Motorola Razr Plus 2026 review: it doesn’t seem very “more” to me

Motorola RazrPlus

Benefits

• The cover screen is pretty
• Silicon battery increases capacity
• Good cameras

Disadvantages

• Best if you’re upgrading from a 2023 phone
• One color

I’m having a hard time feeling the “Plus” in Motorola’s Razr Plus 2026, especially given its $1,100 price tag, up from last year. foldable phoneprobably because of current market conditions. After testing it after last year’s Razr Basic 2025which I liked, the Razr Plus doesn’t seem to offer many more features to justify the upgrade. (My colleague David Lumb test the new Razr 2026 here.)

That’s not to say the Razr Plus is a bad device. It’s simply trying to occupy a happy medium between the $800 Razr and the $1,500 Razr Ultra – while still sharing most of the same specs as the Razr Ultra. Razr Plus 2024 and 2025 models. That’s why most Razr-curious people who don’t care about having the latest specs will likely be better off with the cheaper model, despite its lower processor performance and photo quality.

The Razr Plus 2026 features three notable improvements over this year’s base Razr: a slightly larger 4-inch cover screen, a faster 45-watt charging speed, and the 3-year-old Snapdragon 8S Gen 3 processor that’s still faster than Razr’s MediaTek Dimensity 7450X. But all these features were on the Razr Plus 2024 and 2025 models. Although this 2026 edition gets a slightly larger 4,500 mAh battery silicon-carbon batterythe cheaper Razr packs an even bigger 4,800 mAh one.

I still like to use the Razr Plus the same way as the base Razr. The cover screen is ideal for sending quick text messages and checking the weather. I like placing it in a chair-like position for watching videos or for video chats, and unfolding the phone to use its 6.9-inch screen for widescreen videos and reading websites is very convenient.

But it’s still $300 more than the cheaper Razr, which offers most of the same features. And comes in more colors.

Motorola Razr Plus (2026) design, battery life, features

Like the Razr Plus models of the past two years, the 2026 version features a 4-inch OLED cover screen that covers almost the entire front of the phone, making it appear easier to see than the 3.6-inch cover screen on the cheaper Razr. But after using both, I found the difference imperceptible.

Indeed, although the cover screen offers a lot of space, especially with the navigation buttons located in the lower left corner, most applications are cropped to fit above the cameras. This significantly reduces the actual usable display area, and I wish there was some sort of setting that would allow me to choose to expand it. In general, chat apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger fit well on this cover screen, while others look cluttered. (I had to be surgically precise to display the QR code for my Amtrak ticket on the cover screen.) These busier moments, in particular, made me wonder what the 4-inch screen actually added.

One “plus” I see is the textured back of the dark green version of my review unit (Pantone’s Mountain View). Although cheaper models are also available textured finishes – with Alcantara fabric and wood reserved for the higher-end Razr Ultra model – they all offer a more distinctive look than the silver and black models that tend to dominate more expensive phones.

The phone looks more traditional when unfolded to use its 6.9-inch screen. I typically use a phone with a 6.7-inch screen, so the Razr Plus feels noticeably larger whether I hold it vertically or horizontally. Most apps accommodate the extra space well, but some videos formatted for widescreen TVs rather than wider cinema aspect ratios need to be enlarged to fill the screen.

The 4,500 mAh battery provides enough power for a day, but it’s nothing to write home about. In my testing, I typically ended the day at around 30 percent capacity with about three hours of screen time, which is livable and comparable to other flip phones. In our three-hour YouTube streaming test, the Razr Plus went from 100% to 82%, which is where it was last year. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7. This is one area where I feel like this phone makes a notable compromise, especially compared to other $1,100 non-foldable phones, such as the iPhone 17 Prowhich have significantly longer battery life despite smaller batteries.

That said, the 45-watt wired charging provides a respectable effort, recharging the battery from 0% to 58% during our 30-minute test. The phone also supports 15-watt wireless charging and 5-watt reverse wireless charging to power other devices.

Even though this is the third year that Motorola has used a Snapdragon 8S Gen 3 processor in its Razr Plus, it’s still a good choice for most tasks, especially paired with 12GB of RAM. These specs put it significantly behind most similarly priced phones, including the Galaxy Z Flip 7, in benchmark tests like Geekbench and 3DMark Wild Life Extreme. But its hardware is still powerful enough for smooth multitasking and running Fall Guys at its highest graphics settings. Fortnite also performed well at medium settings, although it struggled more at higher graphics presets than the $1,100 non-foldable phones powered by Qualcomm’s latest chip TO DO.

The Plus also includes the Moto AI feature suite introduced last year, which in its current form feels both light and a little heavy. I find the features easy to ignore when I don’t need them, but I appreciate the notification summaries that Catch Me Up provides. The broader helper for information retrieval, however, seems somewhat redundant next to Google Geminialthough it offers faster access to a non-Google alternative.

Since many of these features, including Moto AI, are available on the 2024 and 2025 Razr Plus phones, you’ll likely notice these upgrades if you’re coming from the 2023 Razr Plus or one of the base Razr phones. So if you own the 2024 Plus, keep it.

Motorola Razr Plus Cameras

In most settings, the Razr Plus’s cameras perform pretty well, and I’m particularly pleased with the 32-megapixel selfie camera on the internal display. Although one of the benefits of most foldable phones is the ability to use their higher-resolution rear camera for selfies, the photos I took with the Razr Plus’ internal camera still captured plenty of detail on my face and hair.

That said, being able to close the phone and use the 50-megapixel main camera makes selfies a little better. In this photo, taken in our studio under medium lighting, my skin tones appear less washed out despite the additional shadows in the room, and the camera captures the depth of the background better.

These strengths also show up in photos taken with the 50-megapixel wide-angle camera, like this photo of an insignificant dessert at a friend’s baby shower in Washington, DC. The darker reds of the strawberries and fine details, like the texture of the brownie, are clearly visible, with very little image noise.

And in this photo taken from the patio of Fresca restaurant in Washington, DC, the camera captures texture from the wood patterns on the blue door in the foreground to the brick outlines of the building in the background, with few details blending together as can sometimes happen when I take photos with cameras running on an older processor.

Taking a photo of the same scene with the 50-megapixel ultra-wide camera kept many of the same colors intact. (On some phones, photos taken with the ultra-wide camera can look dramatically different from those taken with the wide-angle camera.) But by capturing the wider view from my seat, you lose some of the finer details, such as flower petals, that are easier to make out in photos taken with the wide-angle camera.

Although I am quite satisfied with the photos taken es by the Razr Plus, I wouldn’t call it a photographer’s foldable phone, far from it. In harsher, low-light environments, the cameras perform well, but other phones in the $1,100 price range typically have more powerful processors that can capture more detail from a darker photo. In this night photo of a tree in my friends’ garden, you can make out many leaves in different shades of green, which is impressive. But there’s also some noticeable blurring at the edges of the image, where the camera may have struggled to maintain sharp focus.

The Razr Plus can record video at up to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second. Like the rest of this year’s Razr phones, it supports the fun ability to fold the phone halfway when the camera app is open, enabling a camcorder-like mode. The top half becomes a viewfinder, while pressing the bottom half starts and stops recording. It’s a bit complicated to describe, but easy to understand – especially if you were handling a real camcorder back in the day – and zooming in and out by tilting the phone left or right is a new touch.

Conclusion of the Motorola Razr Plus (2026)

There are two groups of people for whom I think this Razr Plus is best. The first group is everyone who bought the Razr Plus 2023 or the base Razr and are looking to upgrade to the 4-inch cover display without spending $1,500 on the Razr Ultra. The second is anyone curious about the Razr line who knows it needs a little more power and memory than what the base phone offers, but isn’t willing to spend $1,500 for an Ultra with more powerful specs.

However, for most people interested in their first foldable phone, I don’t think there’s enough here to justify the $300 premium over the base Razr. The larger screen cover is nice, but not enough to justify the price difference. This $800 Razr includes the same 256GB of storage, at least in the version sold by Motorola; I would avoid the 128GB model wherever it is sold. It also has a similar 50-megapixel wide and 50-megapixel ultra-wide camera, although the less powerful processor may struggle a little more in low-light environments. And all Razr flip phones include three years of software updates and five years of security updates, putting them on par when it comes to longevity.

I’d say go ahead and save some money if you’re considering the Razr Plus, as the base Razr will probably meet 90% of your needs. Suffice it to say, I don’t see much benefit in the Plus.

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We consider additional features like 5G support, satellite connectivity, fingerprint and face sensors, stylus support, fast charging speeds, and foldable displays, among others that may come in handy. We weigh all that against the price to give you a verdict on whether this phone, whatever its price, actually represents good value for money. Although this testing is not always reflected in CNET’s initial review, we perform follow-up and long-term testing in most cases.