Next year could be a big year for foldable phones. Along with Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 4 and perhaps the forthcoming Google Pixel Fold, Lenovo is about to return with the third generation of the Motorola Razr.

The information about the company's plans comes directly from Chen Jin, general manager of the Lenovo Business group, who made the announcement via Chinese social network Weibo. The machine-translated text reads, "I think innovation is always the driving force of the industry," before announcing "the third generation razr folding screen phone."

According to the slightly cluttered translation, it will feature "more advanced chip computing capabilities," a "better man-machine interface," and a "more atmospheric look." No release date or price was mentioned, but Chen Jin revealed that the phone will be aimed first at the Chinese market.

If the past two Motorola Razr foldables are a blueprint for the new model, this will be a competitor to the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4, rather than the company's 2-in-1 tablet/phone hybrid.

Should Samsung be concerned? That depends largely on whether Motorola's parent company, Lenovo, has learned its lesson from its two previous Razr devices, which failed to make a significant impact.

In my opinion, its limited impact is due to two very obvious shortcomings: the first is price; the second is the fact that the Razr is a very expensive device. The original Moto Razr was launched at the eye-popping price of $1500, and the Moto Razr 5G, which received a $100 discount, was only a slight improvement.

Folding handsets are notoriously expensive, so that in itself is not a problem. The problem is my second issue with the phone, namely that Motorola skimped on the internals on both. The original was powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 710 SoC, which is what you'd find in a $300-ish phone; the 5G follow-up has a Snapdragon 765G SoC, which is slightly improved, but still the same chip found in the $449 Pixel 5a It is still the same chip found in the $449 Pixel 5a.

Samsung's foldable devices were similarly expensive, but at least they had modern internals. For example, the first generation Z Flip cost $1,380, but was powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 855 Plus SoC.

Aside from the lack of chips, it would be quite trivial for Motorola to match it, and from the translated text, it seems the company intends to improve there.

However, improving specs costs money, and given that Samsung is aggressively lowering the price of its folding devices, even the advanced Moto Razr 3 will need a serious price cut to compete. Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip 3 could psychologically sell for less than $1,000.

So can the Motorola Razr 3 be a serious contender? There are hardships ahead on its hands, but we'll have to wait and see a bit more before we can judge whether we see the improvements that Chen Jin seems to think we'll see. For now, I am skeptical.