Two-minute preview

The Motorola Razr 2023 returns to the US starting with the Motorola Razr Plus (that'll be the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra for those in Europe), after a hiatus for which Motorola plainly admits its phone wasn’t good enough to sell on American shores. After studying the best Samsung phones for a while, the Razr returns looking little like its flip-phone predecessor. It has the Galaxy Z Flip 4 beat in a few interesting and useful ways, but we don’t yet know what Samsung has up its sleeve for the next generation, coming soon.

This means the Motorola Razr Plus will have an uphill climb, and on paper the route doesn’t look easy. For starters, it uses last year’s mobile platform – the same as the Galaxy Z Flip 4 and the Motorola Razr 2022. It costs the same as Samsung’s older phone too, which is an especially risky move considering a new Galaxy Z Flip 5 will likely hit the market in just a couple of months; with faster components for the same price. 

Motorola instead offers a big external display and mixed messages. The Motorola Razr Plus keeps you from missing out while helping you disconnect. You get the big display and the cool camera features, but you can also snap it shut when you’ve had enough. Except that the big cover display is a key selling point, so the Motorola Razr Plus never really leaves you sitting quietly idle.

I wish this phone cost a couple hundred less, and I suspect that the standard Motorola Razr (2023) to come – without the cover display (called the Razr 40 in Europe) – will be a much more affordable phone and easier to recommend. For now, I’m excited to try the cool camera setup and the new cover display features when it comes time for an in-depth review in the near future.

Motorola Razr Plus: price and availability

• Available in Europe & UK June 2; pre-orders elsewhere June 16, stores June 23
• $999.99 / £1,049.99 (approximately AU$2,010)
• One configuration: 256GB storage and 8GB RAM

In the US, the Motorola Razr Plus is available for pre-order starting June 16, 2023, and will be in stores on June 23. Motorola is getting a jump on the foldable world by launching its phone in June. Samsung has traditionally announced folding phones in August for availability around the holiday season, and even Motorola’s last Razr phone in 2022 was announced in August. 

The cover-screen-and-caffeine-free Motorola Razr (2023) is coming later this year, but Moto hasn’t given us a date yet. We also don’t know the price, but Motorola reps hinted that it will be considerably cheaper.

Like many other phone makers this year, Moto is only offering one configuration option for the Motorola Razr Plus: 256GB of storage and 8GB of RAM. That’s twice the storage of last year’s base model and the competing Galaxy Z Flip 4, though Samsung regularly gives you a free upgrade during promotions.

The 8GB of RAM seems paltry at first, but the two displays are rarely running at the same time, which would require more memory. It should be just enough.

Frankly, this phone should have been cheaper, but quite a few mobile carriers will be offering it for sale, so there should be some good contract deals once it's available. Still, considering it uses an aging Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset and the same amount of RAM as the Razr 2022 – not to mention it offers few significant spec upgrades – the Motorola Razr Plus should have been a less expensive phone than last year’s model.

The phone will be available in three colors at launch: black, blue, and magenta. The magenta shade will be available unlocked from Motorola directly or you can buy one from T-Mobile, the only US carrier that will sell the exclusive color.

In Europe, the alternatively-named Motorola Razr 40 Ultra goes on sale at announcement – on June 2 – priced at £1,049.99 (approximately $1,315 / AU$2,010) in the UK (that's a £100 increase over the Razr 2022), with availability from major retailers like Amazon, Carphone Warehouse, Currys and John Lewis, as well as carriers like EE, Three and Vodafone.

As for the new standard model – called the Motorola Razr 40 in Europe – Motorola promises a release "in the coming weeks." The phone is priced at £799.99 (approximately $1,000 / AU$1,530), making it one of the most affordable clamshell foldables in the market to date. Similarly to the Ultra, the base Razr 40 will be sold by the likes of Amazon, Carphone Warehouse, Currys and John Lewis, as well as carriers including EE, Three and O2.

Motorola Razr Plus: design

• Like a Galaxy Z Flip 4 with a big cover display
• The vegan leather is somehow appealing
• Pantone color of the year and T-Mobile US exclusive: Viva Magenta

At first glance, you might have a hard time distinguishing between the Motorola Razr Plus / Razr 40 Ultra and a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4, especially when held sideways. Look closer and you’ll see straight through the Flip 4, while Moto's Razr manages to close flat, with no visible gap between the two halves of its clamshell design. 

When the cover display is turned off, the Moto Razr Plus seems less impressive and unique, but the screen really dominates the face when it’s lit up, and it looks great. I even like the way the screen wraps tightly around the protruding cameras, which looks cool and futuristic, not like a compromise.

Every 2023 Motorola Razr and Razr Plus will launch in a color palette that corresponds to branded Pantone colors. For the Razr Plus, that means Infinite Black, Glacier Blue, and Pantone’s inexplicable color of the year, Viva Magenta.

The matte finish on the black and blue models looks professional and modern, but the vegan leather on the magenta Razr Plus presents itself particularly strongly. Motorola says that the vegan leather gives the impression that the phone is more durable, though they wouldn’t back up any such claim. I’ve certainly never seen leather shatter the way glass – even Gorilla Glass – can break.

In fact, having seen the full vegan leather front and back on the less expensive Motorola Razr (2023), I almost wish that every Moto colorway included a faux leather option. On a flip phone, the back cover acts as a carrying case, so having a nicer finish would make it more pleasing to carry. The leatherish finish is also lighter than the glass back by a few extra grams.

While the hinge on the Motorola Razr Plus display slams shut tighter than on previous clamshell foldables, the phone isn’t sealed against the elements as tightly as Samsung’s folding phones. The Razr Plus is only IP52 rated against dust and water, for example.

That means it will do a good job protecting against sand and lint, but it isn’t guaranteed to keep even a light spray of water from damaging internal components. Samsung’s latest Galaxy Z Flip 4 is IPX8 rated, so you could take it for a dip in the pool.

There is a crease on the main internal display, but it is less noticeable than on the Galaxy Z Flip 4. As you can see in photos, you need to catch the light just right to see it clearly, though you can always feel it when you slide your finger across it. It isn’t unpleasant, but it’s still… there.

Motorola Razr Plus: displays

• Seriously, that cover display is huge
• It’s also useful enough to read a map or a story
• Internal screen is even bigger this year

The standout feature on the new Motorola Razr Plus is certainly the much-larger cover display, but even the internal screen has been slightly improved this generation. Both the premium Razr Plus and the less expensive Razr use the same internal display.

The faster chipset inside the Razr Plus allows the display to refresh at up to 165Hz, while the slower Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 chipset in the base Razr (as a reminder, that's the Razr 40 in Europe and the UK) can refresh the display up to a still-respectable rate of 144Hz. The cover display is also fast, redrawing at a sprightly 144Hz too. 

This huge, 3.6-inch outer screen is the cover display you want on a folding flip phone. It’s large and clear, with plenty of pixels. You can easily read a map using it, so Spotify and fitness tracking widgets are no problem at all too.

In my brief time with the Razr Plus, using the cover display was intuitive and responsive. It starts with some basic widgets, but you can also flick around and find a much larger list of apps that support the display directly.

Motorola has put some nice design work into the options available for the cover display. There are a number of cute little clocks with animated progressions, including a cartoon cow that changes activities throughout the day. There are also games that have been specially designed to take advantage of the cover display, including a cool marble maze game.

The big folding screen on the Razr Plus is quite comparable to what Samsung offers on the Galaxy Z Flip 4, so I’ll be very curious to see if Samsung ups its game in any way with the next Galaxy Z Flip. The Razr Plus has a faster refresh rate, since the Flip 4 can only handle 120Hz. Both displays have the same resolution at 1080 x 2640 pixels, though since the Flip 4 display is smaller it is technically sharper, packing more pixels per inch (ppi).

US buyers won’t recognize the Oppo Find N2 Flip, just like the Motorola Razr 2022, a folding flip phone sold in China and throughout the rest of the world but not in the States. That phone has a larger cover display than the Galaxy Z Flip 4, but it is much narrower and packs far fewer pixels than the Motorola Razr Plus'.

The new Razr Plus – like the Oppo N2 Flip – uses LTPO technology on its big internal display. This power-saving tech hasn’t been featured on a foldable flip phone we’ve seen from Samsung or Motorola, though it’s frequently part of the best conventional candybar smartphones.

Motorola Razr Plus: cameras

• Could have great low-light performance
• Wide aperture lens is impressive
• Very low resolution compared to competitors at this price

Of all the Motorola Razr Plus features, none leave me with more questions than the camera setup. At first glance, these cameras appear to be a major downgrade, from 50MP to 12MP imaging. A closer look reveals some impressive specs, however. 

Motorola claims the Razr Plus' main sensor sports an aperture as wide as f/1.5, which is almost unheard of on a smartphone. A smaller f-stop number means a wider aperture, and a wider aperture means more light hits the sensor.

The difference between a narrower f/1.8 lens – like you’ll find on the iPhone 14 Pro and the Galaxy S23 Plus – and an f/1.5 lens is a huge amount of light. In fact, Motorola says that its f/1.5 lens lets in up to 44% more light than a comparable f/1.8 setup. 

The newer Razr Plus may have fewer megapixels than the Razr from 2022, but those pixels are much larger, 1.4μm compared to 1.0μm. That means the older phone had a larger sensor overall, but we could still get better clarity from the new model, especially in low-light conditions, where larger sensor pixels will pick up more photons.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 has a very similar setup, with a 12MP camera that uses very large sensor pixels, though Samsung’s pixels are 1.8μm, which is a big difference. If Motorola is going to be the winner, it will come down to that wide aperture lens and all of the light it collects.

There is also a 13MP ultrawide lens that handles so-called macro photography. I’ve used Motorola’s version of macro shooting and I’m intensely skeptical. The secondary camera looks very similar to the second sensor on the Galaxy Z Flip 4, down to the pixel size, though the Flip has a wider field of view.

The front-facing camera is a big 32MP sensor that combines every four pixels into one, in a process called pixel binning. You get an 8MP image that should look better because it’s taken the average of four pixels for each resulting one. Don’t worry, you’ll rarely use that camera.

That’s because the best thing about the Motorola Razr Plus – from my hands-on time – is the way it handles selfies and photos with people. Everybody gets a great view. You can point the main camera at yourself and see yourself in the cover display. You can aim the camera at a group and they get to see themselves pose.

Motorola doesn’t just make the main camera more useful with the cover display, it makes taking photos fun. Moto has totally embraced the camera and everything it means to flip phone users.

There are special photo booth modes that take four consecutive shots with time to pose in between. There are split screen modes for video recording. The Motorola Razr Plus is made to be a camera, almost more than it’s made to be… everything else. It works nicely and I’m excited to see what sort of image samples it can produce.

If I had to choose one spec to boost on any smartphone camera, it would be the aperture, and it’s rare to see such a wide lens as this. Combined with bigger sensor pixels, I’m very hopeful that the Motorola Razr Plus will excel at portrait shots, even under low-light conditions. I don’t expect much versatility, but for the type of personal shooting you’ll want to do with this phone, Motorola has chosen the right camera array, it seems.

Motorola Razr Plus: performance and specs

• Last year’s best: the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1
• Lots of specs from 2022's best, actually
• No real spec boost, except the cover display

When a phone family gets regular updates, we usually see a major design change one year, then a major spec boost the next. We call this the tick tock pattern, established by Apple since the days of the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. The Motorola Razr Plus is a tick. It gets a huge design change with totally new elements that make it great. Sadly, the specs will have to wait for the tock. 

It makes sense, if you’re getting a much larger, high-quality cover display, you need to cut some costs elsewhere. Motorola didn’t use a slower mobile platform, but sticking with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 – while the Gen 2 chipset is already available on other flagship phones – means the Razr Plus starts at a disadvantage when it comes to performance.

Overall, in terms of specs, it’s hard to find a clear win for Motorola against rivals, besides that larger cover display. Which is sort of like saying that a convertible isn’t much fun if you don’t consider the sunshine. The cover display is the spec upgrade over last year, and it’s a big one, offering an entirely new screen to use, not just a space for notifications and song titles.

That said, the mobile platform is the same as its major rival, the Galaxy Z Flip 4. The RAM and storage capacities are comparable. The Razr Plus uses a 3,800mAh battery while the Galaxy Z Flip 4 packs 3,700 mAh. Moto's phone charges at 30W, while Samsung charges up to 25W.

None of this matters much for two reasons. First of all, Samsung has a brand new phone likely being rolled off the assembly line as Motorola speaks about its new Razr(s). We expect a new Galaxy Z Flip 5 before the end of August, and possibly much earlier this year. 

Second, Motorola isn’t competing on the same specs as Samsung. It’s competing on design and usability. If the cover display is useful enough, the colors are enticing, and that camera delivers on some unspoken promises, it could be good enough to hold off Samsung until we get to the tock cycle, for a serious spec boost. 

Motorola Razr Plus: software

• Mostly looks like Google’s own take on Android
• Cover display gets useful widgets
• Can also continue most apps on cover screen

On the interface and software, you won’t find much difference from the best Motorola phones currently out there, which means a light but sure touch on Google’s simple Android 13 designs. This isn’t a gaudy Samsung phone, with its overbearing One UI.

Motorola adds nice features and gesture shortcuts, and one of the nicest things is the consistency. If you’re a Motorola fan, the same chop to turn on the flashlight, or twist to turn on the camera, work wonderfully on the Razr Plus. The cover display quickly steals the show, though.

For better or worse, there’s no more ignoring the Motorola Razr Plus when it’s closed. You now have half a smartphone screen at your disposal. If you’ve ever run apps in a split screen window on your phone, you get the same amount of room on the cover display. It’s enough to read a story on your favorite tech web site or navigate using maps.

Motorola has three levels of cover display you can dive through. At its face it’s just a clock, or you can swipe for a Spotify widget. You can dive a bit deeper to get to a sideways scroll of apps and widgets that work nicely with the square screen. The biggest surprise was the handful of custom games that Motorola commissioned to work specifically with the cover display. 

If you’re working on something on the big internal screen, you might also be able to continue your work on the cover display, depending on the app. If you start a story in Chrome, for instance, when you close the phone you can tap a button in the corner of the cover screen and it will open your browser window where you left off. Not every app works, but many apps I tried shifted to the cover display with no trouble. 

The Motorola Razr Plus ships with Android 13 on board. It will only get three years of software updates from the day it hits shelves, so we can expect support up to Android 16, hopefully. That isn’t quite enough in my book and Apple gives its users five or six years of major OS update support, if not more. That’s on the cheapest iPhones, not just the most expensive flagship models too. 

Motorola Razr Plus: battery life

• It has two screens, that means less battery life
• An even bigger battery would be great
• Oh wait, the base model Razr has a bigger battery

Battery life could be tough on the Motorola Razr Plus, and Moto reps dropped hints that it may not last all day if you use it aggressively. That is, there’s a second display up front, and that display drains the battery. Now that you can use the Motorola Razr Plus when it’s closed, you’ll probably use it more. So it goes.

It’s no coincidence that the Motorola Razr without the cover display also has a larger battery inside, and Motorola proudly proclaims that the less expensive phone will last a full day. Without the internal guts required to run that extra screen, Motorola squeezed an extra 400mAh into the battery cell for 4,200mAh versus the 3,800mAh battery on the Razr Plus.

It’s an interesting conundrum, since Motorola decided to head in opposing directions. It wanted a larger display to stand out from the flip phone crowd, but that drains the battery much faster. It wanted to be the thinnest of all flip phones, at least when closed, but thinness also equates to a smaller battery cell. 

For this reason, as well as the sweet faux leather designs and colors, I wonder if the base model Motorola Razr isn’t a better pick for a lot of folks. It has a larger battery, just enough to finish your day. It won’t distract you and drain power with a dazzling cover screen. Tough call, for sure. 

Unlike last year’s model, the Motorola Razr Plus has wireless charging, though the pace is a sluggish 5W. Samsung gives you three times the charging power at 15W, and the Galaxy Z Flip 4 can even handle reverse charging to power up your earbuds, if you forgot to feed them before you left home. Motorola’s phone can’t do that. 

Motorola Razr Plus: early verdict

• Nice improvements, especially the cover display
• Lost some of what makes Razr unique
• No standout specs, but the camera has me curious

It’s rare that I spend time with a flagship smartphone and get more excited about the base model than the most premium version, but my time with the Motorola Razr Plus left me impressed, curious, and ultimately envious of what the plain old Razr had that the Plus lacked. 

I was impressed by the new design improvements, especially the excellent cover display that beats every other flip phone I’ve seen… so far. It’s not just big, it’s useful and easy to navigate. It’s versatile and powerful, acting as a half-smartphone or a camera viewfinder. It’s also distracting, and it probably drains that battery faster than I’d like. Only quality review time will tell.

I’m curious about the new camera on the Motorola Razr Plus. I think Moto made a wise choice prioritizing a wide aperture lens and larger pixels over a high pixel count and a distant zoom. It’s not an easy camera story to explain, but if the photos are great, there won’t be any explanation necessary. Still, it’s close to what Samsung offered last year, and there’s a new Samsung on the way, so I wouldn’t expect the giant to sleep on camera upgrades for its next big Flip.

While I like the style of the Razr Plus, I think the basic Razr gets better color options and I really liked the so-called vegan leather finish. It feels great, especially with this flip phone clapped closed. It also looks fantastic in all of the Pantone colors that Moto has chosen. I wish there were more faux leather options and maybe better color choices for the Razr Plus. Viva Magenta is exciting… but maybe too much so. 

My biggest reservation about the Motorola Razr Plus is with its price. This phone costs the same as many of last year’s models, and it doesn’t do much to upgrade the spec sheet. That means it needs to sell itself on style, experience, and whatever unknown quantity we have yet to experience. It should be an exciting review period. 

We’ll have a full review of the Motorola Razr Plus as soon as possible. In the meantime, be sure to read up on the latest foldables with all of our best foldable phones.

First previewed May 2023

Four and a half years have passed since Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse reinvented the comic book movie genre. Its ground-breaking visuals, exploration of a superhero-based multiverse – beating Marvel and DC to that particular punch in the process – and wholly original, multi-award winning take on the webslinger's big-screen adventures distinguished it from its peers in spectacular fashion.

Needless to say, the pressure on Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse to perform as well as, if not better that, its predecessor is palpable. Sony Pictures' next Spider-Man movie is certainly ambitious, with its 1,000-plus strong cast and crew pushing the boundaries of what's possible for an animated movie, both visually and narratively, even further than before. Such lofty goals, though, are fraught with the potential for failure, including the possibility that Across the Spider-Verse could collapse under its own aspirational weight.

It gives me great pleasure, then, to report that Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse exceeded all my expectations. The next chapter in Miles Morales' silver-screen journey is as gorgeous as it is dramatic, as funny as it is action-packed, and as shocking as it is awe-inspiring. It's a narratively and visually busy flick – overwhelmingly so, on occasion – but one that delivers on its lofty ambitions with aplomb.

Okay, let's do things differently this time

Across the Spider-Verse picks things up one year and four months after Into the Spider-Verse. The now-teenage Miles (Shameik Moore) is a more capable webslinger than before, but struggles to marry his superhero escapades with his other duties. Namely, being a grade-A student and devoted son.

When the Earth-65-hailing Gwen Stacey (Hailee Steinfeld) – Miles' interdimensional Spider-Friend and love interest – unexpectedly reappears in Miles' universe, aka Earth-1610, he's roped into a mission to save the multiverse once more. However, when Miles butts heads with Miguel O'Hara/Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac), the leader of an interdimensional protection squad known as the Spider Society, a Spidey civil war brews. And, with multiverse-traversing villain The Spot (Jason Schwartzman) threatening the safety of all realities, Miles and company can ill afford to be divided.

As the movie series' protagonist, Miles is understandably the focus of Across the Spider-Verse's sweeping narrative. It's the next installment in his coming-of-age story, after all, so his position as the film's central character comes as little surprise.

And yet, this is as much Gwen's story as it is Miles'. In fact, it's Gwen who we spend the movie's first 25 minutes with – a lengthy sequence that cements Gwen as Across the Spider-Verse's co-lead.

It's a gratifying opening that fills in sizable gaps in Gwen's backstory, which was only hinted at in Into the Spider-Verse, and acts as a primer to explains her motivations throughout Across the Spider-Verse and its forebear. It's a sequence that contextualizes who she is and what she fights for, and juxtaposes the fraught duality of her father-daughter relationship with the close-knit dynamic Miles shares with his parents Jefferson Davis (Brian Tyree Henry) and Rio Morales (Luna Lauren Velez). That it does so in a visually gorgeous, mood ring-style, watercolor-inspired palette – the unique art style of her universe – only adds to the emotion-fueled experience.

Seeing our primary heroes interact with their respective parents adds a substantial layer of familial drama that was slightly lacking in Into the Spider-Verse. Such scenes carry far greater weight than before, with Miles and Gwen's older and more rebellious (but not much wiser) personalities clashing with their elders' protective instincts. It's an absorbing push-pull that intensifies themes only briefly touched on previously, adding a more mature tone to this relatively darker tale.

Fascinating as it is to observe Miles and Gwen's complex personal lives outside of the superhero game, it's no substitute for the grin-inducing, adorably playful reunion between the pair in the movie's second act.

From their flirtatious city-swinging montage to the intimate, upside-down chat they share minutes later, their tangled relationship is the beating heart of Across the Spider-Verse. It propels the movie's plot forward (The Spot's multiversal threat aside) in scintillating, and eventually heart-breaking, fashion, keeping us on 'will they, won't they' tenterhooks from the moment they meet again to the movie's jaw-dropping climax that, without spoiling too much, separates them once more. Full credit to Moore and Steinfeld for capturing Miles and Gwen's multifaceted bond in an emotionally engaging manner.

Spinning a larger yarn

This is more than the Miles and Gwen show, mind you. As Across the Spider-Verse's official trailer, multiple TV spots, and other teasers have revealed, the animated flick is a who's who of Spider-People that charmed and excited me in equal measure.

From deep-cut characters including Web-Slinger and his Spider-Horse named Willow, to fan favorites like Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman (Issa Rae) and the Andy Samberg-voiced Ben Reilly/Scarlet Spider, Across the Spider-Verse is packed with wallcrawlers galore. There's even the odd live-action individual – don't worry, I won't ruin any of those absolutely brilliant cameos here – and plenty of callbacks to Spidey's rich big-screen and small-screen history, with multiple nods to the live-action films and animated TV shows that have come before. 

Some character inclusions, though, stand out more than others. Isaac's anti-heroic O'Hara bristles with a brooding intensity and snarling venomousness, while Schwartman's Spot – the physical embodiment of how Miles, or any of us, create our own demons – is imbued with equal parts goofiness and unpredictable menace, the latter of which comes to the fore once he dials his superhuman abilities up to 11.

Elsewhere, Karan Soni's endearing Pavitr Prabhakar/Spider-Man India steals every scene he's in, and Daniel Kaluuya's Hobie Brown/Spider-Punk – a music-loving, anti-establishment British Spider-Man who plays a more significant role in the movie's primary plot than I expected – refreshingly exudes charisma and indifference in a manner unlike most other Spider-People. 

Throw in the returning Peter B. Parker/Spider-Man (Jake Johnson) – with toddler May-Day Parker in tow – and Across the Spider-Verse is fully committed to outdoing its predecessor in every aspect. That includes Daniel Pemberton and Metro Boomin's thumping, rousing, and emotive score and original soundtrack, which audibly accentuate the sequences they're built around.

That determination to improve on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse extends to the movie's multiple breathtaking and vivid universes. 

Into the Spider-Verse was innovative enough in how it incorporated each Spider-Person's unique animation style into Miles' universe. The scale and scope of its sequel, though, is unfathomably huge. This time, Miles and company visit six different dimensions, including Mumbattan (Earth-50101), Nueva York (Earth-928), and two secret dimensions – one of which elicited the biggest laugh from me and many others in our screening for its unexpected appearance. Add in the seemingly infinite number of Spider-People, all of whom possess in a signature aesthetic – Spider-Punk's paper-clipping/scrapbook-esque animation style is a stunning technical achievement – and Across the Spider-Verse is an overwhelming visual experience that deserves to be seen on the biggest screen possible.

It's the staggering scope of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse's ambition, however, that's its biggest problem. Characters that deserve more screen time, particularly those with obvious and arguably villainous motives, such as The Spot and O'Hara respectively, don't get the scenes or in-depth character development they merit. Their backstories are covered in lightning-quick fashion – a creative shorthand solution to Into the Spider-Verse's 'Okay, let's do this one last time' character introductions, sure, but such exposition dumps cheat them out of the screen time and, The Spot's growing power level aside, evolutionary character arcs they deserve.

Other expectedly important individuals including Margo Kess/Spider-Byte (Amandla Stenberg), the virtual reality-based Spider-Person who oversees a Matrix-style machine that plays a big role in this animated film series, and Rae's Draw feel underutilized, too. The expectation is that they'll have greater roles to play in Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, which is currently slated to arrive in March 2024. Even then, it's hard to imagine how great a role such characters will play in the film, which will need to dedicate time to the character growth of its protagonists, and wrap up Miles and Gwen's stories.

Given that Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse's two hour and 20 minute runtime makes it the longest animated movie in history, its ending – your fan theories about how it concludes are way off base, by the way – also feels a bit rushed and abrupt. 

Okay, its dramatically sudden climax is born out of splitting Across the Spider-Verse into two films – Across and Beyond's stories were originally pitched as a single tale. And yes, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse's cliffhanger ending sets the stage for its Return of the Jedi-style follow-up – with Across the Spider-Verse having been described as the Empire Strikes Back of this Miles-led animated film trilogy. Just like 2021's Dune, though, Across the Spider-Verse's truncated finale takes the shine off its well-structured tale. It might leave some viewers wanting a more finite conclusion that allowed Across the Spider-Verse to tell a complete story in the same vein as similarly positioned films, such as Marvel's Avengers: Infinity War or the aforementioned Empire Strikes Back.

My verdict

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is one of the best Spider-Man movies – if not the best – of all time. Considering the competition for that title, notably Spider-Man: No Way Home, Spider-Man 2, and Into the Spider-Verse, that's some statement to make, but the movie deserves such recognition for making good on its wildly ambitious vision.

There are moments where Across the Spider-Verse walks a fine line between technological brilliance and visual overload, but its faults will seem relatively minor and potentially inconsequential to most movie lovers. And, while they're noticeable blots on its metaphorical copybook, Across the Spider-Verse's issues didn't detract from my overall enjoyment of its thrilling, highly entertaining, visually striking, and emotion-filled package.

Thanks to its delicate balance of comedy and drama, and spectacle and substance, Across the Spider-Verse is a theatrical triumph. It's a film that's mind-bogglingly massive, distinctly heartfelt, and eye-poppingly beautiful – one that finds complete freedom to swing into new animated frontiers – and confirms Miles' second big-screen adventure as one of the best best new movies of 2023. Thwip your way to a theater near you as soon as you can, and it won't be long before you're in full agreement with that sentiment.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse swings into theaters worldwide on Friday, June 2.

30-second review

There are currently six 5TB portable hard drives in Seagate’s current roster, and the Ultra Touch is the newest one (not to be confused with the Backup Plus Ultra Touch from the same manufacturer). Geared towards an audience more attuned to ecological themes, this drive contains at least 30% post-consumer recycled materials (100% of its recycled materials), and its pebble gray finish underlines its environmental cachet.

The Ultra Touch is likely to struggle against other Seagate models with a similar capacity but much lower price points, especially as they will perform similarly given that they use the same hard drive. Yes, it does offer a number of bundled services and gets extra points for its sustainable messaging, but if you’re just after storage and nothing else, it’s hard to justify a 40% premium over its cheaper siblings.

Will it be listed as one of the best external hard drives? Not unless it becomes cheaper.

Pricing and Availability

We reviewed the Seagate Ultra Touch 5TB external hard disk drive in pebble gray finish. A 4TB version is also available as well as a cloud white color scheme. We managed to find only one retailer (Connection) that stocked the drive (STMA5000400) at the time of writing for just under $147. Other similar 5TB Seagate external HDD include the $105 Seagate Portable, the $106 Seagate One Touch, the $105 Seagate Expansion, the $132 Seagate Firecuda and the $118 Seagate Backup Plus. As expected, the just-released Ultra Touch suffers from the so-called newcomer’s premium, which makes it hard to recommend.

Design

There’s nothing particularly striking about the Ultra Touch. It uses recycled plastic material for its enclosure and Seagate says that its design was “Inspired by the natural world” before adding that the drive “features soft tones and a smooth design”. There’s plenty of curves which makes holding it easier: at 267g and 4.54 × 3.15 × 0.91in (115 x 80 x 23mm), it is small enough to be carried around easily. A 50cm USB cable is the only accessory bundled with the drive.

There’s an activity light and a USB Type-C port, a welcomed change from the flat USB connector that so many external storage peripherals unfortunately adopted over the years. Opting for this means that it will be compatible with many of the latest laptops that have eschewed the traditional USB Type-A connector.

Hardware

For the past six years, 5TB has been the highest capacity reached by traditional hard disk drives in the 2.5-inch category. I reviewed one from Seagate, the Backup Plus, in 2019. At the heart of all the six 5TB portable hard drives sold by Seagate is a 5TB Barracuda internal HDD, the ST5000LM000, which spins at 5400RPM and has a 128MB cache. 

Three things that are notable about this drive are (a) it is thicker than average (15mm) thanks to the extra platters it carries, (b) it is more expensive than external hard drives that use it: $129 when we last checked on Amazon (c) it has a two-year warranty whereas all Seagate external hard drives have three-year warranties by default.

What I wrote four years ago is still valid; large-capacity portable hard drives have reached a plateau. There’s not much hardware improvement that can be made as there is little to no incentive to invest in R&D. New technologies like HAMR or Helium are reserved for more lucrative markets like data centers where the need for smaller 2.5-inch hard disk drives is non-existent.

Performance

There’s no real surprise in store during the test: I used five benchmarks and it was a mixed bag as there is no real innovation (other than the Type-C connector) compared to the previous external 5TB hard drives. Writes varied from 129 to 137MBps while reads hovered around 140MBps on average, depending on what software was used. In real life though, a 10GB mix of files and folders took around 74 seconds to be transferred which is roughly 137MBps which is a bit faster than the 2019 Backup plus at around 130MBps.

That’s about a quarter of the average speeds of some of the slower external SATA-based solid-state drives we’ve evaluated.

I didn’t detect any significant rise in noise under load and the Ultra Touch didn’t feel warmer to the touch when transferring files. The drive comes with a three-year warranty and an assortment of trial services: 6-month Mylio Photos subscription, a photo cloud storage, worth $50 and 6-month Dropbox Backup plan, a popular cloud storage service, worth around $48.

Unlike most competitors, Mylio can accommodate a maximum number of photos (50,000 for that tier) and you can connect up to four computers (but unlimited mobile devices) to it. Also, it does allow RAW image editing. Note that the pictures are actually stored on the drive itself. The drive itself comes without any applications and is truly plug and play – at least on Windows 11.

Should you buy a Seagate Ultra Touch 5TB external HDD?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

• Looking for a device to use with your external hard drive? Check out our guide to the best business computers