When foldable phones first arrived on the scene, it was a durability disaster at Samsung. It took the company a few generations to fix the underlying hinge and display issues. And by the time the formula was perfected, every smartphone brand had already put their foldable phones on the shelf, except Apple.
As the design matured and clamshell foldable phones arrived on the scene, the price came down while the hardware kept getting more refined. But soon, Samsung hit a design wall, a well-known trope that continues to haunt Galaxy phone buyers to date. The situation at Motorola, the only other foldable phone seller in the US market, wasn’t too different.
Just a day ago, purported renders of Samsung’s upcoming foldable phones — the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and a cheaper FE model — were leaked. The latter looks identical to Samsung’s current-gen Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6, while the former wants to play blink-and-you-miss-me with Motorola’s Razr 60 Ultra. Or it’s Razr 50 series rival. Or the Razr 40 Ultra.
Motorola / Evan Blass
Just take a look at the images above. The Samsung and Motorola phones look virtually identical, inside and out. The only difference? Motorola likes its branding on the rear shell, which it likes to experiment with. This year, it was Alcantara and wood. Last year, the company was experimenting with vegan leather in a variety of colors.
Samsung, on the other hand, hasn’t tried anything except glass and metal, with a matching tone of the metallic side frame. Your only chance of standing out? Pick one from the Samsung-exclusive colors with a black side frame (yeah, that’s the only difference) that is only sold via the brand’s website and colors.
On the outside, each brand wants to maximize the area of the cover display, which is a meaningful endeavor. After years of attempts, both brands (and a few from China) have landed at the exact same formula. An edge-to-edge screen with floating camera lenses and an LED flash module.
Motorola / Evan Blass
The similarity runs so deep that if you don’t carefully look at the rounded corners and sides, you won’t be able to tell a Motorola Razr apart from a Galaxy Z Flip later this year. The situation with the inner foldable display is even more difficult. But then, every slab phone is also starting to look the same, including Samsung and Motorola.
Does it make sense?
That’s a million-dollar question, and the answer would depend just how much work you can get done solely off the cover screen. Smartphone brands keep trying to one-up each other by claiming how immersive the secondary outer display on their foldable phone is. “Largest and smartest external display,” that’s what Motorola claims on its website.
In a few weeks, Samsung will be fighting for those bragging rights atop the Galaxy Z Flip 7, which takes the same design formula, offers thinner bezels, and goes for less rounded corners. Or in marketing terms, relentless innovation and pursuit of hardware excellence.
Prakhar Khanna / Digital Trends
Now, just how much is your life going to change if the cover display goes from a 3.4-inch OLED panel to a 4-inch OLED panel? Not much, at least for me. For navigation and reading messages? Fine. For typing on a full-sized qwerty touch keyboard, you either wish your thumbs were more dainty, or the screen were a little bigger.
Either way, not what you would call an ergonomically pleasing experience.
The race for practicality
Motorola / Evan Blass
The biggest problem is scaling. Apps look weird, even if you can now run all of them on the landscape or square-ish cover screen. Try social media apps, especially those with vertical videos, and you will know the deal. Is there a solution to it? Not really, because consumers would prefer the biggest possible screen, even if they can’t get the best out of out.
It also looks a lot more polished, so it’s clear every brand is chasing after that edge-to-edge look. Interestingly, the problem of scaling was solved in a more natural way, not too long ago. Oppo launched a flip phone that had a traditional candybar-style secondary display on the back. It felt natural, and so did app interactions.
What could have been… in the US.Digital Trends
Huawei has done something similar on the Pura X, and so has a fellow Chinese brand on the Vivo X Flip. Honor thinks the cover display should not take precedence because it’s not the primary source of user interaction, so there’s a lot to experiment with the design. In all the outlier cases mentioned above, the phones offer a lot more identity and look playful.
It’s not going to please everyone, especially those who carry the banner of “function over form,” and if you try to with the argument that there’s a perfectly fine flexible display inside that’s just a flip away, it wouldn’t make sense. Call it a situation of misplaced expectations, but we are at a point of no return.
Clamshell-style foldable phones are going to look mostly the same moving ahead. The saving grace? If you don’t care too much about standout looks, they are getting more powerful, sturdier, and in some cases, a tad cheaper, as well.
“There really are no other phones that offer this range of features, plus a built-in stylus, at this price point.”
✅ Pros
Striking design and color science
Bright, vibrant, high-refresh AMOLED display
Fantastic battery with wireless charging
Durable build with IP68 and MIL-810H ratings
Stylus housing is rock solid
Excellent value
❌ Cons
Only 2 years of OS updates
Stylus lacks pressure sensitivity and reliable palm rejection
Moto AI features feel half baked
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At $400, the Moto G Stylus isn’t pretending to be a flagship. But the signature stylus inserted inside its frame is the kind of trick usually reserved for premium devices like the excellent Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.
This makes the Moto G Stylus one of the only phones in its class that caters to note-takers, casual doodlers like myself, and anyone who likes having a little extra control in their hands.
I will admit, I’m not a stylus super-fan. I often have to remind myself to use one when a phone supports it. Having said that, the Moto G Stylus is not a one-trick pony, as Motorola has packed a lot of impressive features into an affordable device.
I’m pretty impressed by what phones like these mean for the increasingly competitive mid-range category in 2025.
Moto G Stylus (2025) specs
Moto G Stylus 2025
Size
162.15×74.78×8.29mm (6.38×2.94x.32 inches)
Weight
191g (6.73 ounces)
Display
6.7″ AMOLED, Super HD (2712 x 1220), 120Hz, 20:9, 446ppi
The first thing I noticed about the Moto G Stylus was the attractive Pantone Surf the Web Blue color, a striking and vibrant colorway that stands out. Having recently reviewed the Moto G 2025, I was already familiar with the faux-leather backing, and I still like it, both visually and to the touch. It does a great job of uniting Motorola’s brand signature across its mid-range fleet.
I particularly love the two-tone finish on the plastic frame: a frosted band flanked by reflective coating on either side that sells a convincing glass-like look at first glance.
The stylus has an embedded housing at the bottom of the device, and it has never popped out while docked inside my pocket. The spring ejection mechanism feels every bit as premium as the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s S Pen.
Jason Howell / Digital Trends
Despite its svelte form, the phone carries IP68 dust-and-water resistance, a first for the Stylus family, and military-grade MIL-810H shock and heat tolerance. Honestly, though, I never got “rugged phone” vibes from the Moto G Stylus 2025.
And yes, the wired headphone port is alive and well along the bottom edge for those still clinging on to analog audio, as is a micro-SD card slot for expanded storage. In some ways, that makes this device a bit of a throwback to a bygone era in Android smartphones.
Moto G Stylus (2025): Display
Jason Howell / Digital Trends
The 6.7-inch AMOLED Super HD panel refreshes at up to 120 Hz, though out of the box, the phone is set to an Auto refresh setting that adjusts dynamically depending on the content on the screen. Thankfully, I was able to lock it to 120 Hz, and my eyes were happier for it.
Bright sunlight isn’t much of a problem, thanks to a 3000-nit peak that rocks. Colors are vibrant, if not a bit overly punchy, which can easily be tamed in settings if it bugs you. I’m here for it, though.
The display is protected by Gorilla Glass 3, and I can confirm that my coddled review unit has a few light scuffs after three weeks that are only noticeable in direct sunlight. Either I took it particularly easy on this review unit or the glass protection did its job respectfully.
Moto G Stylus (2025): Performance
Jason Howell / Digital Trends
The Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 paired with 8 GB of RAM is fine enough for day-to-day stuff. Swapping between apps or launching the camera can cause a stutter here and there, but I never hit a true deal-breaker unless I tried to do too much too soon after a device restart.
The phone seems to require a solid five minutes to work out all the boot-up kinks, which can trip up impatient users like me.
Genshin Impact still takes its sweet time to load all of the shaders, but once in, it runs smoothly even when manually set to High graphics mode with only occasional slowdowns during big, bursty battles.
Even after long gaming sessions, the back was only moderately warm and not concerning. Performance is certainly not blemish-free, but it’s comfortably within my realm of acceptability for a device of this calibur.
Geekbench 6
CPU (single)
CPU (Multi)
GPU
Moto G Stylus (2025)
946
2539
2113
Pixel 9a
1746
4320
7662
Nothing Phone 3a
1061
3247
Moto G Stylus (2025): Software
Jason Howell / Digital Trends
Android 15 with Motorola’s MyUX tweaks is near-stock, save for Motorola’s signature font that I don’t love due to its tight kerning. Thankfully, there are several alternative fonts to switch to in customization settings.
Motorola’s signature gesture shortcuts, like double-twist for the camera and chop-chop for the flashlight, remain some of my favorite secrets hiding in plain sight on Motorola’s phones.The Moto app adds deeper customization options than what can be found in a pure stock build.
Jason Howell / Digital Trends
The biggest catch, however, is limited software support covering two years of OS updates and three years of security patches. Even Samsung’s A16 offers six-year coverage at half the cost, and Google’s Pixel 9a stretches to seven for $100 more.
Mid-range is all about trade-offs, but you have to decide whether the stylus is worth sacrificing four more years of updates.
Moto G Stylus (2025): Moto AI
Motorola wants its mid-ranger to keep pace with the premium AI features found on more expensive devices, and Moto AI offers some of the more table-stakes AI features with mixed results.
Magic Eraser can indeed remove objects from photos in the camera roll, but portions of the image can look as though they were bathed in acid.
I wanted to enjoy Sketch-to-Image with its promise to turn doodles into fully realized art, but the results rarely match my sketches very closely. Moto AI seems to prefer wholesale re-imaginings in place of true collaboration.
Processing happens in the cloud, so turnaround is inconsistent, though within reasonable bounds. Overall, I was less than impressed with Moto AI’s output on the Moto G Stylus 2025.
Moto G Stylus (2025): Stylus experience
Jason Howell / Digital Trends
As I said earlier, I am not a stylus super-fan. Having cleared the air on that, I can share that I’m pretty impressed by how much the passive stylus here gets right, especially when compared to the three times more expensive Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.
Latency feels competitive with Samsung’s S Pen, and I never felt slowed down while jotting notes freehand.
Ejecting the stylus from a locked display launches a blank Moto Note most of the time, though I did encounter instances where I still had to tap the power button to kick things off. Popping the stylus out while the screen is on produces an on-screen shortcut bar similar in function to Samsung’s Air Command.
The fat nub on the tip of the stylus feels smooth and glassy with almost zero drag.
Jason Howell / Digital Trends
Now, that being said, it’s not perfect: there’s no pressure sensitivity, making this far from ideal for anything beyond casual art, and palm rejection was often an iffy affair, forcing me to hover my writing hand awkwardly at times. For the basics, like scribbling quick ideas the moment they hit, the stylus definitely comes in handy.
Moto G Stylus (2025): Cameras
Jason Howell / Digital Trends
The 50MP main camera is improved over last year’s model (one I didn’t test), and I’m genuinely satisfied with its output in good light. Colors are pushed a bit further than what I’m used to from my daily driver, the Pixel 9 Pro, but the eye-popping look pairs beautifully with the AMOLED display.
Outdoor shots keep cloud detail while preserving the information-dense landscape below. Night shots were always a mixed bag and rarely matched the quality that I’m used to from the Pixel 9a.
Macro mode let me creep up on a stupid ant on our countertop, and the wood fibers on our backyard fence are captured with respectable detail intact.
The wide-angle lens handled sunset playground shots of my kids with surprising poise. I was concerned that their quick movements in a low-light environment would result in smearing faces, but thankfully wasn’t the case at all.
Jason Howell / Digital Trends
The selfie camera is fine in a pinch, though things look crunchy on a larger monitor. Portrait mode did a reasonable job of simulating bokeh while I stood on a bridge in Petaluma, with only minor edge-detection misses.
Is this the best mid-range camera? No, the Pixel 9a still takes that cake, but Motorola is closer than ever.
Moto G Stylus (2025): Battery life and charging
Jason Howell / Digital Trends
The phone is so slim and narrow that it’s hard to believe a 5,000 mAh battery hides inside, yet I’m thrilled it does because the Moto G Stylus 2025 is an excellent battery performer.
I looped a 4K YouTube video at max brightness for ten solid hours before it finally ran out of juice and powered itself off.
In daily use, the phone routinely crossed a day and a half, sometimes flirting with two full days on a single charge. The Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 balances performance and power consumption well, and it shows.
Though you won’t find it in the box, the phone is capable of an impressive 68W of wired charging speed with the Motorola TurboPower 68W Charger. Midrange devices like this often easily sacrifice wireless charging to get the price down, but Motorola has included 15W wireless charging support that came in incredibly handy during my long car rides to my daughter’s swim meets.
It’s not the fastest charge, but it still beats my much more expensive Pixel 9 Pro’s 12W wireless charging speed on standard Qi charging pads.
Moto G Stylus (2025): Verdict
Jason Howell / Digital Trends
It has never been more exciting for midrange devices. Instead of being a category full of let-downs, companies are finally identifying a few key features that can truly set a handset apart. Motorola continues to deliver on its color science, along with its faux vegan leather that gives the lineup a recognizable signature that doesn’t feel cheap or gaudy.
Not only that, but Motorola is doubling down on critical pillars like battery life, premium display quality, respectable cameras, and solid performance. The biggest standout is the included stylus that, while not as cutting-edge as Samsung’s, is a practical everyday tool for almost every pen fan except maybe hardcore artists.
Color me impressed by the Moto G Stylus 2025. There really are no other phones that offer all of this, plus a built-in stylus, at this price point.
“It doesn’t do everything the Razr Ultra does, but it offers 80% of the experience at just over 50% of the price. This makes the Razr 2025 the best Razr for many people.”
✅ Pros
Fantastic value-for-money
Solid battery life and charging
Excellent folding form factor
Very fun colors
A lot of fun for gaming
Front screen can run any app
❌ Cons
Cameras can be hit or miss
Older processor means some performance glitches
The smaller Cover Screen isn’t as good
Buy at Amazon If you’re looking to buy one of the best folding phones, there’s a strong chance that the Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 is on your list. It’s the best flip phone you can buy and the first time a company has made an Ultra, no-compromised version of a folding phone. The result is a phone that does it all, but with one key problem: its price.
Like its non-folding cousins, the Razr Ultra 2025 is not cheap. It starts at $1,300, and while it comes in gorgeous colors, it won’t be accessible to all customers. Motorola also has two other phones: the middle-of-the-pack Razr Plus and the base Razr 2025.
Both are refreshed versions of the previous generation, but while the Razr Plus has no noticeable changes, the Razr 2025 has a few tweaks that make it that much better. After spending a week with it — and having spent considerable time with the Ultra and previous Razrs — here’s why the Razr 2025 is the flip phone for most people.
Motorola Razr 2025 Specs
Motorola Razr 2025 Design & Display
If you’ve used any Razr for the past three years, the Razr 2025 will feel instantly familiar. Yet, if you’ve previously used a Plus, it will feel somewhat limiting thanks to the smaller front display.
Like last year’s Razr 2024, it’s designed to offer the quintessential Razr experience in a no-frills way. This means you get a smaller 3.5-inch Cover Display instead of the full-screen 4-inch one on the Razr Plus and Razr Ultra 2025. It has a peak brightness of 1,700 nits, which is lower than its siblings, and it also lacks Dolby Vision support, but it’s essentially the same high-quality display experience.
The size is the only downside, as the Cover Display works the same way as its siblings, and you also get the highly optimized experience that the Razr is known for. Yes, it has a lower refresh rate, but at 90Hz (versus 165Hz on the others), it’s not far below the best phones at 120Hz, and better than the 60Hz refresh rate on the Galaxy Z Flip 6.
Unfold the Razr 2025, and you get the same 6.9-inch display found on the Razr Plus, except it’s also limited to 120Hz. Once again, this is on par with the best phones. The peak brightness is 3000 nits, lower than its siblings but higher than the Galaxy Z Flip 6. The Razr 2025 may seem like a downgrade on paper, but it nonetheless offers a fantastic display experience.
The Razr 2025 measures 7.3mm thick when unfolded and 15.9mm when folded, but at 188 grams, it’s fairly light. The form factor is my favorite for daily usage, especially as the front display provides the ideal experience for regular daily use.
The Razr 2025 lacks the fancy leather and wood finishes of the Razr Ultra 2025 and instead features an eco leather finish made of a silicone polymer blend. The main display is a plastic OLED folding display, while Gorilla Glass Victus protects the Cover Display. The frame is made from aluminum, while the hinge is made from stainless steel.
Like its siblings, the Razr has IP48 dust and water protection, which makes it feel premium. Yes, the eco leather finish isn’t as plush, but it offers the same core experience at a much more affordable price. Even if you’ve never held a Razr, it still wows you like its siblings, especially in this unique light green Spring Bud color.
Motorola Razr 2025 Hardware & Performance
Motorola had to make some cuts to achieve a lower price, which is most noticeable in the underlying hardware and performance. If you’re used to the performance of the best phones powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite or Dimensity 9400, you’ll find the Razr 2025 somewhat lacking, but otherwise, it’ll be fast enough.
The Dimensity 7400X is not designed for the absolute best performance, but delivers for the most part. However, there is noticeable lag under heavy usage, including small stutters when gaming or quickly switching back and forth between tasks, which aren’t present in the Plus or Ultra models.
8GB of RAM and older UFS 2.2 storage also means it’s fairly slow at loading games or other resource-intensive tasks, but this only impacts the loading of most games, with actual gameplay being fairly smooth. The Dimensity 7400X is fast enough for low–and medium-resource games, but it doesn’t support Vulkan, so it won’t run the best AAA games.
Like the processor, the Razr 2025 features all the key hardware you need, but lacks the bells and whistles of its more-expensive siblings. There’s Wi-Fi 6 and 6e, but no Wi-Fi 7. There’s Bluetooth 5.4, but the choice of a MediaTek processor means there’s no aptX Lossless or aptX Adaptive codecs. There’s USB-C, but no USB On-The-Go.
However, these additional features are nice-to-have features for many people and not essential. Using the Razr 2025, the biggest surprise was not the missing features, but how little I missed them. I suspect that most people will ultimately feel the same way.
Motorola Razr 2025 Battery Life
The Razr 2025 features one key upgrade over last year’s base Razr 2024: a bigger battery. Unlike the Razr Plus 2025, which has the same 4,000 mAh battery as its predecessor, the Razr 2025 features a 4,500 mAh battery that’s 300 mAh larger than last year. It’s 200 mAh smaller than the Razr Ultra 2025 but has smaller displays and a less powerful processor.
The result? The best battery life I’ve experienced on a Razr. It’s on par with, if not better than, the Razr Ultra 2025.
Across the past few weeks, it has never drained to empty in a single day, with most charges lasting two full days of usage. Motorola doesn’t break out battery usage information like many phones, but my best guess is around 8 hours of screen usage across two days.
The front screen experience is so capable that it is split equally between the Cover and Main displays. If you use the front display more, this will likely extend the battery life even further. I used the Razr 2025 as a Wi-Fi hotspot on a 10-hour flight, and it drained the battery around 30%. The Razr 2025 has fantastic battery life and is exactly what you want from a folding phone.
The Razr 2025 features 30W wired charging and 15W wireless charging, and it takes around 75 minutes to charge it to full when plugged in. This is only 15 minutes slower than the Razr Ultra, despite the latter’s larger battery and considerably faster 68W charging. For context, the 25W charging on the Galaxy Z Flip 6 takes around 90 minutes, despite its smaller battery.
Motorola Razr 2025 Cameras
Motorola’s approach to cameras on the Razr lineup has always been somewhat confusing. The company has yet to adopt three cameras on a Razr—even the Ultra only has dual cameras—and the Razr lineup is the ultimate litmus test for which camera setup is best.
The Razr 2025 and Razr Plus 2025 feature a 50MP wide camera with an f/1.7 aperture, 25mm focal length, and dual-pixel phase detection autofocus (PDAF). They differ based on the secondary lens, with the Plus adopting a 50MP telephoto while the base 2025 features a 13MP ultrawide camera.
Like many of the best smartphone cameras, the main camera uses an in-sensor crop to offer a 2x “optical-quality” zoom. The camera can take great photos in good lighting, but it struggles in low light. The biggest challenge is the speed, as there’s a noticeable lag between pressing the shutter button and the camera responding, often resulting in a blurry or missed photo.
The 13MP ultrawide camera feels like an afterthought, but is particularly useful for group photos using the Cover Display when folded. Like the main camera, it can take great pictures in most lighting conditions. Still, the 120° field-of-view and location of the cameras in the bottom right corner mean you can sometimes inadvertently capture the edge of your palm in the frame.
The Razr’s form factor makes it perfect for capturing moments like a wedding or group trip, and this unique effect never wears off. I’ve been using the Razr to capture these moments for the past three years, and while the camera hasn’t been the best, although the Ultra goes a long way to changing this, the form factor makes it a worthwhile compromise.
You can easily launch the camera with a double twist of your wrist, and while the Razr 2025 is slower than the Ultra at doing so, you can still be ready to shoot within a couple of seconds. The base Razr 2025 doesn’t have the full camera prowess of the Razr Ultra 2025, but it is good enough for most people. It’s a mid-range camera that punches above its weight.
Motorola Razr 2025 Software
The double twist feature is just one of a few helpful Motorola features that make up its core approach to software. Dubbed Moto Actions, the other useful feature is the double-chop to launch the flashlight, which is extremely useful with the Razr’s form factor.
Motorola’s software is mostly the core experience as designed by Google, with a few helpful additions. That’s for the main display, and it’s a slick experience perfectly matched to the Cover Display experience. This is where Motorola truly shines, and if you’re buying a Razr, the front display will be at least one of the reasons why.
Motorola’s approach to the Cover Display on the Razr lineup is simple: treat it like a small phone. It contrasts with every other flip phone, which offers a more curated experience, which is key to its USP.
It’s organized into a series of panels, each dedicated to different use cases. There’s a calendar that makes it easy to see your upcoming schedule, a weather panel, and a communications panel where you can set up one-tap shortcuts across apps and their functions. Some examples include sending a text message, posting to Instagram stories, dialing a specific contact via a third-party app, or more.
Then there are apps and widgets. You can add up to three panels full of as many apps and shortcuts as you like and up to three panels of widgets from across the apps on your phone. You can customize your phone to do as much with the front screen as you want, which enhances the utility of the small cover display aspect.
The panel of games is one of my favorite Razr 2025 features. It’s full of bite-sized games from GameSnacks, a Google company. For the past year, I’ve been addicted to the Freekick Football finger game, while previously, it was also StackBounce. There are two key issues: these require an internet connection so that they won’t work on a flight, and you can’t add additional games, even though GameSnacks has a vast library.
Everything about the Razr 2025 Cover Display is heavily optimized. Motorola goes considerably further than the competition, and the results are clear: Motorola has the gold standard for a flip phone cover display.
Motorola Razr 2025 AI
Like every phone maker, Motorola has many AI features baked into the Razr 2025. Although the phone lacks the dedicated AI key of the Razr Ultra, it has most of the same features across the range.
The default AI assistant is Gemini, but the Razr 2025 is also focused on offering you a choice of providers. It’s the first phone to come preloaded with Perplexity, and you’ll get three months free of the Pro plan.
There’s also Microsoft CoPilot with Recall, which connects well to Motorola’s Smart Connect features. These are designed to make it easy to use your Windows laptop and Android phone seamlessly together. While hardware-agnostic, they are designed to work best with Lenovo laptops and Motorola mobile devices. You can seamlessly transfer files, run apps, and even recall specific content from another device.
Then there’s Moto AI, and the Razr 2025 brings the next generation of Motorola’s in-house AI features. It offers improved versions of the first-generation features, including Remember This to take a screenshot and add notes to it, Pay Attention to start an audio recording with transcription, and Catch Me Up to summarize recent personal notifications.
It pairs this with the main second-generation feature, Next Move, which is designed to predict, you guessed it, your Next Move. After recognizing what’s on your display, it suggests next steps such as adding an event to your email, creating images or stickers in Image Studio, or using Playlist Studio to generate a music playlist for a specific theme in Amazon Music. I find Pay Attention to be the most useful AI feature, and it works fairly well, albeit it is considerably slower than its siblings, as it processes all requests in the cloud.
Motorola Razr 2025 Price & Availability
The Razr 2025 costs $700 and comes with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. This starting price is the key proposition, especially as the Razr Plus 2025 costs $1000, and the Razr Ultra 2025 starts at $1,300.
It comes in three colors: Gibraltar Sea (blue eco-leather), Lightest Sky (white), Parfait Pink, and Spring Bud, the green eco-leather seen in most of these photos. The pink is quite subtle, but my favorite is the Spring Bud. It’s vibrant and shocking, and lives up to the wow factor of its siblings.
Motorola Razr 2025 Verdict
If you’ve been considering a shift to a folding phone and have been hesitant to hit the buy button, the Razr 2025 might be the phone to convince you. It’s a mid-range phone that punches considerably higher. It offers the premium experience you want from a folding phone without breaking the bank.
If you’re expecting the best folding phone, the Razr 2025 isn’t for you, but if you want the best bang for your buck foldable, look no further than the Razr 2025. It offers 80% of the experience at 55% of the price of the Ultra, and if you can look past its imperfections, it’s the best flip phone for most people.
For phone nerds who’ve been around the block a few times, the original Motorola Razr is undeniably iconic. The era of foldables has allowed Motorola to resurrect the Razr in an appropriately flexible form, and after a few generations of refinement, the 2025 Razrs are spectacular pieces of hardware. They look great, they’re fun to use, and they just about disappear in your pocket.
The new Razrs also have enormous foldable OLEDs, along with external displays that are just large enough to be useful. Moto has upped its design game, offering various Pantone shades with interesting materials and textures to make the phones more distinctive, but Motorola’s take on mobile AI could use some work, as could its long-term support policy. Still, these might be the coolest phones you can get right now.
An elegant tactile experience
Many phone buyers couldn’t care less about how a phone’s body looks or feels—they’ll just slap it in a case and never look at it again. Foldables tend not to fit as well in cases, so the physical design of the Razrs is important. The good news is that Motorola has refined the foldable formula with an updated hinge and some very interesting material choices.
“The combination of a great design, solid performance, decent camera results and great battery life (with speedy charging) make the Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 the flip phone to beat for this year.”
✅ Pros
Fantastic (and useful) external display
Lovely and bright internal display
Reduced crease visibility
Solid camera performance
Speedy charging
Decent battery life
Excellent build quality
Unique finish options
Smooth and slick performance
❌ Cons
Only three years of Android OS updates
Moto AI still needs work
The Razr Ultra 2025 sits at the top of Motorola’s three-strong line up of flip phones for this year, above the Razr 2025 and Razr Plus 2025. At first glance, it looks almost identical to the Razr Plus 2024 that it succeeds but look a little deeper and there are some significant changes that put this flip phone in the running to be one of the best foldable phones available.
I’ve been using the Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 since it was announced in New York on April 24 and here’s why it’s worth your attention, and why it will garner the attention of everyone else around you too.
Motorola Razr Ultra 2025: design
Britta O’Boyle / Digital Trends
Take one look at the Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 and you’d be forgiven for thinking it was the Razr Plus 2024. On the surface, there’s very little to differentiate these two devices unless you really know your season’s colors, but that’s not a criticism. The Razr Plus 2024 was a fantastic flip phone in terms of design and the same can certainly be said for Razr Ultra 2025.
The Pantone Scarab model is my personal favorite of the Razr Ultra 2025’s four available finishes, featuring Alcantara’s signature soft, suede-like material in a deep green, but my review model was the Pantone Mountain Trail and a wood-effect finish on a phone is certainly different, and I mean that in a good way.
It’s smooth to the touch so don’t worry, it’s not going to give you splinters, but there’s a good amount of texture too, which goes along way in reducing the slipperiness you get on glass finishes of other flagship phones.
The flat edges of the Razr Ultra 2025 have a slight curve too, meeting somewhere in the middle between the current trend for the flat edges we see on the likes the Galaxy S25 and the iPhone 16, and the comfort of rounder devices from the past. Those edges, which are 7.2mm when open and 15.7mm when closed, make the Razr Ultra 2025 very comfortable in the hand, while the overall finish of the aluminium frame is exceptionally premium and solid in its build quality.
As with all flip phones, the Razr Ultra 2025 draws plenty of attention. Put it down on a restaurant table and envious eyes gaze longingly at it, because despite modern flip phones having been around since 2020, they still aren’t as common place as the latest iPhone or Galaxy phone.
The large external display on the front – more on that in a second – makes good use of the space available with the two camera lenses positioned in the bottom right corner again, while open the Razr Ultra 2025 up and you’re greeted with a larger internal display than before.
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On the right edge, there’s the power button with a fingerprint sensor built in, and the volume buttons can be found here too. The left edge meanwhile, has a new button for Moto AI – again, I’ll talk more about that in a minute – but this is one area of the design you would be able to circle in a game of spot the difference between this year’s model and the Razr Plus 2024.
Another area would be the hinge because despite looking the same as the Razr Plus 2024, it has been redesigned, adding titanium into the mix for reinforcement, whilst also allowing the Razr Ultra 2025 to be IP48 dust and water resistant, which is a jump up from the IPX8 rating of the Razr Plus 2024.
Motorola Razr Ultra 2025: displays
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Motorola has made some key improvements to the Razr Ultra 2025’s displays too. I’ll start with the external display as while the size remains the same as the Razr Plus 2024 at 4 inches, the brightness has increased from 2,400 nits to 3,000 nits and there’s Gorilla Glass Ceramic protection too. There’s no anti-reflective coating so it’s basically a mirror when off and it really likes a fingerprint too, but the bump in brightness does a great job of cutting through sunny days.
It’s pretty much a fully functioning display too. While the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6’s external display is reserved primarily for quick settings, widgets and notifications, the Razr Ultra 2025 allows you to run most apps without requiring third-party software or fiddling with special settings, from WhatsApp and Spotify to highly addictive games like Marble Mayhem and Catch Moto Moo. Naturally, you can also see notifications, as you would expect, and there are plenty of customisation options for widgets and apps too.
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Replying to messages on the external display is a little fiddly in that the keyboard takes up most of the display, whether you use the full screen editor or not, but the point is it’s possible without flipping the phone open. The calendar and weather screens lend themselves perfectly to the small, square format too, as do some of the games, and even viewing photos is a good experience for a quick glance. Everything on the external display looks sharp and detailed, there are good viewing angles and there’s plenty of punch from the colors too.
Flip the Razr Ultra 2025 open and the 7-inch pOLED display is gorgeous. You can fiddle with the display settings to suit your preferences, with a choice of Natural, Radiant and Vivid styles, plus the ability to switch between Default, Warm, Cool and Custom tones so you really can get the display to work for you and what you like. I personally liked Natural, which I still thought delivered bright and vibrant colors without being overly saturated, but you do you.
Both the internal and external displays are “Pantone-Validated”, though I’m not sure how many people will be particularly bothered by that. At the end of the day, you just want a display to look good, and in the Razr Ultra 2025’s case, everything looks great from streaming video on Netflix to your family photos.
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There’s a 165Hz refresh rate too, which delivers a smooth experience whatever you’re doing, the 2,912 x 1,224 pixel resolution offers sharp detail and the 4,500 nits peak brightness makes sure this is a phone you can use on the sun lounger without an issue. Viewing angles aren’t as good as the iPhone 16 Pro, with whites losing their brightness as you move the Razr Ultra 2025 to a certain angle, but you won’t do that very often so it will make little difference to your overall experience.
What can make a difference to your experience with flip phones is the crease in the display and while still not invisible here, Motorola has done a superb job of reducing it. There is still some distortion when reading large amounts of text, and you can see it at certain angles too, as well as feel it when you run your thumb over it, but it’s less obvious than the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6, resulting in a folding internal display that’s one of the best out there.
Motorola Razr Ultra 2025: camera
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The Motorola Razr has a triple camera setup, with dual 50-megapixel sensors on the front, effectively making up the rear cameras when the device is open, and a third 50-megapixel sensor at the top of the internal display. In what might be considered a slightly strange move from Motorola, the company switched the telephoto sensor that was on the Razr Plus 2024 for an ultra wide sensor on the Razr Ultra 2025. You still get 2x optical zoom, but it does that by cropping in rather than using a dedicated sensor – something a number of other phones, like the iPhone 16, also do.
The Razr Ultra 2025’s dual 50-megapixel sensors deliver consistent results and while I personally don’t love ultra wide shots on the whole – I always think they look a little odd – there will be some who prefer the option to fit more in their shots than to zoom in closer. The main sensor delivers some lovely images in good lighting conditions, handling dynamic range well and offering great detail and a true representation of what you actually see with your own eyes. The images are more vivid and more saturated than the Apple iPhone 16 Pro, but the result of that is very shareable photos that are full of life.
Low light results are good too and while more noise does creep in along with less detail in some situations, I got some fabulous shots from the Razr Ultra 2025 during a weekend in New York. Broadway looked stunning with all the bright lights and bold colours, while a wall of graffiti on a cloudy evening was well represented too.
I mentioned the Razr Ultra 2025 offering 2x optical zoom, which offers decent results in good lighting, but there is also 30x digital zoom. This I wouldn’t bother with as it’s generally pretty bad, like most digital zoom options out there. It is useful for seeing an airport departure board from a distance, but it’s not going to give you a good shot of the Statue of Liberty from Battery Park.
Images taken in the default “Natural” mode are “Pantone-Validated” like the displays, and they were my personal preference for their true to life results. There is a new “Signature” mode too however, which you can either take at face value as a “unique Moto Color Style”, or customise to change the color balance and tone of your shots to your preferences, applying that to the images you take. To customise the Signature style, you import five images of food, five portrait shots and five landscape and then adjust each photo so the AI can learn your preferences.
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Once setup, the Signature mode is selected at capture stage rather than within the editing suite of Google Photos. To select it, you need to tap on the three star icon at the top of the camera screen and AI will then apply what it believes will be to your taste in terms of preferences depending on whether you’ve taken a portrait, landscape or food shot. As I said, I found Natural to be best but if you like something specific, like very vivid shots or blue undertones, Signature gives you those options.
In terms of editing, Google Photos offers plenty, including Magic Eraser for removing unwanted objects in the background, as well as a “Suggestions” section that offers one-button taps for edits like unblurring, enhancing and adjusting dynamic range in shots.
Overall, the camera offering is simple on the Razr Ultra 2025 with an easy point and shoot approach for decent shots, combined with simple editing options to help you get the most out of your shots. There are also some handy features like a preview appearing on the external display that’s great for selfies and helping anyone you’re taking a photo of see what they look like, as well as an old school Camcorder mode for video recording that launches when you hold the Razr Ultra 2025 at a 90-degree angle on its side.
Motorola Razr Ultra 2025: software and AI
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Running on virtually stock Android (if you ignore a couple of additional Moto apps), there’s a clean and relatively bloat-free software experience on the Razr Ultra 2025. The interface is slick and smooth, everything is easy to access and there’s plenty of customisation available.
As the software is so close to stock Android however, it’s perhaps even more disappointing that Motorola only supports three years of OS updates. With Samsung and Google both offering seven, and Samsung having significant more bloat on its devices – by which I mean more duplication of apps like the gallery and browser – you would think it would be more effort for Samsung to support updates for longer and yet it offers over double what you get with Motorola. You get security updates for four years on the Razr Ultra 2025, but even so, Motorola is effectively making this device redundant after three years and that feels mean for a $1,000 phone.
If you can forgive the stingy update offering however, there is a lovely and friendly interface here and some neat software features, such as tapping on the bottom of the external display to expand an app around the cameras and use more of the small screen.
Motorola offers a number of gestures too, from a double flick of the wrist to open up the camera, to a double karate chop turning the torch on and off, and while they will be familiar to Razr users and not necessarily new for the Razr Ultra 2025, both are particular favorites of mine. I used the wrist flick for the camera multiple times a day, and I also turned on the slide gesture on the power button to show notifications. You can have that slide feature zoom in and out instead though, giving you a couple of options.
Moto AI isn’t new either in that you’ll find it on several of the company’s phones, though there are a couple of new features for the Razr Ultra 2025, as well as the new dedicated button on the left. That button can’t be changed away from Moto AI but you can give it a dual purpose at least, with a press and hold launching Moto AI, while a double press can take you straight to ‘Update me’ – more on that in a second.
Image Studio is new and similar to Apple’s Image Playground and Samsung’s Sketch to Image, enabling you to use AI to generate images, whether you sketch one or describe one. I got my seven year old to draw her teddy and a puffin and while her drawings were a little rough around the edges, Image Studio did produce some decent results (as well as some not so great ones). Playlist Studio is new too and lets you create a playlist depending on your mood, though it currently only works with Amazon Music it seems so this feels limited still.
Elsewhere, there’s the ‘Remember this’, ‘Take notes’, ‘Ask or search’ and ‘Update me’ functions, all of which lean on AI. All of those were available previously (though some have been updated) and like most AI offerings, I still think they need refining.
The ‘Update me’ feature, for example, will summarise notifications, which is handy for when you might have had your phone in Do Not Disturb mode. The summaries aren’t particularly accurate though, and while they offer the general gist of a WhatsApp chat for example, they often misread the context resulting in summaries that are way off the mark. Taking notes meanwhile, is a little slow, though it does differentiate speakers which is more helpful than Apple’s transcribing option that just gives you a block of text.
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The Razr Motorola also introduced a ‘Look and Talk’ feature that’s exclusive to the Razr Ultra 2025, allowing you to speak to Gemini without having to say anything first or press any buttons. As the feature’s name suggests, you simply look at the phone when the phone is in stand mode or tent mode and a colourful glow runs around the perimeter of the Razr Ultra 2025’s external display, very much like Apple Intelligence on the latest iPhones.
If you look straight at the Razr Ultra 2025, the screen says “Listening” and when you speak, it will answer your question. It works well enough, but it isn’t a soul reason to buy a phone.
Motorola Razr Ultra 2025: performance and battery
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What is a solid reason to buy the Razr Ultra 2025 is its performance because it’s brilliant. Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite runs this device and the experience is superb. Day to day tasks are effortless, with the Razr Ultra 2025 switching between apps and tasks without any hint of an issue. I’m more of a casual gamer than a die hard Call of Duty fan, but gaming wasn’t an issue for the Razr Ultra 2025 either, with a smooth and judder-free experience.
I was slightly concerned about such a powerful chipset being in such a small device, but the Razr Ultra 2025 didn’t seem to have any heat issues, which was a relief. I don’t love benchmarks but for reference, the Razr Ultra 2025 came in just under the Galaxy S25 but above the Oppo Find X8 Pro and Galaxy Z Flip 6 for single core tests.
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Meanwhile, battery life is superior to the Razr Plus 2024, I am thrilled to say. Now, battery of course depends on the type of user you are so do keep that in mind, but I finished most days on between 35 and 45 per cent, and that was during a testing period so I was using the phone more than average.
I was testing the camera, taking multiple calls, replying to countless messages and emails, and using all the AI features and I still finished the day with over 30 per cent at 11pm after starting the day at 7am with 100 per cent. Charging is nice and speedy too however, so even if you do need a top up before a night out, you’ll get around 15 per cent in 10 minutes which should make sure you get your cab home at the end of the night.
The Razr Ultra 2025 has bumped up its charging support from 45W in the Razr Plus 2024 to 68W and there’s 30W wireless charging too should you prefer that method.
Motorola Razr Ultra 2025: price and availability
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The Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 was announced on April 24, 2025, with pre-order in the US starting on May 7, 2025. There is one storage model of 512GB, which has 16GB of RAM, and that model will cost $1,299. Availability will begin from May 18, 2025, though some carriers, like Verizon, may offer it earlier.
For those in the UK and Europe, the Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 goes by the name Razr 60 Ultra and it is already on sale. Again, there is only one storage option and it costs £1,099.99 in the UK and €1,299 in Europe.
Motorola Razr Ultra 2025: verdict
The Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 gets so many things right. The design may not have changed much since the Razr Plus 2024 but various improvements have been made under the surface, including a stronger external display, dust resistance and a less visible crease.
The finish options are lovely, both displays are superb and brighter than previously, camera results are decent and performance is excellent. The Moto AI offering still has a way to go before it delivers on all its promises and the three years of OS updates is well below average, but that’s really all there is to complain about.
The combination of a great design, solid performance, decent camera results and great battery life (with speedy charging) make the Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 the flip phone to beat for this year.
A few weeks ago, Motorola put its 2025 lineup of Edge and G-series phones on the shelves. But it appears that the company is already well into the development phase for their successors, though leaks may not leave much space for a surprise.
The folks over at Android Headlines have shared purported renders depicting the Moto Edge 70, the Moto G 2026, and the Moto G Power 2026. All three phones appear to embrace the same design language as their predecessors from the past couple of years.
Motorola is apparently in no mood to reimagine the camera hump shape and the faux leather finish on phones’ the rear shell. It’s a neat idea to maintain a design identity in the sea of Android rivals, but at this point, a little design experiment would definitely help.
Old garb, new identity
Android Headlines
As far as the leaked materials go, the premium Moto Edge 70 looks like a replica of the Moto Edge 60. The camera lens placement atop a left-corner hump, curved sides, and sloping screen are all shared traits across the two generations.
There is no word on the internal hardware, but the leak’s source speculates 12GB of RAM for Moto AI features and a MediaTek Dimensity 7000 series processor. Moving over to the Moto G Power 2026, this one generously inherits the full DNA aesthetics of its 2025 counterpart, which went on sale earlier this year.
Android Headlines
The dual-camera setup at the back reportedly includes a 50-megapixel sensor and a dedicated ambient light sensor sitting below the LED flash. Interestingly, the battery-focused mid-ranger could ditch the faux leather finish in favor of a frosted glass look, though the material still appears to be plastic.
The vanilla Moto G 2026, on the other hand, retains the polycarbonate-derived leather-like surface finish and a dual camera setup at the back. Unfortunately, the details about its innards remain under wraps.
Android Headlines
The overarching theme is that Motorola is favoring a familiar design language, and in doing so, it’s going the Samsung way. But do keep in mind that these are very early leaks, so the plans could change down the road. In addition to what we have seen in the leaks, the upcoming budget phones just might deal a few surprises with their finish and hue portfolio.
If you’ve been looking for a new clamshell phone, chances are that you’ve been considering either the Galaxy Z Flip 6 or Motorola’s Razr lineup. The Razr Plus 2024 was the best flip phone last year, while the Razr 2024 offered a similar experience at a more affordable price. To follow up, this year, Motorola has decided to go one step further.
For the first time, Motorola has launched three new flip phones at varying price points with distinct specifications. The new Razr Ultra 2025 is designed to be the first true flagship flip phone, but the Razr Plus 2025 and Razr 2025 also build on last year’s successful flip phones.
What are the key differences? Do you need the new Razr Ultra 2025, and which one should you buy? Let’s take a look.
Razr Ultra 2025 vs Razr Plus vs Razr 2025: specs
Moto Razr Ultra 2025
Moto Razr Plus 2025
Moto Razr 2025
Dimensions
Open: 171.5 x 74 x 7.2 mm Closed: 88.1 x 74 x 15.7 mm
Open: 73.99 x 171.4 x 7.09mm Closed: 73.99 x 88.1 x 15.32mm
Open: 74 x 171.3 x 7.3 mm Closed: 74 x 88.1 x 15.9 mm
Weight
199 grams
189 grams
188 grams
Display
Main: 7-inch, foldable pOLED 1224 x 2912 pixels, 464 ppi HDR10+, Dolby Vision, 165Hz 4,500 nits peak brightness
Gibraltar Sea, Spring Bud, Lightest Sky, Parfait Pink
Price
$1,299.99
$999.99
$699.99
Razr Ultra 2025 vs Razr Plus vs Razr 2025: design and display
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All three phones adhere to the same iconic design language that Motorola has refined and perfected over the past few years, but subtle differences in design and finish ensure they remain distinct from one another.
All three phones feature a large cover display, but the Razr 2025 features a smaller 3.5-inch Cover Display compared to the 4-inch Cover Display on the Razr Ultra 2025 and Razr Plus 2025. Despite the difference in size, the core Cover Display experience remains the same across all three devices. The peak brightness also differs, with the Razr Ultra 2025’s 3,000 nits significantly outperforming the Razr Plus and Razr 2025, which feature peak brightnesses of 2,400 nits and 1,700 nits, respectively.
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When you unfold them, the Razr 2025 and Razr Plus 2025 feature the same 6.9-inch main display, with a peak brightness of 3,000 nits, HDR10+ support, and Gorilla Glass protection. The Razr 2025 supports a refresh rate of up to 120Hz, while the Razr Plus 2025 increases this to 165Hz and adds support for Dolby Vision.
Meanwhile, the Razr Ultra 2025 boasts the largest main display on a flip phone, measuring 7 inches, and is equipped with Dolby Vision, Ultra HDR image support, and a refresh rate of up to 165Hz. The peak brightness is also significantly better at up to 4,500 nits.
Razr Plus 2025 in Mocha MousseNirave Gondhia / Digital Trends
There are subtle differences between the three devices in size and finish as well. The Razr Ultra 2025 measures 171.5 mm tall, which is 0.1 mm taller than the Razr Plus 2025 and 0.2 mm taller than the Razr 2025. Meanwhile, at 7.2 mm thick, it’s slightly thicker than the Razr Plus 2025 (7.1 mm) but thinner than the Razr 2025 (7.3 mm). While these differences are barely noticeable, the Razr Ultra 2025 is also 10 grams heavier than its siblings, which is a noticeable difference.
All three phones come in a range of finishes (more on that below) and follow the same overall design language, featuring a side-mounted fingerprint sensor beneath the two volume keys on the right side of the phone. The Razr Ultra 2025 also features an AI key on the left, designed to provide quick access to a range of new Moto AI features.
Winner: Moto Razr Ultra 2025, just. If money is no object, the Razr Ultra 2025 has slightly improved specs over its siblings. However, the Razr Plus 2025 is exceptionally compelling, as is the Razr 2025.
Razr Ultra 2025 vs Razr Plus vs Razr 2025: performance and battery
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Flip phones face considerable challenges in terms of performance and battery life, especially since the phone maker must also account for two displays. To address these two problems, Motorola built the Razr Ultra 2025, marking the first flip phone to tackle these key issues.
The Razr 2025 is powered by MediaTek’s Dimensity 7400X processor, which is virtually identical to the 7300X processor that powered last year’s Razr 2024, but with a slightly higher clock speed. It’s paired with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Meanwhile, the Razr Plus 2025 utilizes the same Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 processor as last year’s model, paired with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
The Razr Ultra 2025 throws the rulebook out of the window and uses the same flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite processor that’s found in many of the best phones. Unlike the super-slim Oppo Find N5, it utilizes the full 8-core version of the processor, paired with 16GB of RAM and either 512GB or 1TB of storage. These are flagship specifications that result in a true flagship experience with far fewer compromises than any other flip phone.
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The other key issue with flip phones is their limited battery life, and the Razr Ultra 2025 also addresses this problem. The Razr Plus 2025 features the same 4,000 mAh battery as the Razr Plus 2024, complete with 45W wired charging, 15W wireless charging, and 5W reverse wired charging. Meanwhile, the Razr 2025 features a larger battery than its predecessor, at 4,500 mAh, while retaining the same 30W charging and 15W wireless charging capabilities.
The Razr Ultra 2025 demonstrates that a flip phone doesn’t need to compromise on battery life. The 4,700 mAh battery is the largest in a flip phone to date, but Motorola has also paired it with 68W wired charging, 30W wireless charging, and 5W reverse wired charging. The Razr Ultra 2025 pushes the boundaries of battery and charging, and shows that you don’t need to compromise.
Winner: Razr Ultra 2025. This is no contest; the larger battery, faster charging, and true flagship processor make the Razr Ultra 2025 the one to buy if performance and battery life are your top priorities.
Razr Ultra 2025 vs Razr Plus vs Razr 2025: cameras
The cameras on the Razr Ultra 2025Nirave Gondhia / Digital Trends
Until the Razr Plus 2024, every flip phone followed the same dual-camera setup: a main camera, paired with an ultra-wide. Last year, Motorola decided to drop the ultra-wide in favor of a telephoto camera, meaning you had to determine which was most important to you. This year, Motorola is reversing course, to some extent.
All three phones feature a virtually identical main camera, with Motorola prioritizing consistency across the setup. The Razr 2025 and Razr Plus 2025 feature a 50MP main sensor with an f/1.7 aperture, a 0.8µm pixel size, dual-pixel phase detection autofocus, and optical image stabilization (OIS). The Razr 2025 pairs this with a 13MP ultra-wide sensor, while the Razr Plus pairs this with a 50MP telephoto lens that offers 2x optical zoom.
While those two phones require you to decide which secondary camera lens is more important to you, the Razr Ultra 2025 combines the best of both worlds into a single device. The 50MP main camera is virtually identical to its siblings, but crucially, Motorola achieves the same 2x optical zoom as the Razr Plus 2025 thanks to in-sensor cropping. It pairs this lens with a 50MP ultra-wide sensor, effectively offering a triple-camera setup that’s similar to the one found in many flagship phones.
Nirave Gondhia / Digital Trends
There are also differences in the camera features, especially as some require the additional power offered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor. The Razr Ultra 2025 features several AI-powered features, including Group Shot, which captures multiple frames within a second and blends them to ensure everyone is looking directly at the camera, and Action Shot, which helps you take blur-free photos of moving objects by automatically adjusting the shutter speed based on different lighting conditions. However, it’s unclear whether the Razr Plus 2025 and Razr 2025 will get all of these features or offer fewer features thanks to the limitations of their processors and internal hardware.
Winner: Razr Ultra 2025. Unsurprisingly, the Razr Ultra 2025 offers the least compromises in a flip phone camera to date. Not only does it effectively offer a triple-camera setup, but it also features the full suite of AI-powered camera features.
Razr Ultra 2025 vs Razr Plus vs Razr 2025: software and updates
Nirave Gondhia / Digital Trends
All three phones run on Android 15, equipped with the same core Motorola software experiences, and come with a promise of three years of software updates and four years of security updates.
They all have the same Cover Display software experience, which allows you to use the front display as a compact phone. New for this year is the ability to add direct shortcuts from the communications panel to features inside a variety of apps, as well as add up to three separate apps and widget panels.
All three also feature the same core Moto AI experience. This includes improved versions of the first-generation Moto AI experiences, including Catch Me Up to summarize personal notifications, Pay Attention to start a voice recording complete with transcription, and Remember This to save a screenshot with notes and quickly recall it later.
Nirave Gondhia / Digital Trends
They also come equipped with Moto AI 2.0, which includes the Next Move feature. This feature analyzes what’s on screen and recommends next steps, such as saving important information, creating a playlist in Playlist Studio, or generating an image, sticker, or avatar in Image Studio. All three feature Gemini and Gemini Live directly from the Cover Display and come with both Perplexity Pro and Microsoft CoPilot preloaded out of the box.
The Razr Ultra 2025 features a dedicated AI key to launch Moto AI from anywhere, as well as a new hands-free mode. When you place the Razr Ultra 2025 in stand or tent mode — i.e., when the phone is half folded — you can glance at the screen and use Moto AI features without needing to touch the screen.
Winner: Tie. Yes, the Razr Ultra 2025 features a dedicated AI key and one exclusive Moto AI feature, and the more powerful processor ensures it’ll run Moto AI far smoother than its siblings. However, all three phones offer the same overall experience.
Razr Ultra 2025 vs Razr Plus vs Razr 2025: price and availability
Nirave Gondhia / Digital Trends
The most noticeable differences between the three devices are the choice of Razr 2025 colors and finishes, as well as the price tag associated with all three phones.
The Razr 2025 starts at $699.99 and is available in a choice of four finishes: Gibraltar Sea (navy blue), Lightest Sky (white), Parfait Pink, and Spring Bud (light green). Meanwhile, the Razr Plus 2025 starts at $999.99 and comes in the same colors and leather-backed finish as last year’s model: Midnight Blue, Hot Pink, and Pantone Color of the Year, Mocha Mousse.
Nirave Gondhia / Digital TrendsNirave Gondhia / Digital TrendsNirave Gondhia / Digital TrendsNirave Gondhia / Digital TrendsNirave Gondhia / Digital TrendsNirave Gondhia / Digital Trends
The most unique is the Razr Ultra 2025, which starts at $1,299.99 and has a choice of four distinct finishes. The Scarab model features Italian Alcanatara leather for the first time on a smartphone. The Rio Red and Cabaret (pink) models feature the same leather-like finish introduced last year. The most unique finish is the Mountain Trail, which features an FSC-certified wood finish, marking the first time Motorola has used wood in a phone in over a decade.
Should you buy the Razr Ultra 2025, Razr Plus 2025, or Razr 2025?
Nirave Gondhia / Digital Trends
The Razr Ultra 2025 proves that you can have a flip phone that does it al,l but this comes at a price: $300 more than the Razr Plus 2025, to be precise. For this, you get a vastly improved overall experience that’s designed to address all the key flaws of a flip phone. While it’s the most expensive overall, the Razr Ultra 2025 is also the most capable and almost certainly the best flip phone you can buy.
However, the price tag also means it won’t work for everyone, and this is where it gets murkier. The Razr 2025 appears to be an outstanding device, offering a compelling experience at half the price of the Razr Ultra 2025. Yet, the Razr Plus 2024 is identical to this year’s Razr Plus 2025, and currently costs just $799.99, making it arguably the better choice. That said, whichever Razr 2025 model you buy, you’ll get the most refined flip phone experience.
Google’s antitrust remedy trial started this week, and the Department of Justice has produced several witnesses to testify about how Google’s stranglehold on search has slowed their innovation. On day three, Perplexity Chief Business Officer Dmitry Shevelenko told the court that Google blocked Perplexity from being bundled with Motorola phones, which is precisely the kind of anticompetitive behavior that got it in hot water. It would appear Google is backing away, though, because Perplexity is included with Moto’s newly announced flip phones.
During questioning on Wednesday, Shevelenko likened Google’s mobile integration contracts to a “gun to your head.” He claimed that both Motorola and Perplexity, which positions itself as an AI search engine, were interested in a partnership last year, but the phone maker was unable to get out of its Google distribution contract, which prevented it from using a non-Google assistant platform.
Google has long required Android device makers to use Assistant on their devices, but Google’s launch of Gemini added a sense of urgency. Google is pushing Gemini into every corner of its ecosystem with the aim of catching up to ChatGPT, and it might be working. Motorola’s 2024 phones were some of the first to prominently feature Gemini as the default assistant instead of Google Assistant. Apparently, that left no room for Perplexity as OEMs are unwilling to risk their Google revenue-sharing agreements.
The Razr Plus 2024 was widely regarded as the best flip phone of last year, and one year later, Motorola has introduced a new Razr Plus 2025, exclusively for North America. Except, unlike last year, it’s no longer the flagship, as the new Razr Ultra 2025 has taken that crown and comes replete with a host of upgrades.
Meanwhile, the Razr Plus 2025 has the fewest upgrades of the entire lineup this year, with Motorola opting to stick to a tried-and-tested formula that has yielded a nearly identical phone with a few subtle differences.
What are these differences, and which one should you buy? Let’s take a look at the Moto Razr Plus 2025 versus the Razr Plus 2024 to find out!
Moto Razr Plus 2025 vs Razr Plus 2024: specs
Moto Razr Plus 2025
Moto Razr Plus 2024
Dimensions
Open: 73.99 x 171.42 x 7.09mm Closed: 73.99 x 88.09x 15.32mm
Open: 73.99 x 171.42 x 7.09mm Closed: 73.99 x 88.09x 15.32mm
Weight
189 grams
189 grams
Display
Main: 6.9-inch, foldable pOLED 1080 x 2640 pixels, 413 ppi HDR10+, Dolby Vision, 165Hz 3,000 nits peak brightness
Cover Display: 4-inch LTPO AMOLED 1272 x 1080 pixels, 417 ppi HDR10+, Dolby Vision, 165Hz 2,400 nits peak brightness
Main: 6.9-inch, foldable pOLED 1080 x 2640 pixels, 413 ppi HDR10+, Dolby Vision, 165Hz 3,000 nits peak brightness
Cover Display: 4-inch LTPO AMOLED 1272 x 1080 pixels, 417 ppi HDR10+, Dolby Vision, 165Hz 2,400 nits peak brightness
Moto Razr Plus 2025 vs Razr Plus 2024: design and display
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These two phones are virtually identical, except for two or three key differences that you’ll be hard-pressed to notice immediately. Both follow the same iconic Moto Razr design language, with a large Cover Display that unfolds to reveal a beautiful, large display, all wrapped in a body featuring the most vibrant colors and finishes of any phone.
The Moto Razr Plus 2025 and Razr Plus 2024 both feature the same 4-inch external LTPO AMOLED Cover Display, which supports HDR 10+, Dolby Vision, and has a peak brightness of 2,400 nits. It’s protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass Victus, which provides some protection against scratches and light wear and tear, although it likely won’t survive a sizeable drop.
When you unfold either phone, you get a 6.9-inch foldable LPTO AMOLED display with a refresh rate of up to 165 Hz, HDR10+ support, and a peak brightness of 3,000 nits. There has been no change to the display or overall design language between the two phones, but there are two improvements that make the Moto Razr Plus 2025 a slightly better phone.
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First, the Razr Plus 2025 features a new titanium hinge, replacing the stainless steel hinge plate used on the Razr Plus 2024. Paired with a new ultra-thin glass, this allows the Razr Plus 2025 to support up to 35% more folds over its lifetime, which extends the overall durability of Motorola’s latest phone.
The Razr Plus 2025 also upgrades the IPX8 water resistance from last year to IP48 ingress protection this year, offering some dust resistance as well as the same water resistance.
Winner: Razr Plus 2025, just. The titanium hinge and improved durability result in a slightly better experience, but it’s not worth upgrading if you already have the Razr Plus 2024.
Moto Razr Plus 2025 vs Razr Plus 2024: performance and battery
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Unlike the Razr 2025, which features upgraded internals over the previous generation, the Razr Plus 2025 and Razr Plus 2024 share the same processor, RAM, and storage configuration, as well as battery size and charging capabilities.
Both phones are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, paired with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of UFS 4.0 storage. Each features the same 4,000 mAh battery — the smallest of the Moto Razr lineup — as well as 45W charging, 15W wireless charging, and 5W reverse charging for other devices.
Each phone also features Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, and aptX Lossless audio, as well as support for all global satellite positioning systems. The device features dual stereo speakers equipped with Snapdragon Sound, as well as NFC, USB 2.0, and a side-mounted fingerprint sensor.
Winner: Tie. The internals are identical, with absolutely no differences between them.
Moto Razr Plus 2025 vs Razr Plus 2024: cameras
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Unsurprisingly, given the same hardware elsewhere, both phones also feature the same camera setup. The Razr Plus 2025 and Razr Plus 2024 feature a dual-camera setup with a 50MP main camera paired with a 50MP telephoto sensor, as well as a 32MP selfie camera.
The main sensor features an f/1.7 aperture, a 24mm focal length, and a 0.8µm pixel size. However, Motorola also utilizes pixel binning to combine four pixels into one, allowing the phones to take 12.5 MP photos with significantly larger pixels and better light collection.
The 50MP telephoto sensor is the same on both lenses and offers a f/2.0 aperture at a 47mm focal length, which equates to a 2x optical zoom. Unlike the Razr Ultra 2025, which replaces the telephoto with an ultrawide but uses in-sensor cropping on the main sensor to achieve the same 2x optical zoom effect, the Razr Plus 2025 does not feature an ultrawide sensor.
Many of your photos are likely to be captured with the phone closed, but if you want to take selfies with either phone open, the 32MP selfie camera located above the main display is the same on both devices.
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Although the hardware is the same, the Razr Plus 2025 features a few AI-powered camera enhancements that should ensure it captures better photos than the Razr Plus 2024. Group Shot captures multiple frames within a second and blends them to ensure that everyone has their eyes open. Action Shot automatically adjusts the shutter speed based on different lighting conditions to ensure that photos of moving objects are blur-free. Air Gesture allows you to take pictures or video using simple hand gestures to start or stop recording.
Winner: Razr Plus 2025. The AI features make all the difference. However, they are not noteworthy enough to warrant upgrading for, especially since they will likely be available on the Razr Plus 2024 via a future update.
Moto Razr Plus 2025 vs Razr Plus 2024: software and updates
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The Moto Razr Plus 2025 ships with Android 15 out of the box, whereas the Razr Plus 2024 comes with Android 14, with a planned update to Android 15 scheduled for the coming months. This update is likely to bring some of the camera and Moto AI features to the older model, although it’s unclear whether the Razr Plus 2024 will get all of the same features.
The Razr Plus 2025 boasts several key enhancements to the overall experience. On the Cover Display, several panels have undergone upgrades to enhance usability. The Communications panel now lets you access more than just your favorite contacts, as you can set shortcuts to send emails, post to social media, or access features within other frequently used apps. The app and widget panels have also been expanded, with the Razr Plus 2025 now capable of adding a total of three of each, versus just one with the Razr Plus 2024.
Beyond this, the Razr Plus 2025 also features a few new Moto AI capabilities designed to enhance the usefulness of Moto AI in everyday life. The original Moto AI features that were rolled out to the Razr Plus 2024 are also present, including Catch Me Up, designed to recap recent personal notifications; Remember This, which captures a screenshot and makes it easy to recall the information later; and Pay Attention, which lets you effortlessly start a voice recording complete with real-time transcription.
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However, while these features are present on both devices, the Razr Plus 2025 also gains new Moto AI 2.0 features, including Next Move, which analyzes the content of what’s on your screen and suggests next steps. These steps can involve creating new musical playlists with Playlist Studio, generating images, stickers, avatars, or other content with Image Studio, or saving important information to your Journal for later recollection.
The Razr Plus 2025 also gains access to several additional AI partners, with Microsoft CoPilot and Perplexity preinstalled out of the box. If you choose to buy the Razr Plus 2025, you’ll also receive three months of Perplexity Pro for free, valued at $60.
Both phones feature the same software commitment, with Motorola guaranteeing three years of software updates and four years of security updates. This means that the Razr Plus 2025 will be updated to Android 18, while the Razr Plus 2024 will likely stop receiving updates around Android 17.
Winner: Razr Plus 2025. However, if the same set of features is introduced in the Razr Plus 2024 through a future update, then it’s a tie between the two phones.
Moto Razr Plus 2025 vs Razr Plus 2024: Price and Availability
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The Razr Plus 2025 will be available for pre-order from May 7 at $999.99, ahead of its release date on May 15. It’ll be available in three colors: Midnight Blue, Hot Pink, and the Pantone Color of the Year, Mocha Mousse (also known as brown).
Meanwhile, the Razr Plus 2024 is currently available for $799.99 and comes in Midnight Blue, Hot Pink, and Spring Green. Earlier this year, a Mocha Mousse version of the Razr Plus 2024 was also launched, but it’s no longer available for purchase.
Moto Razr Plus 2025 vs Razr Plus 2024: which should you buy?
Nirave Gondhia / Digital Trends
For many comparisons, this often requires careful consideration; however, with these two devices proving to be 98% identical, the answer is fairly straightforward: the Razr Plus 2024 is a better purchase, given its $200 lower price than the Razr Plus 2025.
The only caveat to this recommendation is if you need the new AI features, want three months of Perplexity Pro or access to CoPilot, or the latest camera features, then the Razr Plus 2025 could be a better choice. If you’re buying new, there’s a chance you’ll get a better deal through your carrier on the latest model as well, which will also be supported for one year longer than the Razr Plus 2024.
If you already have the Razr Plus 2024, then there’s no reason to upgrade, at least not to the Razr Plus 2025. If you’re looking for a change, want an improvement in the camera, or need better battery life, you’re much better off looking at the new Razr Ultra 2025.
Motorola has today unveiled three new smartphones — the Razr 2025, Razr Plus 2025, and Razr Ultra 2025 — alongside the new Moto Buds Loop earbuds, the Moto Watch Fit smartwatch, and more. The three new Razr phones are built with AI in mind, and as part of a preview yesterday, we learned that they also feature several firsts for AI in smartphones.
A choice of AI platforms
Britta O’Boyle / Digital Trends
Out of the box, all three Razr devices will come preinstalled with Google Gemini as the default voice assistant. However, in addition to this, all three devices will also have access to rival AI platforms, including Perplexity and Microsoft CoPilot. If you buy one of the new Razr models, you’ll also get access to three months of Perplexity Pro for free.
Each phone uses a different chipset and therefore has different capabilities when it comes to running complex LLM models on-device. The Razr Ultra 2025 is the only model to use the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, which also gives it access to a neural processing unit with 80 TOPS of performance. This means that it’s also the only phone capable of running Meta’s Llama 3.2 model, which is powering Motorola’s new Look and Talk feature.
New Moto AI features
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The new feature enables you to interact with Moto AI without touching the screen or using voice commands when using the Razr Ultra 2025 in stand or tent mode. This means you can instantly access Moto AI features at a glance without needing to activate them. For those who prefer, you can also activate these features by pressing and holding the dedicated AI key.
The new Razr 2025 series comes equipped with a range of new Moto AI features. The Look and Talk feature is exclusive to the Razr Ultra 2025, but all three devices also gain access to upgraded versions of the original Moto AI features. These include Catch Me Up to summarize notifications, Remember This to save and easily recall screenshots, and Pay Attention to start a voice recording complete with instant transcription.
When can you get these devices?
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All three devices are also the first to debut new Moto AI 2.0 features, including Next Move, which reads what’s on your screen and recommends next steps, such as creating a music playlist, generating images with Image Studio, or saving important details to recall them later easily.
Pre-orders for the new Razr 2025 will launch May 7, starting at $699.99, with all three devices on sale on May 15.
