After years of a successful foldable strategy focused solely on flip phones, the Razr Fold represents an exciting evolution of Motorola’s strategy. I’ve been a fan of flip phones since Motorola launched the Razr Plus 2023 and have used them as my primary phones ever since. However, with the new Razr Fold joining Motorola’s flagship family, my allegiance to flip phones may be coming to an end.
As the company’s first book-style foldable phone, Motorola waited months after its announcement to make it available. This was seemingly to give it the fanfare it deserved, particularly as more companies focus on this form factor amid growing foldable sales. Motorola has proven it can still have a successful foldable strategy with just flip phones, but adding a book-style foldable gives it a greater opportunity to compete with Samsung and Google in the U.S., where foldable options are scarce.
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Category |
Motorola Razr Fold |
|---|---|
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OS |
Hello UI/Android 16 7 years OS and security updates |
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Display (internal) |
8.1-inch, 2K (2484 x 2232), 10-bit, 120Hz LTPO, 6,200 nit peak |
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Display (external) |
6.6-inch, 165Hz LTPO, 2520 x 1080, 10-bit, 6,000 nit peak, Gorilla Glass Ceramic 3 |
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Chipset |
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 |
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RAM |
16GB LPDDR5X |
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Storage |
512GB, UFS 4.1 |
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Rear Camera 1 |
50MP Sony LYTIA 828, ƒ/1.6, OIS, Pantone validated |
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Rear Camera 2 |
50MP ultrawide+macro, ƒ/2.0, 122.1° |
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Rear Camera 3 |
50MP 3x periscope telephoto, ƒ/2.4, OIS |
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Selfie Camera (internal) |
20MP, ƒ/2.4 |
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Selfie Camera (external) |
32MP, ƒ/2.4 |
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Audio |
Dual stereo speakers, Dolby Atmos |
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Connectivity |
5G, Wi-Fi 7, NFC |
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Security |
Side-mounted fingerprint sensor, Face unlock |
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Protection |
IP48/IP49 |
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Battery & charging |
6,000mAh 80W wired, 50W wireless, 5W reverse wireless |
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Dimensions (open) |
144.47 × 160.05 × 4.7mm |
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Dimensions (closed) |
160.05 × 73.6 × 10.04mm |
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Weight |
243g |
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Colors |
Pantone Blackened Blue, Pantone Lily White |
The Razr Fold takes everything Motorola is known for and puts it into an attractive package. The phone may not be as thin as the Galaxy Z Fold 7, but it makes up for it in other ways. The back eschews the typical glass panel in favor of Motorola’s signature alternative materials. My unit is the Blackened Blue colorway, which features a diamond piqué-inspired finish and looks great and feels really nice. The only downside is that scratches and scuffs can sort of linger and are a little hard to remove.
When closed, the phone is just 10mm thin, and despite being slightly thicker than a normal smartphone (the Xiaomi 15 Ultra is 9.4mm), it surprisingly doesn’t feel particularly thick or heavy. The 21:9 display aspect ratio also helps make it feel like a traditional smartphone, unlike the taller 22:9 Razr flip phones. Even the camera housing protrudes seamlessly from the back, taking design cues from the rest of Motorola’s lineup.
When open, the phone is just 4.7mm thin, with the squarish folding display spanning 8.1 inches. The weight feels better distributed than you’d expect, especially given the cameras housed on one side. The extra bit of thickness compared to Samsung’s phone also allowed Motorola to squeeze in a larger 6,000mAh battery.
This makes it one of the first U.S.-bound smartphones to feature a denser silicon-carbon battery, and the phone is much better for it. The Razr Fold easily lasts a day or more on a single charge, and the 80W charging comes in very handy, assuming you have a charger that supports such speeds.
Whether you’re using the Razr Fold open or closed, the displays are gorgeous and bright. The outer screen has a faster 165Hz refresh rate, which is great for gaming, but the inner display’s 120Hz refresh rate doesn’t feel any slower.
The phone also runs smoothly thanks to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5. It may not be the Elite version of the chip, but performance doesn’t appear to suffer much from it. Apps open quickly, and I can play games like Honkai: Star Rail and Where Winds Meet at the highest settings without issue.
I haven’t noticed the phone get particularly warm, even when playing graphically intensive games. In fact, the only time it gets noticeably warm is when it’s charging, likely due to the fast charging speed.
Multitasking also works well, and Motorola uses the foldable form factor effectively in this regard. With the expansive inner display, I can use up to three apps at a time in split-screen mode, plus a fourth app in floating freeform mode, a fifth messaging app as a floating bubble, and a sixth app as a minimized YouTube video. With all this happening at once, the Razr Fold doesn’t falter, although this type of scenario isn’t typical for my use.
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There are also some other clever ways Motorola takes advantage of the foldable form factor, such as intelligently suggesting split-screen apps when it notices a pattern of opening certain apps in succession. So, if I’m known to open Google Messages and Photos, a pop-up will suggest opening them together. Having these apps side by side also makes it easy to select images, then drag and drop them into Messages.
Motorola also has two different foldable “modes” for the Razr Fold, depending on its position. When tented with the lock screen enabled, the phone will enter a Desk mode, which displays certain info, such as a clock and your schedule. It’s a simple, yet surprisingly effective feature, and the Razr Fold looks like a legitimate, albeit fancy desk clock.
The other mode is even cooler. Laptop Mode activates when you fold the phone in a laptop-like fashion, enabling a giant touchpad on the bottom half that lets you control apps displayed in the top half with a cursor. When you enter a text field, the touchpad will transform into a full keyboard, and there’s a row of shortcuts for access to features like the Quick Settings menu, volume and brightness sliders, the screenshot function, and more.
It’s a pretty cool feature, and while it may not exactly emulate the full laptop experience (the keyboard is still a bit cramped), it’s a neat way to make use of the foldable form factor. Hinge also holds up well, despite the larger camera bump being housed in the upper half of the display, a testament to how well-balanced the weight is.
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Of course, because it’s a foldable, it still has features like a customizable taskbar that displays recently used apps. I like to use this in tandem with Motorola’s sidebar, providing two ways to access frequently used apps.
The Razr Fold is running a newer version of Android 16 with the Hello UX, so UI elements feel more consistent and are more closely aligned with Android 16 on the Pixel. For instance, the new Quick Settings menu lets me resize tiles to my liking, and the larger inner screen makes it possible to use the classic control center style with a dual-pane view.
My colleague, Nick Sutrich, noticed some bugs in his unit, such as apps not resizing correctly (or at all) and multitasking not working properly. I haven’t noticed any of these in my use, but it’s worth mentioning that many of them went away after rebooting the phone.
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I will say, the biggest miss is probably Motorola’s Moto AI suite. There are some good things here, such as image generation and access to Copilot and Perplexity if you use them, but overall, Moto AI still feels behind the pack in terms of capabilities and ease of use. The AI Key, for instance, is still very limited and can’t be remapped, which is a missed opportunity.
Motorola has previously shown off the evolution of its AI suite with Qira, a revamped system that looks like a huge improvement over what we have now, but so far, that’s nowhere to be found.
Fortunately, there are plenty of Google AI features you can default to, such as Gemini and Google Photos. The cool Wardrobe feature that was shown off last month still isn’t available, unfortunately.
Another area where the Razr Fold edges out the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is support for an active stylus pen. The Moto Pen Ultra is a separate $99 purchase, but it adds a very S Pen-like experience to the Razr Fold, with support for pressure sensitivity and tilt detection.
I will say, it’s a little strange carrying a stylus pen around in an admittedly well-upholstered sleeve, and I wish there were a way to just attach the pen to the phone, perhaps with a magnet or a case. However, for some reason, the Razr Fold is sorely lacking in case options. But I digress.
Text recognition makes it possible to type in any text field while the system inputs whatever you write, and it works pretty well, despite my barely legible handwriting. A floating pen menu provides a quick menu to open a new note, make annotations, and more.
The Notes app lets you draw and even generate images from your drawings using Moto AI, if you’re into that sort of thing. Basically, I have a bigger canvas to draw abominations and turn them into polished abominations.
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The Moto Pen Ultra’s customizable button also makes it easy to use features like Circle to Search; I just press and hold the button and highlight whatever I want to search for. The Bluetooth connection makes this easier than using the pen on the Moto G Stylus 2026, which doesn’t have Bluetooth and will only work when the pen is within range of the display.
That Bluetooth connection also lets me remotely control the camera, something I used to love on older Samsung phones I’ve owned, like the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra.
Speaking of the camera, that’s easily the best part about this phone. Motorola went all out with the camera system, sporting three 50MP rear sensors, and I can easily say this is the company’s best effort. Images are bright, crisp, and vibrant, and while I wish it had better dynamic range, I think the Razr Fold cameras perform well in most scenarios, even managing decent low-light shots.
However, the Razr Fold shines most when it’s zooming. Motorola isn’t known for having strong zoom capabilities. Still, the combination of the 3x telephoto lens and Motorola’s improved AI zoom makes for some impressive shots, including 6x, 10x, and 50x zoom. Even 100x zoom shots aren’t half bad.
I took the Razr Fold to a concert and was more than pleased with the images and video I captured, most of which I took at 6x or 10x.
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The two selfie cameras on the displays aren’t as impressive, but they’re mostly relegated to video calls anyway. It’s also worth noting that the images I took were captured using the Natural camera mode, though you can switch to Vivid for more saturated colors or Signature, which learns over time from your editing preferences.
Rest assured, we’ll go deeper into the Razr Fold’s camera in a separate camera review.
Overall, I am happy to say that Motorola largely stuck the landing on its first book-style foldable. The design and hardware are solid, the software is decently polished, and the image quality is a step above what I’ve come to expect from Motorola.
It may not be as thin as the Galaxy Z Fold 7, and the AI experience may be lacking, but the Motorola Razr Fold makes up for it with better battery life and stylus support, something it also has over the slightly cheaper Pixel 10 Pro Fold. Motorola also has the upper hand with more RAM and storage for the price, and the company is known for frequent sales on its phones, which is something to look forward to.
The Razr Fold is available for preorder and retails for $1,900, with some nice bundles available. If you can deal with Motorola’s lack of accessories and less reliable software upgrade policy, the Razr Fold is definitely worth checking out if you’re in the U.S. and interested in buying a foldable.
Why flip when you can fold?
The Motorola Razr Fold is one of the most impressive foldable phones available, thanks to its large all-day battery, fast charging, and powerful Snapdragon chip. The cameras will likely blow you and your friends away, making it a great option if you love to take photos.