Josh Hendrickson
The new Motorola razr foldable is up for preorder now, and it can be yours if you have a whopping $1,500 to spend on a phone. But before you cough up gaming PC money on a flip phone, there are a few things Motorola wants you to know about its display. And really you could boil it all down to one thing—it’s fragile.
A Foldable Flip Phone
In case you missed it somehow, Motorola’s razr is back, dressed up in its classic and sleek flip phone style. Before you call this a complete nostalgia-dollar seeking product, though, you need to look at the inside screen.
That’s because when you flip open the phone, you’ll see one massive 6.2-inch screen. And no keyboard or numpad. The razr is Motorola’s take on the foldable phone promise of the future. But despite how different it looks from Samsung’s Galaxy Fold, they both have something in common: fragile plastic screens.
The List of Dos, Don’ts, and Warnings
When Motorola opened up preorders for the razr, it also released a handy video on YouTube titled “Caring for razr.”
The video acts as a list of dos, don’ts, and warnings—we’ll go ahead and list them for you:
- The screen is water repellant; wipe with a dry cloth when wet.
- Bumps and lumps are Normal
- The screen has a protective coating.
- Avoid sharp objects.
- Do not use a screen protector.
- Close the phone before putting it in a purse or pocket.
You’ll notice a couple of common trends in that list. Every tip is about the razr’s screen, and most seem to suggest it is fragile and easy to mar. That’s no surprise; manufacturers haven’t figured out a way to make glass bend (at least for phones and tablets), so the companies are depending on plastic for foldable displays.
Anyone who remembers the early days of smartphones can attest to how easy it was to ding, scratch, and mar plastic screens. That’s why you need to shut the razr before putting it in your pocket (with your coins, keys, and other sharp objects).
The only counterintuitive points are the promise that the screen has a protective coating and the insistence that you skip the screen protector. The first should make you feel better, but the protective coating obviously isn’t enough to protect from daily hazards.
The screen protector warning makes sense when you think about the fact that the display is folding and bending in the middle. Putting anything in there is a bad idea, and manufacturers design screen protectors to be tough and rigid. They won’t have the flex required to fold with the display. And as The Verge points out, the adhesive that screen protectors use might also damage the display if you ever need to remove it.
It’s early days for folding phones, which is why they’re so expensive and why we see these warnings. If you want something time tested, proven, and able to stand up to a beating, you should pass on foldable phones, at least for now.
But if you need to experience the bleeding edge of tech, go preorder the razr now. Just don’t say the company didn’t warn you if you damage the screen.
