Motorola just proved it still doesn’t care about Android updates

Motorola and Android updates go together like oil and water. It’s a tale as old as time, and one that everyone in the Android space is certainly familiar with. Whether it’s slow rollout speeds or a lack of long-term update policies, Motorola has always been bad at this.

Because of this, it’s never surprising when Motorola launches new smartphones with poor update support. It’s something we’ve had to get used to over the years, whether we like it or not.

But with the Razr (2026) lineup, I’m completely fed up with Motorola’s inaction. When Motorola raises prices without any improvements — while simultaneously proving it can do better with other phones — I question why anyone who cares about Android still wants anything to do with this company.

Motorola has followed a pretty standard update policy with its Razr phones over the last few years. Since the Razr (2023) series, Motorola has committed to just three years of Android OS upgrades and four years of security updates. While not the worst we’ve ever seen from the company, it’s still not good.

This lacking support has been one of the most clear-cut disadvantages of the Razr lineup since its inception, and with every generation, it’s one of the biggest knocks against Motorola’s foldables.

Yet nothing ever changes. The Razr (2024) series stuck with the same three years of Android updates + four years of security patches. Last year’s 2025 lineup did the same, and so does the latest family of 2026 Razr smartphones.

What’s especially frustrating this time around is that Motorola is asking you to pay more than ever for its Razr foldables while doing absolutely nothing to improve its Android update support. The baseline Razr (2026) and Razr Plus (2026) are both $100 more than last year’s models, costing $800 and $1,100, respectively. The Razr Ultra (2026) sees a whopping $200 price increase, bringing it to $1,500.

Just think about that for a minute. Motorola is asking you to pay $800, $1,100, and $1,500 for its latest Razrs, all while refusing to budge from a measly three years of Android OS updates. And that’s to say nothing of the phones’ spec sheets, which are virtually identical to last year’s Razrs.

Android updates aren’t the end-all, be-all — I’ll be the first to admit that. But that doesn’t excuse what Motorola is doing here. Asking for more than three Android updates on smartphones this expensive shouldn’t be a difficult request. But for whatever reason, Motorola just doesn’t seem to understand that.

Adding to my aggravation is the fact that Motorola seems to know it should do better on this front. Not only that, the company has proven multiple times that it’s perfectly capable of doing so!

But if that’s the case, why in the world are the Razr (2026), Razr Plus (2026), and Razr Ultra (2026) still stuck with only three updates? Why are the Signature and Fold deserving of a seven-year update promise, but the entire Razr (2026) family is not?

This is what makes it so hard for me to trust that Motorola will ever commit to broadly improving how it treats software updates. It’s one thing to offer long-term updates for only two smartphone models. It’s another thing to expand that policy to every phone deserving of it. And I don’t think anyone would argue that foldables ranging from $800 to $1,500 are any less deserving of that seven-year promise than the Signature and Fold.

I love a lot of what Motorola is doing in the Android space, and I think there’s still a lot of good the company can do — the Razr Fold is a prime example. But the good Motorola can do will always be limited so long as it hampers its phones with offensively bad software support.

I’ve complained about Motorola’s update policies for years in articles like this, and with every year that passes, Motorola’s shortcomings become uglier. I’ll always want the company to improve things, but at this stage in 2026, it’s truly inexcusable.