Motorola Razr 3 foldable is tipped for a key spec upgrade

The Motorola Razr 2020 lying unfolded and face up on a table.
The The Motorola Razr 2020 is due a successor (Image credit: Future)

The Motorola Razr 3 or the Motorola Razr 2022 or whatever you want to call it – the upcoming third clamshell foldable from the Lenovo-owned brand – could be in line for a significant storage space upgrade according to a recent social media posting.

Lenovo executive Chen Jin has taken to Chinese social media platform Weibo (via Notebookcheck.net) to report on the popularity of the 512GB edition of the mid-range Moto Edge S30. Apparently that has got the company thinking about how much storage to pack into its future handsets, including the foldable ones.

Chen Jin reports that "everyone needs" plenty of storage space on their phones, and that new Motorola products, including those with folding screens, will have 512GB versions that will "surprise everyone" (quotes via Google Translate).

The storage story so far

While that doesn't make it absolutely certain that you'll be able to pick up the next Motorola Razr with 512GB of storage space, it sounds like it's a strong possibility. The phone is also being tipped to get a processor upgrade.

The original Motorola Razr was launched in 2019 and brought with it a maximum of 128GB of storage along with 6GB of RAM. Its successor, the Motorola Razr 5G in 2020, came with 256GB of storage space and 8GB of RAM. If Lenovo's plans pan out, then the storage is going to double again in 2022.

For now we still don't know all that much about Motorola's upcoming foldable, though it was something of a surprise that there was no 2021 edition. We have also seen Lenovo playing around with a few different foldable phone concepts in patents.


Analysis: local storage still matters

What with us all streaming music from Spotify (other music streaming services are available) and streaming video across Netflix (other video streaming services are available), you'd be forgiven for thinking that no one cares all that much about having local storage on their phones any more.

Not so, according to Chen Jin (and plenty of others): it seems that at least some of us like to see a hefty amount of on-board storage when we pick up a new device. If Lenovo is able to cram more into its svelte clamshell foldable, we'd be happy to see it.

There is the obvious use for all this storage, which is to keep photos and videos close at hand, even if they eventually get uploaded to the cloud. Camera sensors continue to improve, with image and video resolution increasingly accordingly.

Then you have the convenience of being able to store music, video and other content locally for offline use – even in our world of almost ubiquitous Wi-Fi access, there are often still times when you need to have everything stored on your actual device (whether it's stepping on to an airplane or being in an area with spotty cellular reception).

David Nield
Freelance Contributor

Dave is a freelance tech journalist who has been writing about gadgets, apps and the web for more than two decades. Based out of Stockport, England, on TechRadar you'll find him covering news, features and reviews, particularly for phones, tablets and wearables. Working to ensure our breaking news coverage is the best in the business over weekends, David also has bylines at Gizmodo, T3, PopSci and a few other places besides, as well as being many years editing the likes of PC Explorer and The Hardware Handbook.