Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 Review: Flip Phone Classic Retakes The Foldable Crown

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We live in a time where every couple of weeks — or months or sometimes even days — an exciting smartphone is launching, or going up for sale. Even midrange phones are exciting in their own ways. Having used the Nothing Phone 3a Pro, the Pixel 9a, and the Moto G Stylus within a relatively short span of time this year, it was a reminder of just how good smartphones in general have gotten. We really do live in the best time for smartphones of late.

Now it's Razr season and Motorola has pulled out all the stops to offers something really awesome. It's a bit of a cliche to say that this is the best phone Motorola has launched to date (because of course it is), but this phone is very, very good, with very few flaws. One of them is not a small flaw either, and it's probably not the one you're thinking of.

After attending the Razr launch in New York and getting a first-day hands-on experience, we're finally ready to give the Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 a full review. I've been using my Razr Ultra 2025 provided by Motorola for about one week on T-Mobile's network in the Chicagoland area, and this is my full review.

NOTE: This phone is effectively the same as the alternately-titled Motorola Razr 60 Ultra — that device is the international (outside of the United States) version of the phone, while the Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 is the version launched inside the United States.

Before we dive into the Razr Ultra, it's important to acknowledge that the Razr Ultra is the third entry in the Razr family in the year 2025. Just like last year (2024), Motorola also launched the Razr and the Razr+. In this case, the phrase "like last year" is a bit of a loaded statement, because these other two phones are very similar to the phones that launched last year. The Razr gets an updated processor (MediaTek 7400X) a slightly bigger battery (4,500 mAh), IP48 dust/water rating (up from IPX8) and the newly designed hinge.

Meanwhile the Razr+ has all the same specifications as last year, down to the processor, it gets the latter two improvements as the Razr — the hinge and the dust resistance. That's not the best news. Motorola did not raise the price, but it also didn't lower it.

One thing worth mentioning is that the new hinge is really, really good. Up until now, the Razr always felt like an also-ran versus the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 in terms of build quality. That is decidedly no longer the case. When paired with the other improvements the Razr Ultra brings to the table, the Flip 6 is no longer the phone to beat in the flip-style foldable space. Moto has established itself as the dominant player in this market.

The hinge is where the hardware story starts, but it's definitely not the end when it comes to the Razr Ultra. In fact, the story is that there is finally a true flagship foldable phone. Previously, every foldable had compromises in the hardware — usually in the camera. We will get to the camera deep dive in a little bit, but every other part of this phone is 100% prime grade premium.

You get a Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, 16GB of RAM, and storage starts at 512 GB and goes up from there. This is the world's first foldable phone with three 50-megapixel cameras (two on the back, one on the front). The only compromise this phone makes is in the battery which is a mere 4,700 mAh and if you're balking at the word "mere" you are correct. While 5,000 mAh has quickly become the standard in flagship hardware, 4,700 mAh is definitely no slouch.

Motorola is also bringing a variety of materials and colors to the phone including vegan leather, vegan suede, wood, and alcantara which has previously mainly been seen on Microsoft Surface devices. You might also recognize alcantara from the wide world of car interiors. I frankly love that Motorola is exploring with these materials as much as it is. It's refreshing in a world of glass sandwiches — and a fun reminder that Motorola loves to experiment with hardware materials in phones.

Motorola is making a push into AI in a big way with this phone, to the point where it has even included a dedicated AI button on the left side of the phone. The problem is, the AI isn't very good. 

Moto implemented its own flavor of Moto AI, culminating in three main features — "Catch Me Up," "Look And Talk," and "Pay Attention." Of those three, "Pay Attention" works the best. With "Pay Attention," you can get your phone to record audio, transcribe it, and summarize it for you. This is similar to other voice recorders these days, so it's low hanging fruit.

The next one is "Look and Talk" — this is similar to the feature of the same name that came with the Google Nest Hub Max. When the phone is in tent mode, you can look at the phone and it will recognize you and start listening, as if you had said "OK Google" complete with the same tone. You can then have a conversation with the assistant. My main problem with this feature was in the use case, which was "set the phone on your desk and just look at it to ask the weather." When I did that, since I placed the phone on my desk, right next to where my computer's monitor is, the monitor I look at all day long, "Look and Talk" kept activating accidentally.

Finally, there's "Catch Me Up" which will look through your communications apps and summarize any messages that have come in. This only works for communications apps though, not for anything else, which is a bummer because the majority of my notifications come from everything but communications apps.

The other problem with Moto AI is the obvious problem — Google's Gemini AI is already there and, aside from those three features which kind-of sort-of work, Gemini is far faster and more capable. As of earlier this year, Gemini can dive into your Google apps and add calendar entries and look up contacts and documents. Moto AI can't really do any of that. For example, at one point, I asked Moto AI to remind me in three days to do a thing and Moto responded by saying "I can't set any reminders beyond 24 hours out," without the courtesy of explaining why.

The final nail in the coffin (which is too dramatic — Moto AI isn't that bad) is that when you press and hold the AI button to activate Moto AI, it doesn't receive voice by default. Pressing and holding the button launches the Moto AI app and from there you need to either type or tap the microphone to speak. Phones have been teaching us for years that pressing and holding a button like this means you can instantly speak out loud to your AI assistant, and here it just doesn't.

On the other hand, the cover screen experience is still delightful — though there are some old complaints here too. I'll start with those. First, when you add new apps to the app launcher screen, they get added in the order in which you add them. There should be an easy way to sort them alphabetically, and there isn't. Second, there is a widgets panel, but the widgets are limited. This is likely an app developer limitation, but really all I want is an MLB widget that shows me the Cubs score, and there isn't one. There is one on the larger home screen, but there isn't a smaller version. Again, this is likely an app developer thing, so I won't harp.

Everything else is pretty great about the cover screen. By default, you can add four shortcuts to the main home screen under the clock, which quick launch apps for you. You can also add app shortcuts which launch into a particular section of an app, which is a nice touch. You can have multiple widget panels and app launchers, so if you wanted to categorize them, you can. There are still games by Gamesnacks which work very well on the cover screen. My new favorite is "Element Blocks" which is a sort of "Blockblast" clone.

During my review period I probably spent 70% of my time using only the cover screen, which is how it should be. The keyboard still takes up most of the cover screen when you need to type — I'm not sure there's a solution to that problem, beyond the new version of the Clicks keyboard — but that's almost the only downside to the experience.

The other downside is a matter of opinion for most, but this phone comes with three years of operating system upgrades and four years of security updates. That's a far cry from what Google and Samsung offer (seven and seven), but considering the average smartphone only lasts about three years before it's traded in, this promise is realistic and adequate, even if it is shorter than others.

The Moto Razr Ultra sports a Snapdragon 8 Elite processor under the hood along with 16GB of RAM, so there is no lack of power going on here, and it shows. The phone can handle any task you throw at it, including games like "Call of Duty: Mobile" or "Asphalt Legends." As for Geekbench, the phone registers a 2,670/8,353 single/multi-core scores. This is a bit slower than scores normally reported by the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, but it's still pretty fast overall.

As for battery life, as has always been the case with flip-style foldables, and the Moto Razr family in general, that depends greatly on how you use the phone. The 4,700 mAh battery is a tiny bit smaller than your typical battery, but not significantly so. If you insisted on using the phone open all the time — you'd be missing the point — but you could easily get through a day and more. With the phone closed most of the time, you can hit two days fairly confidently. Most nights I went to bed with over 50% left in the tank and that included days out away from wi-fi. Put simply power — both processing and battery life — are not problems with this phone.

As for the cameras, Motorola rightly pointed out that this is the first foldable with a triple 50-megapixel camera setup. There are two 50-megapixel shooters on the back (main and ultrawide) and one selfie camera on the inside. There are some really nice improvements to this camera. Motorola has something of a reputation for lower quality cameras, and that is not the case here, at least in good light.

Motorola really leans into the form factor with these cameras. You can still do a lot of the gestures that you could with previous generations, along with some new talents. One of my favorite ways to use this camera is in camcorder mode; and no, this is not the same as the full-sized hardware camcorder I tested back in December of 2024. In camcorder mode, you fold the phone open halfway, and video starts recording (after a countdown) automatically.

There also the open palm to take a photo or start recording, along with the fist to stop video recording. These are handy since the phone acts as its own tripod, so when you're flying solo, you can still shoot.

The Moto Razr Ultra's camera is very good, but as is often the case, that depends on the lighting you're working with. If the lighting is great, so is the camera. Even in low light, like being indoors, the camera still performs quite well. Motion capture can be tricky, but there's a caveat to that.

The camera comes packed with an action mode that drastically increases the shutter speed and motion capture in that mode is crisp. In low light conditions this also results in a darker image, but, even at night, it might be worth trying if you're having trouble capturing a subject that won't stand still.

Macro images are also quite good, though the depth of field is a little shallower than I'd look for. Portrait mode is really the only mode I have some qualms with — it's very aggressive on the outlines of the subject and cuts off a lot of things like stray hairs. Those are things that modern flagships can handle pretty well these days, so I'd like to see some improvement there.

At night, photos are still pretty good, again as long as there's no motion. Subjects that are still will capture just fine. It's when things move that it becomes a problem — especially in the video department. Of course, a lot of that can be solved by using the phone as a tripod and eliminating movement from the photographer/videographer. If the phone has a solid base, you're eliminating a lot of the problem.

Adam Doud/SlashGear

The ultrawide lens in particular seemed to have trouble focusing at night for some reason. The main lens captured sharp images on still subjects, but the ultrawide lens was almost always blurry. That could be attributed to a lack of optical image stabilization, but even midrange cameras don't see that problem with as much consistency as I encountered.

Video capture in motion though is basically unusable from any of the cameras. Judder in the footsteps throws things off quite a bit. This is not a new problem by any stretch of the imagination, but it's worth noting it's still and issue here. Bottom line, if you're going to shoot at night, have a stable platform, eliminate motion as much as possible, and stick with the main lens and you'll be ok.

Overall, this is arguably the first true flagship foldable that you can buy. There are so few compromises to this phone that it's pretty easy to recommend. The price tag is a little on the painful side though, at $1,299.99 via Motorola on Amazon. That's a full $200 on top of Samsung's closest competition (for the next couple of months anyway). But for that price you're getting a phone with a bigger battery, better build quality, a better cover screen, more flexible software, and better cameras. That's a lot of "betters" so yes, this is an easy recommendation.

Foldable phones don't come cheap, and this is the first true flagship phone that you can fold in half. That's a very big deal. I think the biggest miss in this generation of Razr is the lack of notable upgrades on the lower two devices, despite retaining the same price tag. But if you want the very best flip style foldable you can buy, this is your first and only choice. Everything I asked for on the last generation has been improved, and Motorola just launched the best foldable phone you can buy. If you were waiting for foldables to come uncompromised, your wait is over.