Motorola Razr Fold Review: Luxuriously Appointed Foldable

Value When Reviewed

$1,899.99

Greatest Costs At the moment: Motorola Razr Fold

Motorola has chosen a peculiar time to launch its first book-style foldable cellphone within the Razr Fold.

Crippling element costs are tempering the ambitions of even the most important producers – and elevating costs for his or her prospects – whereas Apple is nearly to upend public expectations (deserved or not) for what a full-sized foldable ought to be with the iPhone Extremely.

You’d additionally assume the model would have been main the way in which after introducing the fashionable flip cellphone with the Razr sequence, beginning in 2020.

I’m uncertain that Motorola’s imaginative and prescient for a £1,800/$1,900 ‘conventional’ foldable goes to win many converts at this level within the recreation. Nonetheless, on the restricted phrases laid out by Samsung seven years in the past with the primary Galaxy Fold, it’s a surprising success.

Design & Construct

• 9.89mm thick (closed) and 243g
• Luxurious curves and supplies make it really feel approachable
• Effectively-sprung hinge
• IP48/IP49 rated

I’m not solely certain how Motorola has accomplished it, however the Razr Fold feels much less like an overengineered prototype and extra like a cohesive cellphone that I might envisage utilizing each day.

As somebody who has by no means significantly thought of making a foldable their primary cellphone outdoors of testing for evaluations, that’s borderline miraculous.

It’s not even like Motorola has discovered an answer to my largest subject with the format: portability. At 160.05 × 73.6 × 9.89mm when closed (4.55mm thick when unfurled), and with a weight of 243g, it’s an entire millimetre thicker and 28g heavier than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 and the same quantity to the Oppo Discover N6.

Motorola has bought the texture of the Fold excellent

The factor is, although, Motorola has bought the texture of the Fold excellent. It’s successfully taken the luxurious slimline really feel of its present flagship cellphone, the Motorola Signature, and unfold it thinner over double the floor space.

Utilized to a big foldable, Motorola’s rounded edges and tactile materials finishes really feel each extra indulgent and extra sensible. This may simply be the grippiest and most pleasant-to-hold book-style foldable but.

The way in which wherein the cellphone suits the contours of your hand appears to assist distribute the burden extra evenly, whereas Motorola’s flowing digicam module affords a pleasant gradient to prop your help finger on.

Its hinge, too, is completely sprung – simply taut sufficient with out making the opening course of laborious. Once more, the cellphone’s curves assist with that, lending a pure degree of buy on the sides that the flattened-out Galaxy Z Fold 7 lacks. Motorola has clearly realized rather a lot from all of the flip-style Razr telephones.

Motorola hasn’t been capable of resolve the extra elementary flaw of the shape issue, although. An IP48/IP49 score implies that it’s extraordinarily waterproof, however as prone to mud ingress as any foldable other than the Google Pixel 10 Professional Fold – although some would argue that time.

I’m not a giant fan of Motorola’s implementation of the AI Key, which solely actually is smart when the cellphone is open. When closed, it clumsily overlaps the quantity buttons, and is much too simple to press by mistake. It might’t be freely mapped to different non-AI capabilities, both.

It’s additionally a disgrace that Motorola didn’t make use of its Pantone contacts and go for some bolder color choices. Blackened Blue and Lily White each look good and fashionable, however it might have been good to have had a 3rd (and even fourth) choice with slightly extra vibrancy.

Display & Audio system

• Outer: 6.56in, FHD+, pOLED, 165Hz
• Interior: 8.09in, 2K, pOLED, 120Hz
• Bundled Moto Pen Extremely stylus
• Dolby Atmos stereo audio system

The Motorola Razr Fold affords a pair of vibrant, fluid and expansive shows.

On the skin, there’s a big display screen with an unusually fluid 165Hz peak refresh charge throughout video games. It’ll additionally hit a whopping 6000 nits in peak HDR playback conditions.

The interior display screen lacks that elevated refresh charge (it’ll ‘solely’ get to 120Hz), however greater than makes up for this with its huge expanse, minimal (if removed from invisible) show crease, and virtually comically excessive 6200 nits peak brightness.

As with the Razr Fold’s design, all of it comes collectively within the hand. The 2 screens mix to supply a seamless, daring, crisp, but colour-accurate image, no matter you’re doing.

one thing that units the Razr Fold other than its friends… is the inclusion of the Moto Pen Extremely

You may want to transfer away from the overly punchy Vivid default display screen color setting, however each the Radiant and Pure alternate options maintain their very own attraction. With out getting the colorimeter concerned, I discovered Radiant to supply a lovely stability of punch and precision.

Motorola has taken the Google method to inner selfie digicam positioning fairly than the Samsung one, situating it within the high proper nook of the display screen. I discover this to be the neater of the 2, serving to distract far much less when viewing full-screen internet content material.

One other main inclusion right here – and one thing that units the Razr Fold other than its friends, now that Samsung has ditched S Pen help – is the inclusion of the Moto Pen Extremely. It comes with each Razr Fold, and affords a finely calibrated note-taking and sketching software on each shows.

It’s not fairly the house run it might have been, nonetheless, because it isn’t correctly built-in into the cellphone just like the Samsung Galaxy S26 Extremely. Moderately, it comes with a cumbersome (if well-made) cigar-sized charging case, which I can’t think about lugging round with me.

Audio is equipped by a pair of Dolby Atmos-supporting stereo audio system. The standard of the output is nice, if slightly trebly and harsh on the ears at larger volumes. They’re good, however definitely not iPhone 17 Professional-good.

Specs & Efficiency

• Older Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chip
• Ample 16GB LPDDR5X RAM
• Single 512GB storage choice

The suspicion that Motorola has taken its flagship Signature cellphone and caught on an additional flappy part continues, as the Razr Fold packs precisely the identical inner parts.

That’s the identical seasoned Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chip, the identical beneficiant providing of RAM, and the identical solitary 512GB storage provision.

To repeat what we stated in our Signature evaluate, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 is a barely older chip nowadays, having been outmoded across the flip of the yr. What was merely an attention-grabbing remark in a £900/$900 cellphone, nonetheless, turns into a gentle criticism in one which’s promoting for actually twice the worth.

Drag your eyes away from that spec sheet, nonetheless, and Motorola’s calculation largely pays off

Particularly when the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, with its sooner Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, is promoting for comparable cash.

Drag your eyes away from that spec sheet, nonetheless, and Motorola’s calculation largely pays off. The Razr Fold doesn’t really feel any much less succesful than its foldable rivals – and certainly, continues to outperform the Google Pixel 10 Professional Fold in benchmark assessments.

You won’t be testing out that 165Hz facility in too many gaming titles, however the cellphone will nonetheless play the likes of Future Rising with admirable fluidity and graphical constancy.

Day-to-day fluidity is unimpeachable, with easy animations, seamless transitions, and pause-free multitasking. The one efficiency hitch I encountered was a barely protracted shutter time when snapping footage at evening, and that appears more likely to be a difficulty with the Digicam app itself fairly than the rest.

Motorola Razr Fold benchmarks

Cameras

• 50Mp, f/1.6 primary rear lens
• 50Mp, f/2.0 ultrawide with 120-degree subject of view
• 50Mp, f/2.4 3x telephoto
• 20Mp and 32MP selfie cameras

Motorola’s Signature blueprint is out on the desk as soon as once more, with precisely the identical triple-50Mp digicam system used right here within the Razr Fold.

The place such element recycling was a little bit of a chance within the efficiency division, it pays off handsomely right here. Foldable telephones are inclined to have inferior digicam set-ups to their non-foldable cousins, which isn’t look provided that they will retail for double the cash.

Motorola doesn’t must face such awkward questions right here because the Razr Fold takes very nice photographs in just about all conditions.

Motorola’s picture processing seems to have come on a good quantity, too

The comparatively massive 1/1.28-inch primary sensor, paired with a large f/1.6 aperture, implies that daylight photographs are crisp and vibrant. Motorola’s picture processing seems to have come on a good quantity, too, producing photographs with an considerable quantity of pop and distinction.

I used to be genuinely impressed with the extent of shade that the cellphone preserved throughout a few sunny days. Photographs of individuals, too, had a extremely ‘stay’ look to them, with an considerable quantity of pure bokeh lending depth.

Evening photographs got here out moderately clear, if not on the identical degree as the easiest digicam telephones within the enterprise, just like the Google Pixel 10 Professional and the Xiaomi 17 Extremely.

The 50Mp ultra-wide digicam does shot with panorama photographs, producing detailed photographs with out an excessive amount of edge distortion and with a broadly constant tone. This digicam additionally finds itself on macro responsibility, if that’s your bag.

Then there’s the 50Mp telephoto digicam, which produces native 3x zoomed photographs of normal. You gained’t wish to zoom too far past 6x (or 10x at a stretch), given the drop off intimately as you crop in on the primary sensor, with 50x and 100x specifically doing favours to completely nobody and nothing, be that individual, tree or constructing.

One concern I had usually taking pictures was throughout an hour or so of pictures and 4K videography on an unseasonably heat Spring day, which triggered the cellphone to warmth as much as a considerably uncomfortable diploma. This was a day of unusually toasty 25c warmth, admittedly, but it surely’s value noting.

There are a pair of middling front-facing cameras, one 20Mp unit on the entrance and one 32Mp unit on the within, which can prove satisfactory selfies. Higher, although, to utilize the exterior show’s well-implemented viewfinder characteristic and use the primary digicam to your self-snaps. They give the impression of being approach higher.

Battery Life & Charging

• 6000mAh silicon-carbon battery
• 80W wired charging
• 50W wi-fi charging

Motorola has tackled one other frequent foldable flaw head-on with the Razr Fold’s 6000mAh battery. That’s really bigger than that of the non-foldable Motorola Signature, not to mention the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 (4400mAh) and the Google Pixel 10 Professional Fold (5050mAh).

Curiously, it nonetheless dropped nicely behind Google’s foldable in our PCMark 3.0 Work battery take a look at (examined on the larger inner display screen), which simulates a sustained combined productiveness workload. Nonetheless, in getting near the 11-hour mark, it handily beats Samsung’s foldable champ.

As this determine suggests, the Razr Fold ought to get you thru to the top of an everyday day of combined use, using each screens and indulging in some pictures, with no need a charger.

Whenever you do, the Razr Fold will help as much as a formidable 80W wired charging. I didn’t have a Motorola-branded charger at hand (there isn’t one within the field), however utilizing the equipped wire with a 120W Vivo charger, I used to be capable of get the telltale TurboPower indicator nonetheless.

Utilizing this methodology, a 15-minute cost from empty took the cellphone to 31%, whereas after half-hour it had hit 54%. A full cost took only a tad over an hour.

There’s additionally help for spectacular 50W wi-fi charging, which is at all times gratifying to see.

Software program & Apps

• Android 16
• 7 years of software program updates
• Too many third-party apps
• Complicated AI provision

Motorola has been straying away from its hard-earned fame for UI readability lately, including extra bespoke parts and third-party bloat to the combo.

Nonetheless, Android 16 on the Razr Fold stays a comparatively clear and interesting UI, sitting someplace between the busy customisation of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 and the clear strains of the Google Pixel 10 Professional Fold.

I like Motorola’s Moto app, which serves as a helpful introduction to the cellphone’s numerous options. Amongst these are Motorola’s well-known (amongst sure circles) Gestures, which reliably grant helpful shortcuts once you do issues like double-twist or double-chop the cellphone.

Motorola is a type of producers adopting the ‘throw all the pieces in opposition to the wall and see what sticks’ method

I might definitely do with out the entire extraneous third-party apps that come preinstalled, together with Amazon Music, LinkedIn, Fb, and Instagram. Fairly why Motorola feels the necessity to give us the Opera internet browser when Chrome is already right here, I’m unsure.

Everybody desires a slice of the AI pie nowadays, however Motorola is a type of producers adopting the ‘throw all the pieces in opposition to the wall and see what sticks’ method.

Google’s Gemini takes pleasure of place on the primary House Display, not removed from Motorola’s personal Moto AI app. The latter is a properly offered meeting of primary instruments for producing AI art work, transcribing notes, saving screenshot recollections and the like.

I’d argue that Motorola ought to have stopped proper there, but it surely additionally preinstalls the third-party Perplexity and Copilot assistants. It’s a little bit of a large number.

Motorola appears to be promising seven years of main Android OS updates, which positions the Razr Fold proper up there with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 and the Google Pixel 10 Professional Fold as class-leading help.

Value & Availability

The Motorola Razr Fold is that can be purchased now immediately from the official retailer in addition to retailers reminiscent of Amazon and Greatest Purchase.

There’s simply the one mannequin out there, and it prices £1,799/$1,899. That’s the identical because the beginning value of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 within the UK (and $100 much less for the US) and £50 greater than the entry-level Google Pixel 10 Professional Fold ($100 extra within the US).

Nonetheless, it ought to be famous that the Razr Fold comes with 512GB of inner storage as normal. The equal mannequin of Samsung’s rival prices £1,899/$2,119, whereas Google’s equal capability prices £1,869/$1,919.

As such, an argument could possibly be made that Motorola’s premium foldable is comparatively respectable worth. It’s not an argument I’d ever make for a cellphone costing the very best a part of £2,000/$2,000, however somebody may.

Take a look at our listing of the very best foldable telephones for extra choices.

Do you have to purchase the Motorola Razr Fold?

The Motorola Razr Fold is a fantastically designed, surprisingly cohesive full-sized foldable cellphone with a pair of fantastic shows, sturdy cameras, and reliable battery life.

It won’t be as slim and light-weight because the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, however its heat and welcoming design makes it deceptively simple to stay with.

In the meantime, its consummate photographic expertise, sizeable battery and in depth software program help depart us looking for the factors of friction.

They’re nonetheless very a lot there, after all, within the form of less-than-cutting-edge efficiency and a predictably excessive asking value. However neither of these issues is adequate to maintain the Razr Fold from ‘severe contender’ standing.

Specs

• Android 16
• Outer: 6.56in, FHD+, pOLED, 165Hz, 2.5D show
• Interior: 8.09in, 2K, pOLED, 120Hz, flat show
• Facet-mounted fingerprint sensor
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 5
• 16GB LPDDR5X RAM
• 512GB storage
• 50Mp, f/1.6 primary digicam
• 50Mp f/2.0 ultra-wide macro digicam
• 50Mp f/2.4 telephoto macro digicam
• As much as 8K @ 30fps rear video
• 20Mp and 32Mp front-facing cameras
• Dolby Atmos stereo audio system
• eSIM and bodily SIM
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6e/7
• Bluetooth 6
• 6000mAh battery
• 80W wired charging
• 50W wi-fi charging
• 160.05 × 73.6 × 9.89 mm (folded)
• 243g
• Launch colors: Lily White, Blackened Blue