For the past couple of months I’ve been lucky enough to spend time with the OPPO Find N2 Flip and the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra. Both are flagship flip phones with prices to match and both are great flip phones that offer a great experience to the user.
So, you are in the market for a flip phone but are unsure about the differences between the two? Lucky for you I can help you decipher the similarities and differences that you will often not notice until after you buy them.
Read on to hear my thoughts on comparing the Find N2 Flip and the Razr 40 Ultra.
Both have new hinges
Although this is the first flip phone from OPPO, it is not their first foldable with this being the second generation of foldable device that they have released to the public. The second gen brings with it an improved hinge, as you would expect, with an aim to minimise the crease and also last for the life of the phone.
Motorola on the other hand has released multiple versions of the flip phone and are not onto their fourth iteration and has also released a new “teardrop hinge” with the Razr 40 Ultra.
So how do each of them feel and function in day-to-day use?
The Find N2 Flip hinge feels more solid than the Razr. The Razr hinge tends to creak a bit at times but that doesn’t mean that it is flimsier. It just feels different. If I wanted something super solid feeling, then the OPPO would be my choice.
Now the problem with the more solid-feeling hinge on the Find N2 Flip is that, combined with its relatively square body, the OPPO is a lot more difficult to open than the Razr 40 Ultra. If you’ve checked out Razr 40 Ultra reviews on YouTube you’ll see some users flipping the phone open one handed. Although I’m not game enough to do this, you certainly could not do it with the OPPO.
The OPPO Find N2 Flip is certainly more difficult to open and open you will have to do if you want to use it to any real extent. More on that below. But the relative difficulty in opening (it’s not that difficult, just more so than the Razr 40 Ultra) is a good thing as it makes the hinge feel more solid and premium.
Once you have the phone open, how does the hinge and the crease work out? When I first used the Find N2 Flip I was super impressed with the depth of the crease as it was a lot smaller than that of other foldable smartphones on the Australian market.
Then came the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra.
The Razr 40 Ultra has set a whole new level of minimising the crease. The crease not only looks far smaller but also feels a lot smaller. Sure, you can feel it and I dare say we are going to be feeling these creases for a few years yet, but it does not detract from using the phone. Not even close. It is a minimal crease and I highly recommend you go and check one out at your local retailer, even if you aren’t looking to buy one, just to see how far these foldables have come in a few short years.
As a phone folded open, the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra wins hands down when it comes to the crease and how much it affects use.
One issue with the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra is that it is tall, very tall. It is not the only tall phone in this discussion though with the OPPO Find N2 Flip also being a tall phone, albeit just a few millimetres shorter than the Razr flip phone. The Motorola is also slightly thinner and interestingly though this slight increase in height and decrease in width makes it render some apps very differently.
The AFL app has a strange occurrence where the bottom menu bar has an overlapping icon. Not a massive issue of course but just not perfect.
Now, both flip phones are tall so keep that in mind if you think you are going to be using it one handed. It does require some finger gymnastics, as most flagship large smartphones do these days.
Outer, external “cover” display
This is the biggest difference between the two and to be honest, the main deal breaker between the two for me. The cover display is an incredibly useful interactive display on one and just a nice display on the other. I’m sure you can guess which I’m referring to for each.
Motorola came out swinging for the bleachers with the Razr 40 Ultra and that gorgeous, relatively large outer display tha effectively fills the entire outer side of the flip phone. The 3.6-inch pOLED display with a refresh rate of 144Hz and a pixel density of 413ppi can run nearly every single app you throw at it and run it well.
Apps tend to render correctly with text boxes popping up and a near full-sized keyboard allowing for typing and being able to view the text as you type. This does depend on how big you make the text on the outer display. It is a trade-off between a small text and being able to see and do more with each app and having a larger text that is more easily readable.
If you have 20/20 vision you will have no problems here. I found a nice balance between the two while still being able to view the text boxes above the keyboard.
In the OPPO Find N2 Flip’s defence, it is six months older than the Razr 40 Ultra so you would hope they will increase the size of this outer display come the Find N3 Flip release later this year.
The OPPO Find N2 Flip does allow for basic information to be viewed, along with notifications but if you want to reply or interact with them in a meaningful way you will need to open the display to do so.
The winner here is the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra, by a long way. Sorry OPPO but your display, although bigger than the Samsung Galaxy Flip 4, has been surpassed. If they aren’t already working on their next version having a full screen display, then they need to quickly pivot and make sure it does. It is dead in the water by comparison if it doesn’t.
Cover display software
Both OPPO and Motorola have included the basics in the software for the cover or external display. Both have the ability to style the clock and wallpaper, and both have widgets, although Motorola call their widgets Panels.
As you can see in the screenshots below neither has a huge range of widgets on offer but given Motorola can run nearly all apps on their external display it won’t be long before all widgets will be able to be run too.
The rest of the settings are pretty much the same. Motorola offers more granular control over which apps are allowed to continue on the cover display when the phone is folded shut. OPPO is just an all or nothing switch. Pity most apps won’t render to be visible and usable on the cover display.
In the end the winner here is Motorola. Not only have they increased the size of the outer display on the Razr 40 Ultra to be usable but have somehow made it so that nearly every app will render correctly and in a usable nature on the cover display.
Motorola has certainly set a new standard for the outer display with not only its size but its usefulness.
Inner display
We have tended to forget about the inner display on these flipping phones because in the end, once flipped open the inner display works as a display on a normal candy bar phone would — and they aren’t much different from one to another.
The colours and vibrancy of the displays look exactly the same. So much so that someone may suspect that the displays came out of the same factory and quite possibly off the same factory line. Change the colours to vibrant in settings and they look exactly the same.
The only difference is the Razr 40 Ultra is ever so slightly thinner and taller. Only by a couple of millimetres each way so the difference isn’t massive at all.
Software
Both manufacturers offer additional settings on their phones that are quite useful. Both have gestures using touch on the display, but Motorola also have the chop gesture with the phone to turn the torch on/off and the shake phone to open camera app. I find these the most useful of all the gestures.
The OPPO Find N2 Flip has a lot more additional features that we have come to expect and love from OPPO. I prefer the way they have their Quick Settings with two large buttons for whichever two you want to put there but then smaller buttons for the rest of your shortcuts/toggles. Motorola stick to the stock Android large pills which means you can fit less on a page which looks good but is less efficient when using the phone.
I could, and do, use either phone’s software daily every single day. I can’t say that about every manufacturer so for me to like both it says something. There is Pixel software that we consider more a stock Android, then there is OPPO software which looks very different and offers far more features. Motorola sits somewhere in the middle of the two. Both are good. Both are usable.
Camera differences
As much as everyone wants a flagship camera in their smartphone there’s a reason why they are only available in flagship smartphones. Cost and size. Flagship smartphones are massive so the higher end camera hardware can easily fit. Not so much for a thin flip phone.
| Motorola Razr 40 Ultra | OPPO Find N2 Flip | |
| Outer Main Camera | 12 MP, f/1.5, (wide), 1/2.55″, 1.4µm, PDAF, OIS | 50 MP, f/1.8, 23mm (wide), 1/1.56″, 1.0µm, multi-directional PDAF |
| Outer Ultrawide Camera | 13 MP, f/2.2, 108˚ (ultrawide), 1/3″, 1.12µm, AF | 8 MP, f/2.2, 112˚, (ultrawide) |
| Inner Selfie Camera | 32 MP, f/2.4, (wide), 0.7µm | 32 MP, f/2.4, 22mm (wide), 1/2.74″, 0.8µm, AF |
Neither flip phone has a triple rear camera but that isn’t essential in 2023 to produce decent images with so much relying now on the computational photography side of things. OPPO has some phones that produce great images, so they have a bit of a head start here but Motorola has improved out of sight in the past 12 months, so much so that the Razr 40 Ultra camera quality is approaching that of the Find N2 Flip from OPPO.
As you can see in the images below that at first the images look extremely comparable, and it is only when you zoom up the images that you can see how the detail is lost in some of the finer structures on the Razr. For a vast majority of people this is not a big deal, but there is certainly a difference between the two.
Charging and battery life
OPPO has included their SUPERVOOC charging in the Find N2 Flip although it is limited to just 44W. This charging speed is fantastic and after using it I have no idea why more manufacturers don’t employ charging this fast. The problem is though that you do need to have the OPPO proprietary charger to get those speeds.
The Motorola Razr 40 Ultra on the other hand supports USB-C PD charging at 30W which seems to be quick enough for most occasions. You can use any charger you want to get these 30W speeds too (assuming that charger supports 30W PD charging of course). Motorola has also included 5W wireless Qi charging as well and although 5W is the same speed we had when it was first introduced to smartphones a long time ago, it is still handy if you just want to sit it on a charger and trickle charge it overnight.
If you use the outer display on the Razr more, then its battery can last even longer as that uses far less power than the inner display. Another big tick for the Razr 40 Ultra.
I’ll give neither a win here, a push you might say — the OPPO speeds are slightly fast but only support their charger whereas the Motorola can charge with any 30W charger and also has wireless charging.
Final thoughts
Foldable smartphones are the future. I am convinced of that. Those who want a massive display can buy a folding phone and those who want a smaller display can buy a flip phone. Both *should* offer a fully functional outer and inner display, making smartphones easily pocketable once again.
At the moment OPPO’s external display on the Find N2 Flip is relatively useless unfortunately but come 12 month’s time and I dare say we will see all flipping phones on the market having a fully functional full screen outer display — Samsung are rumoured to have one on their Galaxy Z Flip 5 coming in a couple weeks.
For this reason the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra is streets ahead of the Find N2 Flip. The Find N2 Flip was great when it was first announced and surpassed the crop of flip phones on the market at the time with its bigger outer display. Six months later though and it has been surpassed — as you would expect.
The cameras are comparable with the OPPO Find N2 Flip slightly ahead of the Razr 40 Ultra but Motorola’s camera is far superior to that in last generation’s Razr.
If I had to choose between the two I’d be choosing the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra every day of the week purely because of that larger, full functional outer display. I actually find myself using the outer display more and more meaning less and less battery power is used during use and once this Razr 40 Ultra heads back to Motorola I’ll be heading out to buy one myself.
