Motorola Razr Fold review: One heck of a first impression

Motorola Razr Fold (2026)

Benefits

• Long battery life
• Impressive cameras
• Sleek construction
• Moto Pen support

Disadvantages

• High price of $1,900
• Limited split-screen options
• Proprietary equipment needed for faster charging

When I review a phone, I tend to be very critical of its camera and battery life. These are the features that most buyers care about — and they matter most to me, too, as someone who takes tons of photos and spends a lot of time glued to my screen.

I was skeptical of both when I started testing the Motorola Razr Fold, the company’s first book-style foldable. How long could the camera and battery life be on such a thin first-generation device, where some hardware compromises are almost inevitable?

Turns out it’s pretty good.

The Razr Fold, which starts at $1,900 for 512GB of storage, makes a striking debut. The smooth, curved cover glass instantly gives it a premium feel, and its slim profile pays homage to the design heritage of the original Razr flip phone. The textured, woven backing of my blackened Pantone blue model is less dazzling, but we’ll get to that later.

The Fold’s camera delivers vibrant, punchy images – although sometimes a little too punchy – and the 6,000 mAh battery effortlessly powers most days of heavy use. The phone fits comfortably in my hands and opens and closes satisfyingly smoothly thanks to the stainless steel teardrop hinge.

Motorola may be relatively late to the book-style foldable game, but it’s clearly worked hard to deliver that critical first impression.

Now’s a good time to jump on the book style bandwagon. By 2025, foldable phone shipments in North America increased 28% year-over-year, according to Counterpoint Research. This figure is expected to grow by more than 20% annually in 2026. Motorola has seen the strongest growth in foldable devices among major phone makers, thanks to its popular Razr flip smartphones.

The Razr Fold extends the company’s reach to people who want a larger, tablet-like option. Its launch comes at a strategic time, as reports suggest Apple could launch a foldable iPhone in the coming months – a move that could potentially elevate the overall foldable niche while eclipsing its competitors.

The Motorola Razr Fold is now available for pre-order in the US at Best Buy and on the Motorola website, starting May 21. It will also be sold through Verizon, T-Mobile and Xfinity Mobile in the coming months.

Motorola Razr Fold Look and Feel

In many ways, the Razr Fold borrows from the ultra-thin foldables that came before it. While testing this phone, I had flashbacks to using the Oppo Find N5 and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, which sport similarly sleek designs. But Motorola’s first book-style phone managed to carve out its own identity.

The Razr Fold measures 4.6mm thick when open and 9.9mm when closed, putting it firmly between the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Google’s Pixel 10 Pro Fold in terms of thinness. When closed, it doesn’t seem much thicker than a panel phone. As one of my friends succinctly put it: “It looks like my iPhone.” (The iPhone 17 Pro is slightly thinner at 8.75mm.) The Razr Fold weighs 243 grams, and coupled with its slim design, it’s comfortable to hold for long periods of time, whether opened or closed.

The Razr Fold’s most distinctive design choice is its vegan leather backing. Instead of a traditional glass back panel, my blackened blue Pantone model has a woven, textured finish that some people may find attractive, although to me it looked a bit like a sturdy OtterBox case. Personally, I prefer the silky matte finish of the Pantone Lily White version of the Razr Fold, but that ultimately comes down to taste.

The curved edges of the Razr Fold’s Corning Gorilla Glass Ceramic 3 display give it a polished, premium feel while adding welcome durability – keeping my device looking pristine even without a screen protector or case.

One feature that gives the Razr Fold an edge over competing foldables is its support for the Moto Pen, although it will cost you $100 more. Samsung removed S Pen support on the Galaxy Z Fold 7 in exchange for a sleeker design, so it’s commendable that Motorola is offering both a slim design And stylus support.

However, despite the premium feel of the Moto Pen Ultra and its woven carrying case, I never found myself reaching for it. The fact that you can’t store the stylus in the phone, like you can with the Galaxy S26 Ultra, makes it less convenient to use and easier to misplace. I’m also not a big fan of styluses in general; tapping or tapping the screen seems more intuitive to me. Still, I think it’s great that this option is available to those who want it, even if it costs more.

The Razr Fold is rated IP48 and IP49, meaning it can survive submerged in water for up to 30 minutes and withstand high-pressure water jets, although it’s still not fully protected against dust and tiny particles. And despite its slim build, the phone feels sturdy when pressure is applied, whether opened or closed. It also held up well after being thrown in my bag, preventing any major scuffs or scratches.

Motorola Razr Fold screens: dual function

Let’s get this out of the way: Yes, the Razr Fold’s interior screen has a visible crease. But like most foldable devices, it practically disappears into the background when you’re using the screen, so it’s not distracting.

I stick with the Razr Fold’s 6.6-inch cover screen about 80% of the time because it feels like I’m using a standard panel phone, and old habits die hard. It’s a more comfortable setup for texting, scrolling through social media apps, and sending emails, since there’s less screen area to stretch my fingers over. It’s also a testament to how normal this foldable is – in a good way – that I often forget there’s a bigger screen hidden inside whenever I need it.

I opt for the Razr Fold’s more sprawling 8.1-inch main screen when I’m working on the train or watching movies in bed. It hits the sweet spot of being more expansive without veering to the colossal proportions of the Galaxy Z TriFold. I also like browsing my photo gallery on the Razr’s larger screen, as it makes it easier to spot more details. But some applications are not suitable for this format. Instagram, for example, awkwardly crops posts and videos on my feed — a common problem on book-style foldables that I’d like to hurry up and fix.

Split screen is great for multitasking and supports up to three apps simultaneously. The biggest drawback is the lack of flexible app resizing; Unlike the Galaxy Z Fold 7, I can’t control how much space each app takes up on the screen. Hopefully this is something Motorola addresses in future updates.

Another way to multitask is to use a mode called Freeform, which places an app in a small floating window that you can drag around the screen, similar to picture-in-picture mode. This can be useful if you want to play a YouTube video in a corner or keep a note open while using the entire main screen for navigation or scrolling. I’ve never really found the need for this feature myself, but I appreciate the option.

App continuity on the Razr Fold is remarkably smooth. I can switch between the cover screen and the main screen – and vice versa – without any problems. When I open or close the phone, playback is smooth; the audio is not cut off and the video moves from one screen to another without any noticeable lag. I don’t even need to unlock the cover screen to continue watching. This is easily one of the Razr Fold’s most impressive features.

A control tucked into the upper left corner of the cover and main screens doubles as quick controls for certain apps, letting you pause playback or skip forward without opening the app itself. I use it a lot when listening to audiobooks and my attention invariably drifts. There’s a similar control on the lock screen (which is similar to Live Activities on the iPhone) that also lets you quickly control music and audio playback.

Motorola Razr Fold Cameras

For Motorola’s first foray into book phones, the Razr Fold’s cameras deliver impressive results.

The phone packs a 50-megapixel triple rear camera system with a wide-angle, ultra-wide, and telephoto lens. There’s also a 20-megapixel selfie camera on the front and a 32-megapixel selfie camera on the inside, which are notable features, especially for a foldable phone.

Images are still vibrant and detailed. I photographed lush greenery, colorful flowers, fairy lights and charming street corners. These photos are all vivid and eye-catching, even if the nuances aren’t always true to life. The camera definitely leans toward a bold, saturated style rather than more natural tones, which can sometimes look overdone. But it adds richness, especially to photos that could use a little more oomph, like night shots.

As a friend remarked when I showed her the camera’s saturated colors: “My mom would love that!” It all depends on preference.

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Some Razr Fold camera features take advantage of the phone’s vast screen real estate. On the main screen, you can use Quick Review to see a live feed of the photos you take on one side of the screen.

You can also open the phone and use the rear camera for higher quality selfies, while previewing the photo on the cover screen. Phones like the Pixel 10 Pro Fold have similar features that take advantage of the dual-screen design.

Motorola Razr Fold battery life and performance

The Razr Fold packs a 6,000mAh silicon-carbon battery, a next-generation lithium-ion technology designed to last longer and charge faster. But there is a catch.

The phone doesn’t come with the proprietary charging brick needed to unlock full-speed 80-watt wired charging, which Motorola calls TurboPower charging. You’ll have to shell out about $100 for the right brick, and Motorola couldn’t send me one during my testing.

I ended up using my 140-watt MacBook charging brick to harness as much power as possible, and the results were disappointing. The Razr Fold’s battery went from 0% to just 37% in half an hour, and it took about 90 minutes to reach a full charge. I got similar results when I used a more modest 67-watt power brick from Google. For comparison, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 reached 42% in 30 minutes and also took around an hour and a half to reach full battery in my testing – and that was with 25-watt wired charging. Both phones charge slower than premium Android flat phones such as the Galaxy S26 line and Pixel 10 series.

Otherwise, the Razr Fold’s battery holds up well during the day, which is especially notable given how thin the phone is. (The Z Fold 7’s biggest drawback is its relatively meager 4,400 mAh battery.) Since silicon-carbon batteries are more energy dense, they can store more power in less space.

On one of my heaviest usage days, which included participating in a video call over cellular data and spending a lot of time emailing and scrolling Instagram, the Razr Fold went from 100% at 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. the next day.

Other days reflected more typical usage. During a workday spent mostly on Wi-Fi and bouncing between my usual apps — Instagram, Gmail, WhatsApp, Audible, YouTube, and the camera — the phone went from 100% at 6:53 p.m. Wednesday to 26% at 9:02 a.m. Friday. On a more relaxed Sunday, spent mostly watching YouTube and listening to an audiobook, the battery went from a full charge at 11 a.m. to 14 percent at 5:40 p.m. the next day.

During CNET’s 45-minute endurance test, which involves streaming, scrolling through social media, joining a video call and playing games on the interior display, the Razr Fold’s battery went from full to 94 percent. This matches competitors’ results in the same test: the Galaxy Z Fold 7 finished at 93% and the Pixel 10 Pro Fold at 96%.

During a 3-hour streaming test over Wi-Fi, which involved playing a YouTube video in full-screen mode with full brightness on the inner display, the battery dropped to 86%. For comparison, the Z Fold 7 achieved 84% and the Pixel 10 Pro Fold achieved 78%. So there are notable gains – although relatively minor – from the silicon-carbon battery.

The Razr Fold is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chip and arrives with Android 16 on board. Motorola guarantees “7 operating system updates and up to 7 years of security updates from the global launch date”, putting it in line with other high-end phones from Samsung and Google.

Like any high-end smartphone on the market today, the Razr Fold comes loaded with AI features, including a mix of capabilities from Google Gemini, Moto AI, and Perplexity. There’s even a dedicated side button that lets you quickly trigger tools for summarizing notifications, generating images, or creating playlists.

Personally, I don’t find any of these features necessary, useful, or time-saving (I prefer to read my friends’ texts and create my own playlists, thank you very much), so I haven’t used them much. The most handy AI feature is Google’s Circle to Search, which quickly gets more details about anything on my screen, available on most Android phones.

Benchmark tests for the processor in Geekbench 6 place the Razr Fold just below the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Galaxy Z TriFold. The phones also beat the Razr Fold in a graphics test using 3DMark’s Wild Life Extreme, but Motorola’s offering edges out the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL. See the charts below for more details.

Final Thoughts: Is the Motorola Razr Fold Right for You?

If you’re considering upgrading to a book-style foldable model for the first time, the Motorola Razr Fold makes a strong case, even with its hefty $1,900 price tag. The phone’s sleek feel, impressive cameras, and solid battery life are the biggest selling points, and the interface is generally well suited to its dual-screen design. Motorola’s support for seven software upgrades helps cement the Razr Fold’s premium flagship status.

The Razr Fold is thin enough to feel like a phone slab when closed, and the cover and main screens are comfortable and natural to use. Compatibility with the Moto Pen is an added bonus if you prefer to take notes the old-fashioned way – although you’ll have to shell out more money and won’t be able to store the stylus inside the phone.

If you’re already using a foldable phone like the Galaxy Z Fold 7 or Pixel 10 Pro Fold, it’s harder to recommend making the jump to Motorola’s offering. The overall experience doesn’t seem different enough to warrant a change. There are also pros and cons to each option, so it depends on what you choose to prioritize. The Razr Fold has a bigger battery, but I think the Z Fold 7 has more impressive cameras. And the Pixel 10 Pro Fold has a durable IP68 rating that makes it remarkable in its own right.

Motorola’s new foldable may not tap into nostalgia the way its Razr flip phones do, but it still feels ready to carve out its own identity.

How we test phones

Every test the CNET review team tests on phones is used in the real world. We test phone features, play games, and take photos. We examine the screen to see if it is bright, sharp and vibrant. We analyze the design and construction to see how it holds up and if it has an IP rating for water resistance. We push CPU performance to the extreme using standardized benchmark tools like GeekBench and 3DMark, as well as our own anecdotal observations while navigating the interface, recording high-resolution video, and playing it back graphically. intense games at high refresh rates.

All cameras are tested in various conditions, from bright sunlight to dark indoor scenes. We test special features like night mode and portrait mode, and compare our results with similarly priced competing phones. We also check battery life by using it daily and performing a series of battery drain tests.

We consider additional features such as 5G support, satellite connectivity, fingerprint and face sensors, stylus support, fast charging speeds, and foldable displays, among others, which 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.