I replaced my slab phone with Motorola’s $1,900 Razr Fold — and it’s got me hooked

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I’ve never been the biggest fan of foldable phones. They’re fine, but I never quite understood the appeal. Are they really better than traditional slab phones? My opinion on foldables is starting to change. I’ve spent the last few weeks testing Motorola’s new 2026 Razr FoldIts latest flagship. I came away really impressed and a little tempted to buy it myself.

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This is a really nice mobile device. I’d say it’s better than Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7 on several fronts. Its battery is bigger, making it last longer, the internal screen has a higher resolution, and the camera system is arguably better.

hard to ignore

The Motorola Razr Fold is slightly larger than the Galaxy Z Fold 7, with a 6.6-inch external display and an 8.1-inch internal display. By comparison, Samsung’s model has a 6.5-inch external screen and an 8-inch internal screen. The extra size does mean that the Razer Fold is heavier at 243 grams, but that has little impact on the user experience. It’s still an ultra-sleek phone, especially compared to foldable phones of years past.

Visually, the dual displays are great. Motorola has equipped these AMOLED screens with a number of visual-enhancing features. Just to highlight a few, both screens support the full DCI-P3 gamut for vibrant colors, are Pantone validated for excellent color accuracy, boast high resolution, and have high refresh rates to ensure smooth animations.

The brightness level is also noteworthy. Motorola rates the internal display at 6,200 nits, which reduces external glare. I never had trouble seeing the screen, even in direct sunlight.

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I spent a lot of time watching YouTube videos and streaming shows on the internal display. The colors popped out of the screen, shadows looked pitch black thanks to the high contrast of Dolby Vision, and the large size made the content quite impressive.

a beautiful finale

My review unit came in black blue color. I mention color because Motorola associates the color of each phone with a different finish. The back of my review unit had a knitted, diamond-like pattern that the company calls a “Pic-inspired finish.” I don’t think this texture serves any functional purpose, but it does look cool.

This gives the phone a level of elegance that helps it stand out from the sea of ​​traditional glass-backed mobile devices. The Razor Fold in Lily White has a silkier finish.

The Razer Fold is also quite durable. Its outer screen is protected by a panel made of Corning Gorilla Glass Ceramic 3, which offers strong resistance against scratches and drops. Because the internal display has to bend, it lacks Gorilla Glass, but is covered with a screen protector. Connecting the two halves is a stainless steel teardrop hinge. Its rigidity allows users to place the phone in different positions to suit their needs.

You can prop the phone halfway up to watch a movie, or put the Razer Fold in tent mode and display the current date and time like a bedside clock.

live cameras

My favorite aspect of the Razer Fold is its camera system. Motorola achieved success in this. On the rear, the phone sports a triple-camera array consisting of a 50MP main lens with a Sony LYTIA sensor, a 50MP ultrawide camera, and a 50MP periscope telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom and 100x super zoom. Image quality is excellent across all three lenses. Photos come out clear, vibrant and full of details. Exposure and lighting are controlled remarkably well.

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Instead of just describing the results, I guess I should provide examples. The first image I captured was inside a grocery store, displaying rows of colorfully labeled drinks. The Razer Fold does a great job at reproducing vivid colors and bright tones.

This second image is of a lifeguard tower that I took with a telephoto lens at 6x zoom. The results are amazingly fast. I was far away, and you could read the banner clearly. It is also possible to create graffiti. Because of clarity, the telephoto camera became my favorite of the three. Selfie cameras are not that good in my opinion.

After taking photos with the internal screen camera, I noticed that the color balance was off. There was a slight yellowness to everything.

Display and battery

Motorola’s Razr Fold runs on a Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset paired with 16GB of RAM – a solid configuration. It performed well in all performance tests. For starters, I ran the Geekbench CPU for Android to get a good sense of the hardware. It scored around 2,740 in the single-core test and over 9,100 in the multi-core test.

This tells me that the Razer Fold feels snappy in everyday use and handles heavy workloads like mobile gaming adequately. The Geekbench GPU results were equally strong, reaching an OpenCL score of 17,713, indicating high visual fidelity.

I experienced this firsthand while playing a game called Arknights: Endfield, which ran very poorly on the Galaxy A37. On the Razer Fold, it ran beautifully – although, keep in mind that this phone also costs almost four times the price. Gameplay felt responsive, and combat looked fantastic with the large OLED panel giving attacks a lot of visual impact. Even during intense scenes, the endfield ran smoothly.

You may experience the phone heating up in some situations. I discovered this when I ran the 3DMark Wildlife Stress Test, a benchmark that simulates heavy loads. During testing, the Razer Fold turned out to be quite tasty; Its performance reduced. It is unlikely that you will experience this. Very few people are stress-testing their smartphones. But it is something that you may experience under certain circumstances.

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Longevity is solid as a rock. I ran some battery-drain tests to see how long the device lasts in continuous use. Playing YouTube livestreams nonstop on an external display, the Razer Fold lasted about 31 hours. I then repeated the same test using the internal display. As expected, battery life dropped to just 24 hours.

Charging speeds are fast, although you’ll need an 80W charger to see these. I used mine and managed to recharge the battery from 0% to 55% in just 30 minutes.

ZDNET’s shopping advice

Pre-order for 2026 motorola razr fold Live now. Its price is $1,900 on the company’s official website and Best Buy. Buyers can choose between two colors: Pantone Blackened Blue and Lily White. The foldable will officially launch on May 21st.

Simply put, it’s a great smartphone, from its high-quality screen to its great camera. That said, $1,900 is still a high asking price. If that’s too much, samsung galaxy z fold 7Which was launched just less than a year ago, is currently on sale on Amazon.