Motorola Razr 2025 Review: It's Got the Look

Pros

• Style
• Cover screen for knocking out quick tasks
• Photo processing

Cons

• Less power than comparably priced phones
• Moto AI is developing
• Shorter software update timeline

• Motorola Razr 2025 Review: It's Got the Look
• Motorola Razr design and hardware
• Motorola Razr (2025) vs. Samsung Galaxy S24 FE vs. Google Pixel 9A benchmarks
• Motorola Razr (2025) vs. Samsung Galaxy S24 FE, Google Pixel 9A battery tests
• Motorola Razr cameras
• Motorola AI and software support
• Motorola Razr: Bottom line
• Motorola Razr (2025) specs vs. Motorola Razr Plus (2025), Motorola Razr Ultra
• How we test phones

The $700 Motorola Razr's standout feature is its most obvious: how cute it looks sitting folded on a table when you are out dining with friends at a restaurant. While everyone else places their traditional rectangle phones facedown on the table to disconnect -- and then occasionally flip them over to sneak peeks at the display -- the Razr can sit folded into a more compact square with its cover screen facing up for quick glances at notifications.

The unfolded Razr works more like a traditional Android phone, with certain enhancements when folded like a stand.

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And indeed, the Razr served as a talking point at nearly any activity I went to over the long weekend. From an outdoor dinner with friends to a concert at a brewery, my companions were impressed that a mini phone with a 3.6-inch display exists when every other flat smartphone has a screen that's double the size. And even though this smaller display isn't nearly as functional as the unfolded 6.9-inch one inside, I received way more "That's so cool" remarks when texting on the more diminutive screen.

This says a lot about how Motorola has refined the Razr flip phone design, which is now strengthened by a titanium hinge and made even flashier with a variety of Pantone-certified colors. The leather-inspired finish on my Spring Bud green review unit has a tactile texture that's an even nicer touch than the metal and glass on most handsets.

The back of this Razr has a leather-like finish that feels grippy.

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So in a showroom with other phones that cost about $700, it's without question that the Razr would stand out in the looks department. But for power, it's clear that lower-priced options from Google and Samsung run circles around the Razr in performance and software support. And if having the best of either is a priority, the Razr is simply not for you.

Rather, the Razr's value comes from the flexibility that its two screens provide and the substantially lower price you can get it compared with more expensive alternatives from Motorola itself and Samsung, like the $1,300 Motorola Razr Ultra, $1,000 Razr Plus and $1,100 Galaxy Z Flip 6. If it's the look you want most, the new Motorola Razr is certainly functional enough to make it a fun option rather than a powerful one.

Motorola Razr's music controls on the cover screen.

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Motorola Razr design and hardware

A lot of my feelings about this year's Razr match up with the 2024 model, and it would be quite understandable if you felt like they were interchangeable. The new 2025 Razr has a similar 3.6-inch cover screen with a 90Hz refresh rate, 6.9-inch internal display with a 120Hz refresh rate and seemingly identical cameras, dimensions and weight. 

And similarly to how my colleague Abrar Al-Heeti felt about last year's Razr, I found the cover screen to be great for quickly checking texts, map directions and playing music, but it simply isn't big enough for more tasks beyond that. Motorola does allow you to run any Android app on this display, but your mileage will vary regarding their functionality with less screen real estate. For instance, using Meta's Messenger app was great for sending quick texts during my commuting on the cover screen, but Instagram scrolling is nearly impossible without unfolding the phone to use the larger inner display. The Libby library app for books and audiobooks won't open at all, but YouTube videos play just fine. I got Sonic Mania Plus to run rather well, giving me Game Boy Advance SP vibes.

Playing Sonic Mania Plus on the cover screen feels like using Nintendo's Game Boy.

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The Razr's body durability has improved with an IP48 rating for water and dust resistance compared with last year's IPX8 rating, which means it can survive being submerged in at least 1 meter of water for 30 minutes and can resist solid particles greater than one millimeter. This matches the Galaxy Z Flip 6's rating and, even though smaller particles can still get in, it's good to see that Motorola's cheaper foldable phone can now match up on durability. That rating comes with an improved hinge design, and its corresponding crease on the interior screen feels like such a small indentation that I barely notice it.

The Razr's MediaTek Dimensity 7400X processor provides a small increase of power over last year's Razr, with the phone scoring just slightly higher in the Geekbench 6.0 test for computational performance. But across both Geekbench 6.0 and the more graphics-intensive 3DMark Wild Life Extreme test, the Razr also scores well below similarly priced non-folding phones, including the $499 Google Pixel 9A and the $650 Samsung Galaxy S24 FE. In real-life use, I found the Razr capable of running most apps and even multitasked quite well between them. Light gaming is also fine, but the Razr won't be the best option for running games at higher graphics settings.

The interior 6.9-inch display runs at a 120Hz refresh rate.

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The Razr's 4,500-mAh battery and 30-watt wired charging speed do fare quite well though. Most of my testing days included about 4 hours of screen time with the phone, and the battery would still have about 30% left. When running our wired charging test, the Razr recharged from 0% to 68% in 30 minutes. The Razr also includes wireless charging at 15 watts, roughly half the wired speed. The battery also held steady with the Galaxy S24 FE in our YouTube streaming drain test, diminishing from 100% to 81% after three hours of streaming a test video with the display at maximum brightness and refresh rate.

The Razr has a 50-megapixel wide camera and a 13-megapixel ultrawide camera embedded within the cover screen.

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Motorola Razr cameras

A major perk of Motorola's Razr phones is the ability to use the 50-megapixel wide camera and 13-megapixel ultrawide camera to take photos of myself in their folded configuration and pictures of others while unfolded. A 32-megapixel camera on the internal screen also takes photos, but is best for video calls.

I found the photography capability to match up with what I expect from pictures taken by other phones in the $500 to $700 price range. This means the shots the Razr takes do look good, and the processor is capable of smoothing out low-light photography, but there are definitely moments where you can see some missing details.

For instance, I photographed this chicken curry dish as the sun was setting above my outdoor dining table. Despite the diminishing light, the 50-megapixel wide camera captured a reasonable amount of detail in the fading light, including flecks of spice and some of the thick texture of the curry sauce around the edges of the bowl. 

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Chicken curry dish photographed on the Motorola Razr.

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I took a few photos of the twilight street corner from our table, using the wide lens for a standard shot, the ultrawide for a 0.5x wide angle and a 2x zoom shot that uses digital zoom because the phone lacks a telephoto lens. Motorola's AI is doing some work on these low-light photos, which for the wide and ultrawide helps cut down on image noise for each. The 2x isn't so lucky, but it's still serviceable.

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Street corner taken on the wide camera on the Motorola Razr.

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The wide-lens photo balances several different light sources, reducing their glare while also smoothing out the lettering of the signs across the street from me, which is quite good in low light.

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Street corner taken on the Motorola Razr's wide camera at 2x zoom.

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The 2x photo -- taken on the wide lens and cropped -- is consistent with this section of the frame in the 1x. The colors are balanced, but we're not going to get additional detail apart from enhancements from the photo processing software.

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Street view taken on the Motorola Razr's 13-megapixel ultrawide camera.

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The ultrawide photo is noticeably dimmer than the wide lens, with more pronounced glare and blurrier textures. But you could also say the image is more accurate to the darkened setting than the wide lens.

Like many phones, the Razr can get more details in environments with better lighting. For instance, this photo was taken in the back of a crowded brewery during a concert and, despite there being a lot of movement in real life, there is very little -- if any -- motion blur.

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Crowd photo taken on the Motorola Razr's wide camera.

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I also did a selfie test with the internal 32-megapixel camera while unfolded and the external camera while folded. Both photos look fine, but there's a pronounced difference in the colors -- whether that's provided by the higher-megapixel lens or the processing software -- that makes the external camera's photo pop more.

A self-taken photo using the 32-megapixel camera on the internal screen at CNET's New York office.

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A self-taken photo using the 50-megapixel wide camera while the Razr is folded closed.

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Motorola's AI scene detection is turned on by default, which applies enhancements and color tuning assisted by the company's Photo Enhancement Engine. I'm quite impressed by Moto AI's photo processing work, as several of these environments often create image noise. Motorola's Signature Style, which allows for more manual control of the look of a photo, wasn't available during my review period but is coming in a future update.

You can activate Moto AI by waving your hand in front of the screen while the Razr is folded over like a tent.

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Motorola AI and software support

The 2025 Razr phones are debuting the Moto AI assistant, which has an appealing idea on paper: Motorola partnered with Perplexity, Meta's Llama AI and Microsoft Copilot to power an assortment of features. But it's clear that these features are early in their integration and, in some cases, will require a longer period of use to fully evaluate how helpful they'll be for the average Razer owner.

I do like how easy Motorola has made it to access Moto AI. It can be summoned in a few ways: by double-tapping the power button, found from the app drawer's search box, or you can wave your hand in front of the phone when it's folded into a tent or a stand. At this stage, when using it as a voice assistant, it's able to handle the summarization of search results, but it's not great at making them actionable. For instance, Moto AI was great for answering a variety of questions I had about the new Doom: The Dark Ages game, including my follow-ups about the release date, how to cloud stream it over Xbox Game Pass, and even described for me the early release window for those who preorder that access.

Text-based advice works best with Moto AI, including citing where the data comes from.

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But when I want something that cannot be answered via text, Moto AI appears to be limited at this stage. For instance, when my friends began discussing actor Jonathan Bailey, and one person didn't know what he looked like, asking Moto AI to pull up a photo instead led the AI to produce a long written dialog about how there are so many photos of Jonathan Bailey available on the internet. Google's Gemini AI is also available by pressing and holding the power button, and the same request resulted in Gemini pulling up a single photo of the actor that I can show my friend.

Moto AI's other features are about saving and organizing data. Remember This lets you save information that's on your screen for review later, which I used to save highlights of my research for an apartment cleaning service as well as air fryer recipes. The Pay Attention feature serves as a combination voice recorder and transcriber. And Catch Me Up -- the feature I used the most of these -- summarizes text notifications from apps like Meta's Messenger and WhatsApp. 

The search box in the app drawer doubles up as a way to use Moto AI.

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Moving away from AI, the Razr otherwise features a fairly clean edition of Android 15, with the usual Moto customizations like gestures for turning on the flashlight with a chop motion or twisting the phone to open the camera. Motorola does include some junk software, such as an additional news feed in the app drawer. But all of that is easy to turn off or delete. 

As is my usual complaint with Motorola, the Razr falls short against similarly priced devices in software support. It will only get three years of major software updates and four years of security updates, which is far short of the seven years that Samsung and Google provide to phones in this price range. While the equivalent phones from Samsung and Google don't fold, it's an important trade-off to be aware of. And even though Samsung's Z Flip 6 is substantially more expensive, it is getting seven years of software updates. 

It's largely up to your preference. If you see yourself wanting a new phone after four years, then the Razr could still be fine. However, if you want to use your next phone until it's truly broken and you want it for about $700, you might want to consider one of the non-folding alternatives.

The Moto AI menu on the Razr.

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Motorola Razr: Bottom line

The $700 Motorola Razr easily gets by on its looks and its novelty factor. With bold Pantone colors, improved durability and the convenience of being able to use its cover screen for quick tasks, this edition of the Razr will be great for essential tasks. Plus its camera can capture a lot of detail in most lighting environments and Moto AI's photo processing can lend an assist in more challenging lowlight locations.

But by putting style first, this Razr does fall short against comparably priced phones when it comes to processing power and even shorter in software longevity. The Razr simply won't be for you if you value these elements of a brand-new phone, and you'd be better off with the $499 Google Pixel 9A or the $650 Samsung Galaxy S24 FE.

However, the Razr is undeniably fun to use, and its $700 price is the lowest currently available for a brand-new flip-style foldable phone in the US. So if it's that style and flexibility you're after most, it's then easy to recommend the Razr as a way to get it. 

How we test phones

Every phone tested by CNET's reviews team was actually used in the real world. We test a phone's features, play games and take photos. We examine the display to see if it's bright, sharp and vibrant. We analyze the design and build to see how it is to hold and whether it has an IP-rating for water resistance. We push the processor's performance to the extremes using standardized benchmark tools like GeekBench and 3DMark, along with our own anecdotal observations navigating the interface, recording high-resolution videos and playing graphically intense games at high refresh rates.

All the cameras are tested in a variety of conditions, from bright sunlight to dark indoor scenes. We try out special features like night mode and portrait mode and compare our findings against similarly priced competing phones. We also check out the battery life by using it daily as well as running a series of battery drain tests.

We take into account additional features like support for 5G, satellite connectivity, fingerprint and face sensors, stylus support, fast charging speeds and foldable displays, among others that can be useful. We balance all of this against the price to give you the verdict on whether that phone, whatever price it is, actually represents good value. While these tests may not always be reflected in CNET's initial review, we conduct follow-up and long-term testing in most circumstances.