Motorola Razr Ultra (2025) Review
Motorola Really Went All Out This Year
To say that Motorola makes the best flip phone on the market wouldn’t be that absurd of a statement right now. With a nearly full-sized external display and some playful materials and colorways, this clamshell phone has evolved a long way since its reimagining of the classic namesake in 2020. While I love a lot of things about the Ultra 2025, there are also some things that made me want to swap back out to a traditional candy bar phone. The big question however is if the biggest and baddest offering from Motorola really warrants the $1299.99 price tag?
Purchase Price: $1,299.99
Form Factor
From a spec sheet standpoint, the Razr Ultra certainly lives up to its Ultra moniker. Motorola doesn’t cut any corners with this top end offering as it utilizes a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset to run Android 15 on here. That’s the current top of the line SOC offering that can’t be bested right now, at least from a hardware perspective on Android. The base model which I have here to review starts at a whopping 16 GB of ram and gives users 512 GB of storage. No microSD card or headphone jack, but that attributes to an extremely uniformed frame layout that of course folds in half. More on that later. The Razr Ultra certainly can hold its own in the Android app realm. I haven’t seen any games or apps run into any difficulties blazing through their functionality during my nearly three months reviewing this phone. While the apps open and run quickly, the phone does run hot with certain applications. It certainly doesn’t do a great job of cooling, but I don’t surmise that was a big priority with Motorola as this isn’t a gaming phone, nor is it a phone I foresee many people using for photo taking as its primary function. Still, I do find the Razr Ultra to be satisfying to use as a main daily driving phone and it should hold over its flagship level performance for at least a couple of years.
The Razr can sit at a 90 degree angle
While the performance of the phone is high-end, it isn’t necessarily top-end as other Android competitors also utilize the same flagship chipset. What potentially sets this Motorola apart is how it uses its flexing body in unison with the powerful SOC. For example, streaming a live Youtube broadcast on the top half of the screen while the bottom half displays the fast-moving chat. Since the Ultra can be propped up at up to a 75 degree angle from the weight of the bottom half of the phone, this does open up a few interesting app scenarios. You have a specialized split-screen mechanic here that is unlike anything a folding phone or a regular slab phone can produce.
I find the hinge on the Ultra to be quite solid. It's smooth to open, and satisfying enough to close. You can snap the hinge back to finish opening the phone like you would in the 2000’s with dumb flip phones, but that is also why the propping position can’t sustain its form too well. While I said it can sit up at a 75 degree angle, it occasionally snaps back into a full form as the hinge wants to stretch out when it's that close to un-flipping. So while it can technically hold at that angle, the user experience isn’t always consistent.
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Main display - Super HD (2992 × 1224) 464 ppi 7.0”
External display - AMOLED 4.0”
Android 15
Snapdragon 8 Elite
16 GB ram
512 GB of storage
4,700 mAh battery
Another quirky way to utilize the Ultra’s flipping hinge is to grip it like a camcorder. With the phone flipped to a 90 degree angle, the camera app will automatically begin recording a video when held in that position. It’s a neat party trick that doesn’t really add much in the form of functionality, but it is fun to just snap the phone shut to end the recording.
Getting The Angles
Speaking of recording, the Razr Ultra has a couple of cameras to talk about. They’re unique in the sense that they’re multi-purpose and somewhat flexible in use cases. The main camera module consists of dual 50 MP sensors. One is a wide f/1.8, and the other is a f/2.0 ultrawide. Both of these cameras are located inside the real estate of the external AMOLED display. The selfie camera is in the traditional spot atop the inner display and it too is a 50 MP, f/2.0 wide sensor.
The main cameras are a part of the external display
Here’s where the whackiness of the Ultra kicks in. Since there’s technically three zones of displays that can simultaneously be used, there’s some fun functionality that is capitalized when the cameras are operating. The external display acts as a “say cheese” signal as a Nick Jr.-like face winks and sticks its tongue out at subjects to entice a smile. This has surprisingly been a huge hit with my son who actually does look right at the camera for some really cute snaps.
On the literal flip side of things, if you prop the phone up in tent mode, the external display utilizes the main cameras into a selfie setup. Due to the placement of this position, it's framed as a low angle shot, but the subject can see themselves on the display as a sort of viewfinder. The operator can use hand gestures to take photos without the need to actually touch the display. That’s beneficial to the frame as it is already set up for the shot. Pressing on the same screen to even shoot from a timer could potentially move the framing of the picture. Motorola has always been a leader in smartphone gestures and while they haven’t advanced it much since the Moto X days, this particular function is quite useful.
I can’t say I find the photo and video taking capabilities on the Razr Ultra to be good, but they’re at least good enough to get by. They’re not terrible and that’s really all the honest praise I have for this setup. In ideal lighting conditions, the phone does fine. Exposure, sharpness, color reproduction, and vibrancy are all quite solid for a flagship phone. The colors are a bit more natural than some competitors on the market, but it leans more towards a yellow white balance by default.
For portrait pics, the detail around a subject’s face and body is at the mercy of Moto AI. It’s usually a miss when it comes to the artificial bokeh. It can occasionally pop out a great picture, but it usually takes a handful of attempts before it locks one down. In a real world scenario, those fleeting moments will have passed in the amount of time it takes to catch a human subject in their best form.
And while the Ultra shoots videos up to 8k@30fps, once again its actual execution and results are mixed. Exposure seems to be the achilles heel for Motorola as its sensors seem to have a hard time determining and maintaining what to expose. If you don’t manually set things for the frame, the camera will darken and lighten the shot quite often in a short period of time while in the same environment. Small movements will make the Moto reconsider its exposure focus and course correct its image.
Battery Power
One positive thing about the Razr Ultra is that it has the biggest battery capacity in the Razr family. With a 4,700 mAh battery, the Ultra can handle a full workday without much issue. Without gaming or streaming, the phone can push out about one and a half days before needing to be plugged in. Ultra charges at a 68W speed plugged in through the USB-C port, but it also has a speedy 30W wireless charging option that actually does make getting the phone back up and running very easy.
By Another Name
The Ultra (2025) is known as the Razr Ultra 60 outside of the USA.
A major contributor to why the Ultra has lasting battery longevity is due to the heavily moderated background app killing that Chinese phone makers are known for. While it's beneficial in keeping the phone lasting longer, I find over aggressive battery managers to be a nuisance. The Razr will take liberties by default with disconnecting Bluetooth peripherals like your smartwatch app, car keys, and other things that need to be running at all times. It takes so much effort to redact all of Motorola’s impedance that I thoroughly feel like my phone is actively plotting to make my life as difficult as possible. As someone who has their smartphone as their lifestyle hub, I absolutely need it to reliably unlock my cars, my home, and keep me connected to my watch. Out of the box, the Razr Ultra does the opposite. I’d much rather smartphone makers let enthusiasts tinker with how much mediation the AI has instead of starting the experience with it by default and making owners dig deep into the settings to disable it.
Display
Finally, let’s get to the main reason why you’re likely purchasing this phone: the displays. I love how the second external display looks. It’s a big full squared display and it’s extremely sharp for what it is. At 4-inches, with a full HD resolution of 1272 x 1980p, it’s plenty sharp to look at thanks to a dense 417 ppi count. The AMOLED panel has great viewing angles and it’s large enough to operate actual apps without it feeling like a joke.
Not all applications will work well in this aspect ratio even though you can force full screen it to fill the entire real estate. The main bump in the road to the user experience are the dual cameras on the bottom right corner. On some apps, the lenses cover vital operational buttons or informative information. You can avoid running into this issue by simply making the cameras merge into a black bar, which cuts the real estate by probably 15% of the screen size. That makes the enjoyment of external display much less immersive and slightly more difficult to navigate menus and text with the more condensed form factor.
While this is one of the largest external displays on a flip phone and the functionality has come a long way from older generations of flip phones, I personally still don’t find much benefit from using it in this manner. Anything other than a quick glance at an email or notification is all I was able to muster my interest with the external display during daily use after a few months with it. Typing on the qwerty keyboard here is doable, but definitely not enjoyable to me at all.
The main display opens up to a full 7-inches
When you flip the phone open, the main viewing display is another AMOLED panel that stretches to 7-inches. It’s a 1224 x 2912 p resolution and slightly sharper pixel density of 464 ppi. I think Motorola has done a terrific job of not only producing a solid stainless steel hinge that feels durable and accommodating, but to have a panel that hides the folding crease so well. When you’re viewing it from straight on, the folding crease isn’t really visible. You have to really move to eye level on the base of the display to see the crease stand out. I also didn’t really notice the dip in the crease when scrolling with my fingertips. I used to have a weird soothing technique where I enjoyed swiping my finger back and forth across the dip of a flip phone’s dividing crease so I know very well how deep a crease used to be on these types of phones. The Ultra 2025 barely has one. It’s almost non-existent.
Like the external display, the viewing experience on the main screen is quite enjoyable. The panel gets decently bright, and the colors do pop well off the screen to make the luxurious price tag feel justified to an extent. It isn’t a phone I would pull out as my go-to for viewing content, but it does good enough for everyday consumption. Unlike a book-folding foldable, a flip phone’s display doesn’t really provide a boost to the viewing experience. You aren’t really getting added viewing space, but what you do get is reduced bulk during transportation.
Build
The Motorola Razr Ultra (2025) is made out of a few different kinds of materials. It has a plastic front body, a Corning Gorilla Glass ceramic glass front, a type of eco leather back panel, an aluminum frame, and it’s held together by that stainless steel hinge. When folded, I’d say it feels like you’re holding a deck of playing cards. It fits in one hand and pretty comfortably into a pant pocket. There’s still a bulk aspect to it that you can’t avoid as it’s still essentially like stacking two slab phones onto each other. Maybe the trade-off in space saved inside a pocket is worth the bit of thickness the Razr brings with it to some people. I’ve come to find it manageable and I do see the appeal now not to have a brick laid out flat across my thigh.
While I really do like the touch and feel of the Razr Ultra, I can’t imagine any owner would run the phone naked. For such an expensive phone, a dent on the hinge will quickly end the phone’s life. I have it cased up and I’m enjoying the premium materials that Motorola has given as an aesthetic identity to the Ultra. It’s a bit of a pity, because the phone feels quite light weight and surprisingly slimmer without a case protecting it. The aluminum frame isn’t slippery at all and the grip is very satisfying to flip and close the smartphone. There’s a side-mounted fingerprint scanner embedded into the power button that is speedy and reliable. The volume rockers are interesting in this layout because when the phone is closed, it’s located below the power button. However, when the phone is flipped open, it’s reversed and the louder button is now the softer button and they’re located above the power. I don’t know why it took me a few days before I realized this, but I thought I was going crazy for a short while.
Final Thoughts
A part of me misses the design language of the original Razr when it first came out of retirement. It actually had some resemblance to the classic dumb flip phone that is so iconic to a whole generation of people. By focusing on expanding the functionality of the external display, the Razr Ultra has lost some of its core identity the last couple of years and I wouldn’t fault anyone for confusing it with some of the other flip phone competitors.
Still, this is a luxury device that provides a luxury experience that many people still have not experienced yet. While flip phones are getting cheaper nowadays, the Moto does have top of the line specs, and elite performance to back it up. The unique materials of the build does distinguish it from other flip phones, but that might not be enough to persuade the masses to pick this phone over even the other cheaper Motorola flip phone options. While I think Motorola has made a fine flip phone, I do think they need to hunker down next year and really think about what makes a flip phone unique and why people would use one over a slab phone other than as a status symbol. There needs to be some killer function that I’m just not seeing in an iteration littered by useless AI marketing.
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