I spent 7 days with the Razr Fold, and this is the best thing about it

Whether the Motorola Razr Fold intrigues or leaves you skeptical probably comes down to hardware. The large 8.1-inch main screen, active stylus support, and silicon-carbon battery are all ticks in favor of the Razr Fold, while the non-Elite chip, 243-gram weight, and IP49 dust-resistance could be cause for concern.

I expected one of those aspects of the Razr Fold’s hardware to influence my feelings toward or against the foldable during my first full week using the device as my daily driver. Instead, the Razr Fold is starting to win me over with something you won’t find anywhere on the spec sheet — superb multitasking software.

Motorola’s take on Android 16 is quite similar to Google’s, but the Razr Fold emphasizes multitasking in ways you won’t find on a Galaxy Z Fold or a Pixel Fold. It’s the first foldable that constantly reminds me of the value of carrying a thicker, heavier, and pricier smartphone in my pocket each day.

I was an early adopter of foldables, purchasing the Galaxy Z Flip 3 and Galaxy Z Fold 4 each on release day, but I’ve soured on them lately. Despite testing review units of the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold and the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, I wasn’t tempted to make either my daily driver. I didn’t feel like I used the main screen enough to justify the extra bulk or the inflated price that comes with owning big-screen foldables. It’s because habits are hard to break, and you’ll find yourself using foldables like big traditional phones, unless you actively seek out smarter ways to multitask or be productive.

The Motorola Razr Fold offers many of the same Android 16 multitasking features available on other foldables. These include the taskbar and 90:10 split views, as well as speedy app launching and switching. What’s unique about the Razr Fold’s multitasking software is how the operating system gently pushes you to use these features. For example, if you swipe between two apps a few times, the Razr Fold will display a “Open in split screen mode” pop-up. Tapping it immediately brings up your two most recently used apps in a 50:50 split.

From there, you can touch and drag the slider between the two apps to adjust the ratio. This makes it easy to activate the 90:10 split-screen mode, which lets you quickly tap to switch between apps. Again, there’s nothing inherently special about Motorola’s split-screen views compared to Google or Samsung’s options. The difference is in how they’re presented to the user, because I haven’t been able to replicate split view suggestions on my Pixel 9 Pro Fold or Galaxy Z Fold 7.

In other words, a Pixel or Galaxy foldable offers multitasking features you have to consciously go out of your way to use, while the Razr Fold always nudges you to use them. This might sound like a tiny distinction, but as a longtime foldable user, it’s everything. You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to use a large foldable for days or weeks without using multitasking features. That all changes when a device like the Razr Fold constantly reminds you that they’re available.

Another way the Razr Fold pushes you to multitask is by automatically opening links in split-screen view in certain apps, like Gmail or Google Messages. Tap a link, and rather than taking up the entire main screen, the Razr Fold will open Chrome in a 50:50 split with the app you were initially using. Pixel foldables automatically do this as well, but Galaxy foldables oddly do not.

Aside from the pop-up suggestions, the Razr Fold’s taskbar app drawer is more compact than those on the Pixel or Galaxy. It doesn’t block the entire app you’re using, which can be helpful when trying to find the app you want to add to a split-screen layout. Similarly, the Razr Fold’s app switcher has a split-screen button for each app, whereas Samsung and Google hide the button in a submenu behind each app’s name or icon.

It’s like Motorola took the already excellent Pixel 10 Pro Fold’s multitasking system and made it even better. If you know anything about Motorola’s Hello UI Android skin, that shouldn’t be too surprising. The result is a Razr Fold user experience that helps you get more value out of your foldable with intuitive multitasking flows.

The Razr Fold’s software blew me away, but the processor was one concern I had before getting my hands on it. Motorola’s first big-screen foldable starts at $1,899, and while you get 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage to justify that price, the chip is important too. On the inside is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 mobile platform — not the “Elite” version expected to appear in the Galaxy Z Fold 8. As it turns out, the Razr Fold’s performance wasn’t a cause for concern.

For one, there wasn’t anything I threw at the Razr Fold that it couldn’t handle. I wrote articles, listened to music, watched videos, and played games on the foldable and didn’t notice any sluggishness. That shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone, since smartphone chips have been capable of handling all but the most strenuous tasks for a while now.

The question is really how it compares to the Tensor G5 and the Snapdragon 8 Elite currently powering Google and Samsung foldables, and the answer is about what you’d expect. The Razr Fold performs better than the Pixel 10 Pro Fold and worse than the Galaxy Z Fold 7 on Geekbench 6, posting a 2,606 single-core score and an 8,690 multi-core score. Benchmarks aren’t everything, but this one did give me more confidence in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5’s ability to power a high-end foldable.

Everyone’s talking about the silicon-carbon battery inside the Razr Fold, and for good reason. The 6,000mAh battery capacity translates to incredible runtime. Foldable battery life typically varies based on how frequently you use the main display, but I’ve yet to run out of battery on the Razr Fold before the day ends. If I ever do need to recharge, the 80W wired charging support ensures it won’t take long to power up. This solves a gripe I had with the Galaxy Z Fold 7 — it was a joy to use, but it absolutely burned through battery life.

The Motorola Razr Fold doesn’t have a tiny camera bump, but it does pack a trio of 50MP lenses in the square housing. The primary 50MP Sony LYTIA camera sensor shouldn’t be viewed as a downgrade compared to the 200MP sensor on the Galaxy Z Fold 7. While the Samsung foldable has a higher megapixel count, the Motorola foldable has much larger pixels. This typically improves low-light performance, and the Razr Fold still offers the flexibility to shoot either 50MP or binned 12MP photos.

The secondary cameras are a 50MP ultrawide lens with a 122-degree field of view and a 50MP telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom. The telephoto lens particularly impressed me, providing incredible detail even beyond its optical zoom range. The colors seemed to change as I zoomed in, however.

The Razr Fold has two selfie cameras, but they aren’t equal. The main display has a 32MP front-facing camera, while the cover screen has a 20MP camera. Putting the better selfie camera on the inside is an interesting choice — it might make the Razr Fold better for video calls. I try to use them both as little as possible, because I see using the rear cameras for selfies as one of the best perks of daily driving a foldable.

Make no mistake — the Razr Fold is not perfect. The 243-gram weight is the most notable drawback, with the large camera bump making the Razr Fold top-heavy coming in as a close second. Still, it seems to have grabbed enough features from each of the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Pixel 10 Pro Fold to be a compelling alternative to both. The Motorola Razr Fold offers performance and thinness similar to a Samsung foldable, while also providing the software and battery life like a Google foldable.

That might even be selling the Razr Fold short, because this foldable looks like the multitasking and battery life champion. It’s the first foldable that’s excited me to open it in years, and that counts for something.