On the back of the Motorola Razr Ultra is a dual camera system, made up of a 50-megapixel main camera and a 50-megapixel ultrawide camera. At this price, it would be nice to have a telephoto camera, but that’s perhaps a limitation of the flip phone form factor. Frankly, I’d prefer to have a telephoto camera than a large cover screen -– or frankly any cover screen. But that’s a personal preference.
The headline change on the main camera is the new LOFIC sensor (Lateral Overflow Integration Capacitor, if you want the full name), which Motorola claims delivers up to 6x more dynamic range. That’s a big claim, and while the “6x” is marketing rather than anything you’ll measure in the real world, dynamic range is a genuine strength here. The main camera held onto highlights and shadows in high-contrast scenes better than most flip phones I’ve tested — clearly better than the Z Flip 7 — so bright skies behind a shaded subject hold together instead of blowing out.
The main camera is sharp and detailed, and it holds up well in low light where a lot of phones fall apart. The ultrawide is softer, especially toward the edges and in dim conditions, which is unsurprising for a small ultrawide sensor. I do wish flip phones started getting better ultrawide cameras, even if it means taking up a little more space on the back of a device.
The front camera sits in at 50 megapixels, and it’s a pretty good one — sharp, accurate, and with strong dynamic range, so selfies hold up nicely whether or not the light is cooperating.
If you’re used to a phone with a telephoto lens, though, you’ll miss it here. I really wish flip phones started shipping with telephoto cameras, especially those at this price range. It’s a pretty major compromise for the flip form factor, and I think there are plenty of people who would forego the cover display entirely in favor of a significantly better camera. If the phone was still able to fold in half, I’d be perfectly happy with a much smaller cover screen that really only serves as a camera viewfinder if the camera was much better, as I don’t really use the cover screen for much more than checking notifications.
But I digress. Is the camera new? Yes. There’s no telephoto, but the LOFIC main sensor is a real change, and the jump in dynamic range is something you’ll actually notice. It earns the label.