Motorola's new Razr will surprisingly, not be sold by Verizon

In a rather surprising move this week, with the Razr announcement, Motorola confirmed that Verizon will not be selling the new device. That’s rather surprising, since Motorola and Verizon have been in bed together since before the original Droid launched, way back in 2009. And every single Motorola device has launched on Verizon. But it seems that time has ended.

The new Razr+ will be available from the other carriers though – like AT&T and T-Mobile. It will also still work on Verizon, as it does have the bands to work on its 5G network, but it will miss out on mmWave. Motorola did mention that the Razr+ does work on C-Band spectrum, so you’ll still get 5G UW from Verizon, but only up to C-Band. Which is what most people would want to use anyways.

Here’s why Verizon might not be selling the Razr+

Motorola isn’t just making the Razr+ Sub-6 only, it’s also to doing a mmWave model at all. And that right there, is likely why Verizon said no thanks to Motorola. You see, Verizon only wants to sell phones that take advantage of its super-fast 5G UW network, which includes both C-Band and mmWave spectrum.

However, mmWave antennas are quite expensive, we’ve seen the “mmWave tax” on phones be as much as $150 at times. So in order to keep the price of the phone under $999, they had to ditch mmWave. Though, not doing a mmWave model at all is rather surprising. Google does tend to do Sub-6 only, but they also do a mmWave model that will be $50 to $100 more, depending on the phone. And typically sell it at Verizon only. So it’s a surprising move from Motorola here.

It’s unlikely that this is the end for Motorola and Verizon working together. Motorola of course, wants to stay close to Verizon here, as they are the biggest carrier in the US.