The Razr Fold finally fixes my long-running problem with Motorola phones

For so long, I’ve wanted to wholeheartedly recommend Motorola phones. I like so much of what the company does, but it always finds one or two ways to let me down — either with underwhelming specs on its cheap phones or limited availability at premium price points. So, when I first got to hold the Motorola Razr Fold back at CES, I knew I had to keep my hopes in check. No matter what the company promised, I figured it would still find a way to let me down.

But now that we have more of the Razr Fold’s official specs, I’m not so worried. In fact, I think what was once Motorola’s most glaring flagship weakness is about to be its biggest strength. Here’s how the newest competitor in the US foldable race put me at ease ahead of its upcoming launch.

Maybe it’s not perfect, but Motorola’s hardware shows promise

When I first got to explore the Razr Fold, Motorola wouldn’t tell me much. I couldn’t dig into specs, charging speed, camera hardware, or anything else, for that matter. Basically, all I could do was check for a display crease and see how the foldable felt in my hand. It’s enough of a limitation to make a Motorola fan nervous, but I guess I was just one trade show too early.

Why? Because now that Motorola has revealed a little more about its first book-style foldable at MWC, I have to say it looks pretty good. No, it doesn’t sport Qualcomm’s top-end Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, nor does it pack a full IP68 rating like the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, but I’m not too worried. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 will still deliver solid performance, and its IP48 and IP49 water resistance is pretty good, even if the dust protection is just okay.

Besides, with a cover display that debuts Corning’s new Gorilla Glass Ceramic 3, you shouldn’t have too much to worry about on the durability front. The cover display’s specs read like something out of a tech enthusiast’s dream journal, too, with a 165Hz refresh rate and peak brightness of 6,000 nits. Do you know how many nits that is? Spoiler alert: it’s a lot. The 8.1-inch internal display has even more, topping out at 6,200 — more than you could probably ever ask for.

More importantly, though, the Razr Fold packs battery and charging specs that I’m convinced Google and Samsung are too scared to match. Why else would Motorola be the first to deliver a 6,000mAh battery stateside and pair it with 80W TurboPower wired charging? Add in 50W wireless charging and 5W reverse wireless charging, and you’d think this were the OnePlus Open 2 that we’ve been waiting so impatiently for.

I’ll also pencil myself in as cautiously optimistic about the Razr Fold’s camera hardware, which features a trio of stacked Sony LYTIA sensors. All three offer 50MP resolutions, with a very wide maximum aperture of ƒ/1.8 on the primary sensor, autofocus down to 3.5cm for macro shooting on the ultrawide sensor, and a 3x optical telephoto sensor for good measure.

Finally, a Motorola update commitment I can respect

All of that hardware stuff is well and good — very good, in fact. Better, though, is what the Razr Fold fixes after years of my asking. It’s finally a Motorola foldable with a flagship-level commitment to updates, just like the Motorola Signature. When the top-end Razr Ultra landed with just three years of Android updates and four years of security coverage, I wasn’t sure I’d ever see Motorola reach for more. However, the Razr Fold adds those digits together for seven years of support on both fronts.

That’s good — really good. With this level of support, Motorola is matching Google and Samsung and outpacing OnePlus. Maybe it won’t beat the foldable iPhone when it launches, but support through 2033 is certainly in the neighborhood of the best Android foldables. And, when book-style foldables still cost north of $1,500 at launch, Motorola needed such a commitment if the Razr Fold were ever going to make an impact.

If we break things down on a per-update basis, I was worried about justifying the cost of Motorola’s debut foldable. We still don’t know the US launch price of the Razr Fold, but I’m hoping it’s around $1,699. That price, when split across what I figured might be four Android updates, comes out to about $425 per update, which isn’t even close to the $285 per update of the Galaxy Z Fold 7 or the $257 of the Pixel 10 Pro Fold.

But now that we know the Razr Fold will get seven years of updates, competition with the best foldables is back on the menu.

And yes, maybe I’m putting the cart before the horse — we don’t know how quickly these updates will land — but we know they’re coming. For me, that’s more than enough peace of mind to welcome Motorola into the world of book-style foldables, even if I’m not sure about repurposing the Razr name.