Motorola Razr Fold Review: Samsung Should Be Worried

When Motorola unveiled the Razr Fold to the media during a CES pre-briefing back in December 2025, it immediately became one of only two phones launching in 2026 that I was legitimately excited for – the other was the vivo X300 Ultra.

You see, as someone who reviews virtually every flagship phone from around the world, as well as a handful of mid-range and budget phones every year, making your phone legitimately exciting for me is quite hard. Typically, there’s one or two phones that I’m actually excited for every year. Last year, it was the OPPO Find N5 and the vivo X300 Pro.

That said, Motorola had a lot of hype to live up to. After all, we had been teased for months about the Razr Fold. Seeing it at CES in January, and again at MWC in March, with a much more complete spec sheet. Now, I’ve spent almost two weeks with the Razr Fold as my daily driver – yes, my eSIM from my iPhone 17 Pro Max is actually in the Razr Fold, which is also rare. Is the Razr Fold worth the $1,899 asking price? Let’s find out in our full review.

Motorola Razr Fold

Rating

$1,899

The Motorola Razr Fold is the company’s first crack at a book-style foldable, and somehow they got more right on attempt one than most brands manage in three generations. After two weeks as my daily driver, here’s why it’s worth your $1,899.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Massive 6,000mAh silicon-carbon battery, with 80W USB-C PD charging
• Incredibly bright displays, over 6,000nits
• First foldable with Corning Gorilla Glass Ceramic 3
• Triple 50MP camera setup with some of the largest sensors on any foldable
• Pantone partnership gives the cameras excellent color accuracy and the phone a genuinely premium soft-touch finish
• 16GB LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB UFS 4.1 storage standard
• Beat the Find N6 and Galaxy Z Fold 7 in CapCut 4K60 video export times

Cons

• Only IP48, while others are more water and dust resistant
• $1,899 price tag is steep, even if it’s justified by the current RAM crisis
• Displays are noticeably more reflective than the competition
• No equivalent to OPPO’s Boundless View multi-tasking
• Minimum focusing distance on the main camera makes close-up shots tough
• No tele-macro mode despite the telephoto sensor being capable of it

Motorola Razr Fold Specs

Motorola Razr Fold Review: Hardware and Build Quality

When it comes to build quality, we pretty much knew what to expect from Motorola. The Razr Fold feels a lot like the Moto G or Moto Edge phones, but a bit thicker, and it unfolds. I really, really like the camera module on this phone, actually. Because the camera module doesn’t have sharp edges and slopes into the back of the phone, it looks nicer, and it also feels nicer in the hand. But perhaps most importantly, it also doesn’t wobble on a table anywhere near as much as some other foldables. I’m one who tends to put my phone down on a table and scroll Twitter, so that is important to me.

Motorola offers the Razr Fold in two colors, the Blackened Blue and Lily White. I have the Lily White color, which I think is the best choice. It has a really nice, soft-touch texture on the back that almost feels like silk. It feels really great in the hand, and it’s one of the things that makes it a better choice for me over the Find N6, surprisingly.

After extended use of the Razr Fold, it’s clear that Motorola knows how to build a foldable. That’s not a surprise, seeing as they’ve been making the Razr since 2019; this is just their first book-style foldable. And the reason why I bring this up is that there are a few things Motorola did with the Razr Fold that actually make a difference for usability.

Firstly, the sides. They are slightly curved where they meet. This gives you a bit of a notch to open the device, which isn’t always the case with other foldables. The Galaxy Z Fold 7, for example, is tougher to open because it’s all flat on the sides. Motorola also used a rounded corner display, but it doesn’t look as bad as some other foldables, most notably the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. The corners on the left side typically look odd and very thick because of the rounded corners on the display, but that’s not the case with the Razr Fold. I would still rather have a more boxy look for the display as Samsung has done, but this isn’t a bad look at all.

Finally, let’s talk about the hinge. Motorola did a really good job with the hinge here. It’s not like the early Razr foldables, where the hinge would make some creaking sounds that made you not want to open the phone, for fear of breaking it. The hinge is also very strong, so you can set it at different angles with ease, which also comes from the flip Razr lineup. Because Motorola lets you set the phone at a 90-degree angle for some features, like a desktop mode in Google Docs. This is something that I miss when using Chinese foldables – though Motorola is technically a Chinese foldable too – so it’s good to see it here on the Razr Fold. It’s not something I use often, but it is something I use from time to time.

Overall, the build quality is the same industrial design you’d expect to see from Motorola, mixed with Motorola’s design philosophy, so as soon as you see someone using this phone, you know it’s a Motorola. And it’s using Pantone’s colors and materials, which really gives it a leg up over the competition.

Motorola Razr Fold Review: Display

Motorola has put some truly incredible-looking displays on the Razr Fold. I think the only foldable that can rival Motorola’s here in terms of displays is actually the Galaxy Z Fold 7. The Find N6 has great displays too, but the colors don’t pop as much as Motorola’s do.

Motorola also fixed one of the major issues with foldables, especially that inner display, and that’s brightness. You see, the foldable display has a plastic layer, which is naturally reflective. So a lower brightness means it’s impossible to see outdoors or even simply in bright light. To combat this, Motorola made the peak brightness 6,000nits on the main display and 6,200nits on the cover display. That’s insanely bright, even for a regular slab phone.

I do wish Motorola had made its displays less reflective; they are much more reflective than the competition. Maybe that’s something they’re saving for 2027. But I do think that the incredible peak brightness makes up for it.

Something else you probably noticed, at least on the cover display is the pretty thick bezels. As someone that was using the OPPO Find N6 for the past three months, it was a bit of a shock to see the bezels that thick. But the difference here is that OPPO has a thicker frame around the display, whereas Motorola went for the thicker black bezel around the display. So it turns out to be about the same thickness. And it really didn’t bother me after the first day or two.

While we’re talking about that cover display, Motorola has some witchcraft going on here. The front display is not curved, but it definitely feels like it’s curved and melts into the frame. It’s an interesting feel and does tricks on the brain, but I kind of like it.

Finally, the Motorola Razr Fold is also the first foldable with Corning’s Gorilla Glass Ceramic 3 on the front display. This is a big deal, as it’s now going to be less susceptible to getting shattered and scratched. I haven’t tested that in-depth, but I have dropped it once by mistake. And it had zero damage on the screen, with only a nick on the frame. Of course, foldables have been very durable for a while, so this is not much of a surprise. Speaking of durability, this is also an IP48-rated device, for water and dust resistance.

Motorola Razr Fold Review: Performance

Many were upset to see that the Razr Fold runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 instead of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, with many claiming it’s a “mid-range” processor, which is not true in the slightest. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 is a slightly slower processor, but definitely not mid-range, and in use, you won’t notice a huge difference.

As I’ve said already throughout this review, I was using the Find N6 for the past three months, which does have the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. Moving over to the Razr Fold with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, I noticed almost no difference in performance. The difference I did notice was in battery life, actually. You can check out my Razr Fold vs OPPO Find N6 comparison for more on that.

For everyday tasks, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 performed beautifully. It never really got hot either, which is quite surprising. Though I’ll see how it does next week at Google I/O in a warmer climate and being outside in sunlight all day.

The other part of this performance recipe for Motorola is including 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.1 storage. That’s not too shabby at all, and likely why it’s priced at $1,899, due to the current RAM crisis.

If you’re worried about the Razr Fold’s performance, don’t be. This is a very capable foldable phone, for which Motorola is promising 7 years of software updates. Though I’d be surprised if anyone kept this phone for 7 years, that’s an eternity in phone time. But good to see Motorola matching Google and Samsung in this regard.

Benchmarks

Every phone that we review, we run a number of benchmarks on, to really see how well it performs in comparison to its competitors. Instead of just taking the manufacturer’s claims for granted. In our testing, we test Geekbench 6, AnTuTu, 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme Stress Test, and we also do a video export using CapCut.

Here in the Geekbench 6 tests, we can see that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 is a bit slower than the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and even last year’s Snapdragon 8 Elite. Though, we do have to keep in mind that the version Samsung has in the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is overclocked, so the Razr Fold is likely much closer to the Snapdragon 8 Elite.

The biggest difference we’re seeing here is in the single-core, with the Find N6 scoring about 38% better. But in multi-core, that lead is much smaller, at only abou 8%. And in the GPU, it’s also about 22% better than the Razr Fold. Though both do destroy what Google is shipping in the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, unsurprisingly.

Next up is AnTuTu. While Geekbench is specifically testing the CPU and GPU, AnTuTu is testing everything on this phone. That includes storage and RAM as well as the display. This is why we are seeing quite a difference between the Razr Fold and the Galaxy Z Fold 7. This past year’s crop of Snapdragon chips really pushed hard on AnTuTu, with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 passing 4 million on some phones, while last year’s would barely clear 2 million. The Razr Fold showed up and showed out on this test. This is actually the average of five runs of AnTuTu, so it wasn’t a one-time thing.

Meanwhile, the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold didn’t even show up.

Now let’s jump into 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme Stress Test. This test actually serves two purposes for us: it shows us how far the device can be pushed since this is a stress test after all. It also shows us how hot the phone can get. Typically, this stress test is the hottest the phone will ever get. So you’ll see this pop up again in the thermal section.

For the Razr Fold, it performed pretty well in the 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme Stress Test:

• Best Loop: 4,661
• Lowest Loop: 2,710
• Stability: 58.1%

For those who are unaware, this benchmark runs the same 60-second loop 20 times. Giving you a score for each loop, with the end result having a best loop (typically your first loop or two), along with your lowest loop, and giving you a stability percentage from all of those loops. The Razr Fold actually outperformed the Find N6 here, but the Find N6 did have 99% stability, showing that OPPO is thermal throttling it much harder than Motorola is. And you’ll see more proof of that in the thermal section below.

Finally, let’s talk about video exporting. For this test, we record a 4K60 video for 60 seconds. Import it into Capcut, and export it at 4K60, timing how long it takes. It actually takes a lot longer than you might expect, especially for how fast these phones run.

The big thing to note here is that the Razr Fold did beat last year’s Galaxy Z Fold 7, which does have a more powerful processor. But it also beat the OPPO Find N6 pretty handily. This could be due to the Find N6 having one less core to work with, but still interesting to note. We won’t even talk about the Pixel 10 Pro Fold here.

Thermals

Now let’s talk thermals. This is pretty important when it comes to foldables, as not all foldables have vapor chambers. In fact, none of the ones we are comparing here have one. Which makes thermals very, very important.

So, to test out the thermals on these phones, we take the temperature from the 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme Stress Test, as well as a few other tests. We also play Genshin Impact for an hour at max graphics and max brightness settings, recording that temperature. And finally, we record video at 4K60 for 10 minutes, recording the temperature. Typically, the stress test is going to be the absolute highest temperature you’ll ever get, and that’s still quite true here.

As we can see here, the Razr Fold performed quite well and was right on par with the Find N6. This is likely due to how much more efficient the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 is. We know that the “Elite” processors from Qualcomm tend to run hotter than their other chips and even MediaTek’s flagship chips. Still a pretty good showing for Motorola here. It really performed well when recording 4K60 Dolby Vision video, which was quite surprising, so surprising in fact that I ran the test again after the phone cooled down, and still got around the same temperature. Not bad, Moto.

Motorola Razr Fold Review: Battery life and charging

Once Motorola disclosed the size of the battery of the Razr Fold back at MWC, I knew this was going to have epic battery life, and I’ve not been disappointed. Motorola switched to Silicon-Carbon batteries this year on all of its 2026 Razr smartphones, with the Razr Fold having a 6,000mAh capacity battery. That’s one of the largest in a foldable, with really only the HONOR Magic V6 being larger, at 6,660mAh.

But a secret weapon that Motorola has here, that the OPPO Find N6 and HONOR Magic V6 do not have is the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5. Going with a lower-clock-speed processor that also runs cooler means better battery life, and that’s absolutely been my experience over the last two weeks.

I unplug the Razr Fold in the morning around 6am, and by the time I go to bed around 11pm, the phone typically has 40% or more battery left. Now, unfortunately, Motorola does not show screen time on the battery page in Settings, so I’m having to rely on Digital Wellbeing for screen time, but we’re looking at well over 12 hours of screen time in a single charge, across two full days. That’s not bad at all.

It’s honestly one of the best battery experiences I’ve had on a smartphone. Not quite as good as the OPPO Find X9 Pro or the OnePlus 15, but very close. Then there’s the charging. We’re talking about 80W charging here, which is the same as what OPPO has on its Find N6. But the difference here? USB-C PD. Motorola uses USB-C PD for its charging, versus a proprietary USB-A brick that most other Chinese brands rely on. So this means you can use almost any high-powered USB-C brick to get fast charging speeds.

I haven’t actually seen it hit 80W while charging, but it does hold higher charging speeds longer than most other phones. In fact, it’ll still be charging at 40W once it hits 90%, while most other phones are charging at under 20W at that point. All around, the battery life and charging is great on the Razr Fold.

Benchmarks

Similar to performance, we also run benchmarks for battery life and charging. For battery life, we charge the phone to 100%, and then set the brightness to around 200nits (this is typically around 50-70% brightness, depending on the phone), start playing a YouTube video on repeat, and unplug the phone. Recording how long it takes to go from 100% down to 1%.

Then, once that is complete, we start the charging test. Either use the charger in the box or a charger that can max out the charging speed. In this case, we used an Anker charger with a display so we could also see how fast it was charging.

A couple of things to note here: some phones are better optimized for video playback than others. Based on other Motorola phones that we’ve reviewed lately, they don’t seem to be as well optimized as OPPO is for video playback. Also, the fact that we’re looking at the same charging speed and the same battery size is quite impressive to see Motorola shaving off 16 minutes from OPPO’s time.

Motorola Razr Fold Review: Software

Motorola is one of the few manufacturers that has stuck with a mostly stock Android approach to its software. It’s even more stock than Pixel is these days. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Motorola still sprinkles some of its features on top, making the software experience quite good.

The Razr Fold does ship with Android 16, which is currently the latest version from Google. Though, Android 17 is slated to launch in the coming weeks. Motorola is guaranteeing 7 years of updates for the Razr Fold, but that doesn’t mean they will be timely updates. Motorola has been one of the slowest, in terms of pushing out updates recently.

One of the things I was worried about with Motorola’s first book-style foldable, was going to be the software. How will Motorola take advantage of this larger, square display. And well, they did a good job, without going overboard. I’m a huge fan of OPPO’s Boundless View style of mulit-tasking, and while that’s not here on the Razr Fold, I never really felt I needed it. Motorola does have multi-window as well as pop-up view, so you can have apps side-by-side, as well as having them in their own window, like most other foldables.

Where I do feel that Motorola could do better, is jumping into multi-window. Right now, the only way to do it is, to press the three dots at the top of the app, and do split-screen. While other foldables have different gestures you can use to accomplish this. I know it’s something small, and you do get used to it, but it does make a difference. I’d also like to see Motorola add some hints about split-screen. Say you’re switching between apps a few times, show the user an icon to quickly put those two apps into split-screen mode, so you aren’t jumping around as much.

Motorola has started out well here, which I kind of expected given how good the software is on the Razr already. But there’s always room for improvement.

The Moto Pen Ultra is an incredible add-on

It’s kind of interesting that plenty of other manufacturers have managed to add stylus support, including Bluetooth stylus support, after Samsung kind of killed it off. The OPPO Find N6 has its own stylus, that charges in the case, through reverse wireless charging which is still so cool. While Motorola has its own pen silo that’s separate, for charging the Pen Ultra. It’s not as cool, but it works well, and both have Bluetooth support, so you can take photos with the stylus as a remote, among other things.

Motorola also allows you to double tap the end of the pen, to take a screenshot. This is something you can turn off, though I found it to be very useful.

What surprised me with the Moto Pen Ultra is just how good it is at recognizing handwriting. Samsung’s S Pen was a real hassle to use for handwriting over using the keyboard, because it was not great at recognizing my handwriting. And I don’t think my handwriting is that bad, but Motorola did a far better job here. This has made taking notes on the Razr Fold so much better.

Unfortunately, the Moto Pen Ultra is not included with the Razr Fold by default (there may be some bundles that give it to you for free with your purchase), and it costs $99. Though if you’re a big stylus user, I think it’s probably worth it. I don’t use a stylus all that much, so it’s not much value to me.

Motorola Razr Fold Review: Camera

Over the years, cameras have not been Motorola’s strong suit. And I’d say that’s still kind of the case in 2026. But something that really helped improve Motorola’s cameras was their partnership with Pantone and bringing Pantone Color Validation to the camera last year on the Razr 2025 series. This is why I was very excited to see the camera specs for the Razr Fold this year. It’s a triple-50MP setup on the back, with some pretty large sensors actually. Some of the largest on a foldable, even. Here’s a quick refresher on the camera specs:

Every sensor here is larger than what OPPO has on its foldable, which many believe is the best foldable camera system available right now. Just looking at Motorola’s specs here, we can see why DXOMark gave it such high marks. It earned the highest foldable score from DXOMark ever, and it’s in the top 8 globally for all smartphones.

Since that main camera sensor is so large, at 1/1.28″, you’re getting a lot of natural bokeh here. This is great for portraits and macro photography, of course. You also get that same bokeh on the telephoto as well. Combine that with the amazing colors from the Pantone partnership, and this has quickly become one of my favorite camera systems on a foldable.

There’s only two main complaints I have with the camera here. First is the minimum focusing distance, which makes it hard to get close photos, unless you switch into macro mode which does not give you that creamy bokeh you want. The other has to do with macro too, I’d love to see Motorola add tele-macro to the Razr Fold here. With this telephoto sensor, it definitely can do tele-macro, Motorola just hasn’t added it. So you’re stuck doing macro on the ultrawide camera, unfortunately.

Below, I’ve included a ton of photos taken with the Motorola Razr Fold. These have not been edited at all, straight out of the camera. They are all watermarked with the camera specs as well. So those at 24mm is going to be the main sensor, 12mm is the ultrawide, and 70mm or higher is the telephoto sensor.

Much like with the software, there’s still room for improvement with Motorola’s cameras here. But it is a very solid first attempt at a book-style foldable, in my opinion.

Should you buy the Motorola Razr Fold?

Honestly? Yes. The Motorola Razr Fold is the most exciting book-style foldable I’ve used in a long time, and the fact that this is Motorola’s first attempt at this form factor makes it even more impressive.

Motorola didn’t just show up to the book-style foldable party with some mediocre offering. They kicked the doors down with a massive battery, incredibly fast charging, eye-searingly bright displays, and a cheaper price tag. Though I do firmly believe Motorola was targeting an even lower price, the RAM crisis had other plans.

That said, the Razr Fold isn’t perfect. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 is plenty fast, but if you’re benchmark-obsessed, the Find N6 will edge it out. Motorola’s software is good but still trails OPPO and Samsung when it comes to multi-tasking gestures, and the Moto Pen Ultra, costing an extra $99, stings a bit when you’re already spending $1,899.

For the first time in a long time, the Galaxy Z Fold isn’t the obvious pick at the top of the foldable heap, and that’s a great thing for all of us.

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