Motorola is still eyeing a 2019 launch for its new foldable Razr phones despite already missing out on its planned summer release.
Several smartphone makers have begun exploring other handset designs in the hopes of coming up with the next big thing in consumer electronics. Samsung, for instance, has taken the lead into foldable phones with the release of its Galaxy Fold in the United States on Friday.
Also, the Huawei Mate X is still in the pipeline, though no one knows exactly when the Chinese company plans to roll it out.
Not to be outdone, Motorola has also revealed plans to come out with its version of a foldable smartphone along the lines of its previous Razr model. The company reportedly wanted to announce the new phone sometime during the summer, but the season came and went without any word from the smartphone maker.
Now, a source close to Motorola told CNET that the company still committed to launching its foldable smartphone before the end of the year.
Motorola Razr Foldable Phone
Unlike Samsung's Galaxy Fold and Huawei's Mate X, not much is known about Motorola's Razr foldable phone. Aside from revealing that it plans to release a new handset, the smartphone maker has remained relatively quiet about its development.
Most of what is known about the Motorola foldable phone came from a patent filing the company made back in 2017. The documents revealed that the new smartphone will fold inward, much like the Razr handsets that were released in the early to mid-2000s.
If this proves true, then the upcoming Motorola foldable will have a slightly different design from existing smartphones such as the Galaxy Fold and Mate X, which fold outward.
In an article by Engadget, Motorola's Vice President of Global Product Dan Dery shed some more light into the reported Razr foldable phone's design.
He said that Samsung and Huawei's decision to put their foldable phones' screen on the outside was "the nicest and the purest" way to go. However, he also believes that such a design would cause the smartphone's display to be inherently frail. This is why Motorola decided to take a different route.
Similar to Huawei's Mate X design, Dery said Motorola also tested a plastic OLED device with the plastic film placed on top of it. He pointed out that the design would leave the display more susceptible to scratching from users' fingernails. It would cause the device to have a relatively shorter lifespan as soon as it is unpacked.
He added that if Motorola were to come out with a foldable phone, it would not be in the company's intention to put the display on the outside.
Samsung Galaxy Fold
Motorola's Razr foldable phone may still be a few weeks or months away, but there's already one that's available now. People in the United States can get their hands on two variants of the new Samsung Galaxy Fold, an unlocked version and a model for the AT&T network.
The AT&T model of the Galaxy Fold is available at select AT&T and Best Buy branches, as well as from the Samsung Experience Stores. The unlocked version can be purchased from Best Buy and Samsung retail stores. The foldable Samsung Galaxy phone costs $1,980.
