Motorola Razr: How quickly does it break?
Some say that the Motorola Razr breaks immediately. Others disagree and criticise the test method. There are no answers yet, but there is a new discourse in the tech scene.
Some say that Motorola's new foldable flagship, the Motorola Razr, has mechanical weaknesses. All rubbish, say others. Regardless of whether there is any truth to the "it breaks immediately" statements, it could mean the end for the Razr before the revival has even really begun.
"This is going to break"
Source: JerryRigEverything
Let me put this very bluntly. The screen on the Razr is gross. It ripples, it creaks, it moves when you touch it, it very visibly shows creases and bumps when the display is off.
These are the words with which Joshua Topolsky, editor-in-chief of the tech magazine InputMag, describes the Motorola Razr's screen. He says: "It doesn't feel nice, it feels worrying", addressing the tech world's major concern that the screens of foldable phones are delicate. He calls the hinge "troubling", which means "worrying".
The Razr's fold test didn't come close to the 120,000 folds that we achieved with the Galaxy Fold last fall, or even to our goal of 100,000 folds, capping out at 27,000 before we had to pull the plug on the experiment.
The video from tech magazine CNet is not worth watching - apart from the first 20 seconds in which the presenter holds the Razr up to the microphone. When he folds the phone, it cracks. "That noise definitely shouldn't be there," he says.
The Razr CNets has just completed 27,000 folds. CNet does the maths: If the average American uses their phone 96 times a day, according to a report from insurance company Asurion, the phone will last "not quite a year". This is too little for a phone costing 1,500 dollars.
Motorola fires back
...it's not clear whether that hinge damage was the result of CNET's machine (borrowed from SquareTrade) being improperly designed or calibrated, or because there's actually a flaw with the hinge in Motorola's handset.
Not only the tech magazine The Verge, but also Motorola itself has doubts about the CNet test. It is unclear whether the folding machine itself was faulty or incorrectly configured. Vibrations could have played a role. Was the fold in the right place? In other words, CNet's test is not representative of the stability of the phone.
SquareTrade's FoldBot is simply not designed to test our device. Therefore, any tests run utilising this machine will put undue stress on the hinge and not allow the phone to open and close as intended, making the test inaccurate.
To provide proof of stability, Motorola has released a video to prove structural integrity.
But The Verge also has doubts about this.
...you'll only see them fold six times in this video.
It is noticeable that the hinge of Motorola's machine is not even put under stress. The Verges Senior News Editor Sean Hollister also recalls that the Samsung Galaxy Fold had to be redesigned for very similar reasons. Dust got into the hinge, which led to screen damage. This is despite the fact that Samsung also provided video evidence of the foldability. A robot folded the phone over 200,000 times.
Foldable at the bottom
Foldable phones are a cause for concern. For years, the industry has been working on hardening Gorilla Glass and its competitors to make the surface of your smartphone as scratch- and shatter-proof as possible. Now the device needs to be foldable in your trouser pocket and this is not possible with glass. That's why the displays are made of plastic. The hinges also create a mechanical weak point.
The new material is also reflected in the feel. The screens of all the foldable phones I have touched so far feel radically different and, yes, cheaper and weaker than their hingeless, gorilla-glass competitors.
I briefly held the Motorola Razr in my hand and discovered one element in particular that bothered me. At the bottom edge of the screen, the display was jittering. But I don't know what stage of development the Razr I held in my hands was at. It's quite possible that it was a pre-production model and they have weaknesses on both the hardware and software side from time to time.
I doubt that CNet and The Verge worked with pre-production models.
The YouTube channel JerryRigEverything
provides detailed answers on the mechanics of the phone.
Moderator Zack Nelson throws gravel and sand into the hinge and it is of course blocked afterwards. But even with gravel behind the screen, he can still fold the phone. His scratch test provides answers about the resistance of the plastic screen. Only when he bends the phone completely does he manage to damage the screen. But the Razr still works, even if individual pixels are damaged.
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