One of the biggest problems around flip phones has long been the compromise that comes in its form factor. Lesser cameras, smaller batteries, worse performance, and so many more are par for the course for these devices. But with the new Motorola Razr Ultra, we’re getting a device that tries to solve all of those problems and mostly succeeds, but it comes at a cost.
What the Motorola Razr Ultra gets right
The hardware is nearly perfect
Foldables as a whole have improved a lot over the past few years and Motorola has been known to push the boundaries, but it very much felt like the company was still struggling to lock in how its hardware should look and feel for a while now. The hinges especially needed some work.
For the Razr Ultra (and the rest of Motorola’s 2025 lineup), there are some big hardware improvements across the board.
Firstly, the hinge is as smooth as butter now. Motorola said it reworked the hinge to include titanium materials among other improvements, and it worked. The hinge is smooth and just the right level of resistance. Opening the device with one hand or two is easy, and it’s also not hard to “lock” the hinge in place to enable a tent mode for watching media or just keeping an eye on notifications.
The hinge is combined with improved hardware around the edges too. The Razr Ultra has a very subtle brushed finish to the metal which assists with grip both when holding the closed device, as well as when opening it. It’s a really small touch that goes a long way.
Then, of course, there’s the finish. Motorola has really made colors and design a part of its identity in recent years, and the Razr Ultra showcases this in full. The “Mountain Trail” variant I’ve been using has a nice subtle gold color that’s paired with a wood backplate. It’s gorgeous, to say the least.
The “Cabaret” and “Rio Red” colors are also very nice, but after checking out the green “Scarab” version at Motorola’s launch event, I’m worried the Alcantara backplate will hold up over time. It barely feels nice brand new, and holds on to dust and grime immediately.
A brilliant pair of displays
The biggest advantage Motorola has had in the flip phone space is its approach to displays, particularly the outer one. The company has always focused on giving the user full choice in what apps can be used on that outer display, and the template set up on last year’s Razr+ keeps that going on the Razr Ultra. The 4-inch display leaves plenty of room for getting things done without opening the device, such as reading and responding to messages, navigation through Maps, music controls, mobile payments, and more. It just works, even though some apps play nicer than others. It’s a much better approach than Samsung’s extremely restrictive Galaxy Z Flip series offers today.
The inner display is an area of bigger improvement over the past models, though. The 7-inch display – yes, you read that right – is pretty huge, but without feeling totally unwieldy. It’s brighter than ever which has been a huge help for outdoor usage too. The hinge crease is a complete non-issue at this point, though I will note that in the few weeks I’ve been testing this device, the crease became noticeably deeper compared to when I first opened it up. That’s common among foldables, but it was a bit more pronounced here than I expected.
Software and performance… mostly
The experience of actually using the Razr Ultra is both its biggest benefit, and its biggest failing.
Motorola has always kept its Android experience pretty clean, and that’s no different here. The single-most apt comparison is to a Pixel, with clutter mostly non-existent. Day-to-day use is just quick and easy, and improved by the use of a Snapdraogn 8 Elite and 16GB of RAM. Nothing really “slows down” this phone, whether it’s playing a game or just general app usage. It’s all fast and it chugs through everything without any major problems.
There are just some odd quirks that make everything feel a little “off.”
More than anything, this boils down to a weird stutter in the software. It happens at random but through basically everything you do on the device. Setting the display to stay at its maximum 165Hz refresh rate helps, but it never really goes away. It prevents me from calling the experience “fluid,” just because it just feels kind of jerky at times despite the horsepower underneath.
Beyond that, there are just some strange decisions in the software. Motorola’s skin has places that just feel a bit unfinished, like with the transparent elements in the notifications and Quick Settings. A funky little line appears to separate the two which just looks jarring in the software.
There’s also the heating issue. I wouldn’t say that the Razr Ultra “overheats,” but it definitely runs on the warm side. The best comparison I have is to the latest generation of Pixels. They warm up faster than other devices, but hit a cap and don’t get much hotter. The Razr Ultra feels pretty similar, though it occasionally gets unexpectedly hot and literally needs a minute to cool down.
These are minor complaints on the whole, though, because the reality is that you won’t find a stronger performer in the flip phone space at this time. The Razr Ultra is super powerful, it just needs to be fine-tuned like any hot rod would be.
What still could use some work
The battery life is still ‘sometimes awful’
Perhaps the single biggest complaint I’ve had about flip phone foldables over the years has been in battery life. I called it “sometimes awful” on 2023’s Razr+ and, though it improved on the 2024 Razr+, I’m sad to say that it still feels “sometimes awful” on the Razr Ultra.
The huge 4,700 mAh battery should be plenty of power, but I still find myself often needing to charge this phone well before bedtime. Most days I’m going to bed with less than 20% left in the tank on 3-5 hours of screen time. Some days that’s fine, but on others, it’s an unnecessary thing to worry about. Motorola has made improvements, don’t get me wrong. I’m sure that prior generations would have died far earlier in the day on the same usage pattern, but there’s still a lot of room for improvement here.
I’m thinking that Motorola can also fine-tune this with time and updates, but as it stands today, the much faster 67W charging (which, finally) was quite literally what kept me going with the Razr Ultra in terms of battery life.
The cameras are fine, but there’s a bigger problem
Another area flip phone foldables often suffer is in their cameras, and while the Razr Ultra stands above the crowd, it’s not a full exception.
There are three 50MP cameras here, an achievement on paper, and they are pretty decent on the whole. The main lens is the one that holds up the best in all conditions, snapping shots with plenty of depth and good, vibrant colors. The viewfinder is deceiving, but everything gets better after it’s been processed. The ultrawide shooter is a bit too wide for my tastes and doesn’t handle lighting super well, while the inner selfie camera struggles in lower light, but it’s all rather passable. Even the lack of a telephoto camera is fine, and I much prefer the ultrawide in the first place (though Portrait Mode is very aggressive).
I think Motorola can, as with many other things, fine-tune this with time.
What can’t be fixed over time, though, is the inherent problem with flip phones and cameras. It’s just so annoying to do anything but take a selfie with this device. While it’s closed, there’s no way to shoot a picture of what’s in front of you, and the time it takes to open the device and open the camera means that fleeting moments are almost impossible to capture.
The cameras themselves are good, I just found myself constantly frustrated with the experience of using them due to the unavoidable hardware limitations in place. There’s no way to “fix” this either. It’s an inherent downside of this form factor, and one that users need to live with if they truly want a modern flip phone.
The speakers are not good
This is really, very minor, but the speakers on this phone are not good. For media playback, whether that’s video or much more so music, the speakers just sound hollow and lacking any depth. It sounds like you took a normal phone and stuffed it inside of a Pringles can.
Motorola and the great AI dilemma
The Moto AI suite is Motorola’s collection of AI features. It consists of a few key offerings, starting with “Catch Me Up.” This feature, and others, is accessible via the dedicated “AI Key” on the side of the device as well as through the notification pane itself. Using generative AI, the feature will look through your notifications and summarize any notifications that have come in recently. It excludes all other apps, and works… fine? The idea here is good, but AI is not yet trustworthy enough to make this useful to me. In the times I tried “Catch Me Up,” I usually found that it conveyed the meaning of a message incorrectly, meaning that I didn’t save any time because I just had to go back and read the conversation anyway.
“Remember This” is meant to act as a second memory. You open Moto AI, ask it to remember a detail, perhaps including a picture, and can then ask about it later. It’s a neat idea that’s very simple to use. A notes app pretty much does the same thing, mind you, but I guess this one can be useful in that it works with natural language. I’ve not found myself using it, but I can see where people would find this handy.
“Pay Attention” is a recorder app, and might have the most utility of the bunch. You can have Razr sit on a table and record conversations around you, with speaker labels and summaries available later on. I’ve not used this one much amid my review period, but it seems to work well enough and could be handy in a corporate environment, especially.
These are accessible via a “Look and Talk” function on the cover display which can detect when you’re looking at the display and activate voice commands. That’s the goal anyway. In my experience, I’ve found that, at a desk, the system is way too sensitive and would activate constantly, but it is a good idea.
Motorola isn’t lacking decent ideas in terms of AI, but my main point of concern was that basically all of this is available via Gemini (in one form or another), which is preinstalled on the device and doesn’t require users to create a whole new AI account that only works on their mobile devices. That’s the dilemma when it comes to AI features now. Everyone has different versions of the same idea, and if you are actually using these features in the first place, you probably already have a preferred ecosystem. Moto AI doesn’t really do much to stand out from the crowd, or at least doesn’t do quite enough.
The deal-breakers
The update policy is inexcusably short
Easily the biggest problem with the Razr Ultra is how Motorola is handling the software. In an age where Android phones are often promised more software support than an iPhone, Motorola is behind the times.
The Razr Ultra is promised merely 3 major Android OS updates and 4 years of security patches, bi-monthly at that. This means that someone who buys a $499 Pixel 9a will get major software updates for more than double the time that this new Razr will. Not to mention that Motorola’s track record on update timing is far from great. The 2024 Razr+ only got its Android 15 update in early May, well over 6 months after Google first released it. And that was two months faster than the year prior.
There’s really just no excuse for this, and it’s something Motorola needs to fix while there’s still time.
The price is just too high
The main reason that update policy is a problem is because of the price. The Razr Ultra costs $1,299 in the US, making it the most expensive flip phone by a good margin. The price isn’t totally unreasonable, as you’re getting roughly the same flagship specs you’d get from a Samsung, Google, or OnePlus device and just paying a premium for its ability to fold in half. But with the compromises inherent to a flip phone, I’m not sure that premium is worthwhile, and I almost would have preferred just getting a last-gen chipset alongside the various other improvements at, say, $1,099 instead of getting a “new” Razr+ that’s identical to the previous one at $999. Three Razr phones just don’t make sense in my mind, but that’s a conversation for another day.
Final Thoughts
The Motorola Razr Ultra is truly as good as a flip phone can get, at least as it stands today. The hardware has improved to the point of near-perfection, the performance is on par with any other flagship, and Motorola has addressed, though not completely fixed, some major pain points in the battery life and camera departments.
Yet, I’m struggling to see who this phone is for, mainly because of its price.
The problem really boils down to the fact that the Razr Ultra is a device for a niche within a niche. Flip phones, and foldables in general, are still not for every person. So a much more expensive flip phone is an even harder pitch. Plus, if we fast forward just a couple of months, Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 7 is likely to have the same outer display improvements, the same chipset, and likely a lower price than this Razr unless something drastic changes.
The Razr Ultra is a product that fans of this form factor have wanted for years, and I’m truly thrilled that it exists, but I’m also not sure the grass was quite as green as everyone was hoping for…
What do you think?
Where to buy Motorola Razr Ultra
- Motorola.com
- Amazon
- Best Buy (free Clicks keyboard)
- T-Mobile
- AT&T (free with select trade-in)
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