Foldable phones are not as durable as thebest Android smartphones. The combination of moving parts and the fragile folding screen means they require a lot more care than regular phones. As seen in thePixel Fold’s stress test by YouTuber JerryRigEverything, companies have come up with interesting design changes to improve the durability of their foldable. Despite that, Google’s first foldable failed the test spectacularly. Now, the YouTuber has put theMoto Razr+through his torture test, and while you can already guess the outcome, there are some interesting changes.
Right off the bat, Motorola warns you the Razr+ is a delicate phone with a sticker on the folding panel containing instructions on how to take care of the device. This includes not removing the attached screen protector, removing any debris before folding the screen, and avoiding exposure to liquid.
In the scratch test, the Razr+’s outer display fares much better than the inner plastic folding screen, which scratches at level 2 on the Mohs hardness scale. The former uses toughened glass for protection and shows scratches at level 7, with deeper grooves visible at level 8. Unlike some of the early foldables, the Razr+ held up very well against dust exposure, with no grinding noise coming from its hinges. This is due to the phone’s IP52 rating, which shows how far foldables have come in the last few years.
Things get ugly and interesting in the bend test. You’d have thought the Razr+ flexible plastic display would have been the first to give up. Instead, the cover screen shatters first and even caves inward. As Zack Nelson notes in the video, this did not happen because he applied too much pressure. It happened because the cover display had no additional support from inside. More surprisingly, the flexible display lived to die another day, with the flip-style foldable managing to survive the stress test.
If you plan to get the Razr+, you might have to be more cautious about breaking the cover screen, as it appears more delicate than the folding display.
