[Update: 27,000 folds] Watch a robot fold the Motorola Razr until it dies

Ben Schoon | Feb 7 2020 - 6:30 am PT

As we start off 2020, more foldable smartphones are hitting the market, and the latest is from Motorola. To see just how durable it is, CNET has tasked a robot with folding the Motorola Razr until it dies, and you can watch live.

This test of the Motorola Razr is using the same machinery as a similar test on Samsung’s Galaxy Fold last October. In that test, the Galaxy Fold died after roughly 120,000 continuous, rapid folds. The cause of death came from deterioration of the hinge as well as a large portion of the inner display failing.

Unlike Samsung, which claimed 200,000 folds over the course of the Fold’s lifespan, Motorola hasn’t gone on record for how long the Razr should last under normal use. However, the company hasn’t been very shy regarding the durability of the device so far.

How long will the Motorola Razr last within this robot? As with the Galaxy Fold’s test, the “FoldBot” from SquareTrade probably won’t be moving slowly, something that will surely cause the device to break with fewer folds compared to what might happen over a couple of years of usage. CNET says that it plans to go through at least 100,000 folds, but obviously there’s a chance the device could break before hitting that total. After all, some first impressions of the foldable have questioned the strength of its hinge.

Update 2/7: Just hours into the stream, the Motorola Razr died after just 27,000 folds. The phone’s display didn’t stop working, but the hinge itself was failing, cause the device to not fully close. This is… not good. By our math, 73 folds per day would kill a Razr in just a year. That’s not an unrealistic number either.

And… we’re done! The Razr put on a good show, but ~27,000 folds later, it stopped closing all the way 😭

— Lexy 📸📱🎧 (@lexysavvides) February 7, 2020

Though, it’s important to note that the Razr actually did keep working after this point. After taking it out of the machine and giving it some time and a bit of “massaging,” the hinge started to function again.

UPDATE! The Razr still folds, after a little more massaging now it’s out of the machine pic.twitter.com/XFagX7Akcr

— Lexy 📸📱🎧 (@lexysavvides) February 7, 2020

Importantly, though, this test still doesn’t fully reflect real-life use as the FoldBot is a lot faster and rougher than real-life. Yet, this still doesn’t look good for the Razr.

The livestream to see a Motorola Razr die starts at 12 p.m. PT today, and you can watch in the video below.