Motorola’s Razr 2025 is making me and my Razr Plus 2023 jealous — and that’s impressive
Regardless of whether you think the Razr Ultra 2025 or the Galaxy Z Flip 6 is the best clamshell foldable, Motorola had a heavy hand in making both devices great. It’s easy to forget that Motorola, not Samsung, pushed the boundaries of flip-style foldables by introducing larger cover screens and more flexible software.
And yet, Samsung clearly got the details right, leveraging its years of experience developing foldables to create Galaxy Z Flip products with superior build quality compared to Motorola Razr phones. That’s part of the reason my Motorola Razr Plus 2023 — a phone I purchased with my own money — didn’t stick. With a fragile hinge and tons of wobble, the Razr Plus 2023 ended up feeling more like a kid’s toy than a Samsung competitor.
Fast-forward two years, and the Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 and Razr Plus 2025 unsurprisingly trounce my old Razr Plus 2023. However, after a closer look, I was shocked to discover that even the base-model Razr 2025 will beat my Razr Plus 2023. If that isn’t a clear indication of Motorola’s progress with foldables, I don’t know what is.
When Motorola first released a base-model Razr, it was a pared-down version of the Plus model with a cover screen that wasn’t very useful and limited functionality overall. Over the past few years, the company has been steadily bringing “Plus” features to the standard Razr, and it’s paying off. The Razr 2025, which costs $699, will handily outperform a Razr Plus 2023 that cost $1,000 just a few years ago.
For me, it starts with what most people would describe as the intangibles. These aren’t things like processor speed, camera quality, or display technology. Instead, they’re build quality, durability, and overall feel — areas that the Razr Plus 2023 struggled so deeply at that it became unusable as a daily driver for me. These are precisely the aspects of the Razr 2025 that are significantly improved.
For starters, Motorola’s hinge quality has come a long way, and this year’s units are now reinforced with titanium as opposed to stainless steel in older units. I’ve yet to try the Razr 2025, but my colleagues tell me that Motorola’s hinge on the 2024 and especially the 2025 models is sturdier and more satisfying, even if not quite on Samsung’s level. Additionally, the Razr 2025 features an IP48 certification, which adds dust resistance — a feature sorely missing in earlier iterations.
As an early adopter who had been burned by subpar build quality on the Motorola Plus 2023, those Razr 2025 improvements are enough to make me consider an upgrade. The thing is, there are plenty more enhancements worth noting. The new 4,500mAh capacity has to be near the top of the list. It’s significantly more than the 3,800mAh inside my Razr Plus 2023, and it’s even more than the Razr Plus 2024 and 2025 offer.
In practice, this should help the Razr 2025 last all day, and the 15W wireless charging speeds will help you power up quickly. That’s up from the 5W available on the Razr Plus 2023.
If that wasn’t enough, we can’t forget that the primary camera on the Razr 2025 is a 50MP, f/1.7 lens that will vastly outperform the 12MP primary sensor on the Razr Plus 2023.
Should we be surprised the new Razr beats a two-year-old phone?
By this point, you might be wondering whether it’s really a shock that the Razr 2025 will crush the Razr Plus 2023 in terms of features and value. After all, the latter is now almost two years old. Believe it or not, the answer is yes, it’s absolutely surprising.
All it takes to prove that is a look at what Apple and Samsung are doing with their budget phones. The iPhone SE is a laughingstock, lacking even MagSafe compatibility, and the Galaxy A56 might be worse — our Android Central editor Harish Jonnalagadda called it “the worst midrange phone” he used this year.
Put simply, companies rarely rush to improve their mid-range and base-model phones. It takes a hungry brand, like Motorola, that’s desperately fighting for market share to do that. It’s remarkable that a $699 foldable released in 2025 can outperform a flagship foldable that’s barely two years old.
As someone who loves the idea of the Motorola Razr Plus 2023 but not the execution, I feel compelled to upgrade to a Razr 2025 series phone. Although it’s easy to want the best, my gut is telling me to pick the Razr 2025 over the Plus and Ultra variants. The base model is a massive upgrade over the Razr I have now, so why wouldn’t I?
The affordable flip phone
The Razr 2025 is a good-looking flip phone that won’t break the bank and offers specs and features that may entice anyone in the market for an affordable foldable. There’s a lot to like about this phone, and it’s one you don’t wanna sleep on.
