devindra: And then you're really pushing it, Motorola you want people to hang out with you after you show up at eight or

Cherlynn: six that there was no food until after 7 45.

Nevermind. I showed up really for the food. But anyway, and then Perry Sildon was slated to show up at like It's eight or something, but I think she started after eight from,

Devindra: she's going to come in. I heard from friends afterwards. Yeah.

Cherlynn: Anyway, at six and then the wait, why was I starting? Oh, I was looking around.

I got in at six, 10 or something. And people, it was already like the seating area in front of the magician's performance area was already full. And I like, I was like, all right, these are the plants, right? These are the plants. These have to be, have you

Devindra: people never seen a magician before? I don't

Cherlynn: know.

I don't think it's I got, I think they were all plants. Like I, there's a lot of audience participation that all requires. I think if magic tricks, you will know that there's a lot of planted actors. Anyway, the,

Devindra: that [00:11:00] makes sense. Yeah, anyway, I was

Cherlynn: looking around and I was like, yeah, I noticed that there was a suspicious amount of people already there, but be, I was like, wow, does Motorola have a lot of money still?

Like what is going on? They've, got Paris Hilton. They got this magician. They got this big space. They got a magician,

Devindra: not even like a name. I got to say,

Cherlynn: I think they have a name and I just can't remember, which sucks. But there you go. So I don't know. Motorola must be doing something right.