Stylish, slick and hard to justify

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Introduction

On paper, the new Motorola Razr 70 Ultra doesn’t really sound like a huge leap over the phone that came before it.

It has the same chip as the last one, mostly the same design, only a slightly bigger battery, and a price that’s even more so in flagship foldable territory than last year’s model. So, should you even think about buying it?

Because that’s really the question with a phone like this. Foldables are still expensive, and when a new model arrives looking very similar to the old one, with a specs list that doesn’t exactly scream major upgrade, it’s fair to wonder what you’re actually paying for. Is this just a polished version of an already good flip phone, or is there enough here to make it worth choosing over its predecessor?

Let’s dive in. 

Design

• Gorgeous Alcantara finish
• Picks up lint easily
• Comfortable, pocket-friendly shape

It might be quite harsh on the Razr 70 Ultra to say this, but there’s a very strong argument that the design of the latest Razr – in terms of aesthetics and feel – is the only reason to buy it. After all, if you can find last year’s Ultra model cheaper, you’re really not going to be losing out on all that much of anything else. 

Still, it’s hard not to be smitten by this thing, particularly in this Alcantara-clad Pantone Orient Blue variant. It’s pretty stunning. It’s a rich, deep blue purple colour, which reminds me quite a lot of grape soda – and has a texture on the back that’s both visually interesting and feels good sat in the palm. It’s almost velvet-like in texture, but not quite. 

That texture – specifically the grooves and channels – does have a bit of a downside. It means the back is very eager to gather little bits of dust and lint, crumbs, and any other microdebris you happen to have in your pockets, on your desk, or in your hand. Perhaps a good thing then that it also comes with a colour-matched case coated in a safer, leather-like texture. 

But even that case isn’t perfect. Like so many foldable phone cases, it relies on small adhesive pads dotted around the inside to hold it in place. And if you’re happy with never ever removing the case, that’s not a problem. It holds the phone securely. 

However, as soon as I removed it to film, most of those adhesive pads ended up staying attached to the phone rather than the case, pulling them off and ruining the case in the process. Making that case, for the most part, unusable. So yeah, not great. 

Another minor thing is that there appears to be enough of a gap between the two halves of the display that dust, fluff and pocket detritus can get into the main display, which then collects around the outside of the protective film on the screen when you wipe it off.

Add in the rough-textured metal rings around the protruding camera, which – yep, you guessed it – also love scraping up bits of fluff and dust, and you have a phone that really, really likes to get covered in lint. 

Before this review starts to sound a bit too negative though, I will say that I’m a big fan of its pocketable, palm-friendly design. The curved edges mean it doesn’t have the sharp, uncomfortable feel that many other modern phones have. So that’s a big win.  

And it’s lightweight enough that it’s easy to ignore when carried and – because it’s quite narrow – relatively easy to use one-handed. That narrow nature won’t be optimal for everyone for other reasons, which I’ll get into when I talk about displays. 

Otherwise, it feels well-made and solid enough that I rarely felt the need to be precious over it. The hinge is a little springy, so it won’t hold at a lot of different angles before wanting to snap open or shut. But it’s built from some durable materials like titanium and has IP48 dust and water resistance, so it should be just about okay if it gets caught in the rain or dropped in the sink. 

Screens

• Narrow inner display
• Excellent cover screen
• Bright but reflective panels

The puzzling thing about the latest Razr’s display is that, instead of following Samsung’s example and reducing the long, narrow feel of the folding panel, Motorola has stuck with one that still looks and feels quite narrow.  

As an example, the Galaxy Z Flip 7 has a 21:9 ratio, where the Razr 70 Ultra is closer to 22:9. So if you do watch video (whether vertical or horizontal), you’ll either be cropped in and chopping off quite large sections of video, or watching with significant pillar boxing or letterboxing black panels on the sides. Unless, of course, you only watch narrower format footage. 

Then there’s the added quirk of software and app interface spacing and text size being a little on the small side, with too much spacing between elements on screen. I noticed it particularly when going out to shoot video and photos. Because that area for shooting photos is a more square 4:3 ratio, it fills much more of the screen on the Samsung display. 

It also means that if your hands are on the larger side – like mine – typing on the virtual keyboard will feel a little more cramped than I would like. Not to the point of being unusable, but enough to feel a little unnatural. But it does mean that, in a bit of a switch around from a couple of years ago, it’s the Samsung alternative that’s the more comfortable to use. 

As far as display panels go, it’s pretty bright. Motorola claims up to 5000 nits peak, but as always, it’s worth remembering a peak brightness claim typically only means one pixel could theoretically get to that brightness in specific HDR scenes, in very bright conditions. Of greater importance is the overall panel brightness, which also happens to be good enough in most conditions. 

In ambient indoor conditions, with auto brightness enabled, it rarely climbs above 50% of its maximum brightness. Of course, it will ramp up the brighter it gets. 

The only problem is the same as with almost every other folding phone. It’s coated in a plastic film, which is pretty reflective and makes it harder to see when it’s got light glaring on it than with a traditional, rigid glass-screened smartphone. It’s also not the most optically clear, so it has something of a grey look when the screen is off. 

Still, colours are rich and vibrant – a bit too saturated and unnatural in its vivid mode – but you can tone it down and choose a natural setting if you want. And because it’s got an LTPO panel that reaches as high as 165Hz for gaming, it’s also fluid, smooth and responsive in most settings. So generally a great display as long as you avoid reflections. 

The cover screen is similarly bright and vibrant, and like the bigger folding screen, it can hit impressive high and low refresh rates to stay smooth, and ensure that battery drain is minimal when the screen isn’t animating, or when using the standby or always-on function. 

It is – still – the Razr’s biggest selling point, thanks to how the software is built for that external screen. It’s easy to use and navigate, and when you want to load an app on that outer screen, it just works, for the most part. There’s not much messing around with settings or customisation or needing to install additional features to make it work. 

It also shines as a selfie mirror, letting you easily frame and set up shots using the primary and ultrawide cameras instead of the poorer internal camera. 

It’s great for replying to messages, navigating in Google Maps, and playing little casual mini-games. Just an all-round great experience for this type of device. And being able to switch between full-screen and partial-screen coverage with a simple long press is super convenient. 

It’s not really any noticeably different to the last model though, so as I’m probably going to say more than once in this review, you could get a very similar experience going with the Razr 60 Ultra from last year, and spend less doing so. Presuming it’s still available for sale where you are. 

Putting it side by side with the Samsung alternative, it now looks like Samsung has made more use of that front cover space, with skinnier bezels around the cover screen than Motorola does. 

Still, I like it a lot. And combined with the tactile, pleasant feel of the Alcantara on the back, means it’s just a delight to use every day for casual, quick tasks. With the added functionality that turns it into a desk clock and assistant of sorts, there’s plenty you can do with it. 

Software

• Clean, near-stock interface
• Moto AI feels clunky
• Limited foldable software tricks

Motorola’s software, as always, is what I would probably call quite vanilla. The interface, quick settings and main settings aren’t too dissimilar to what you’d find on Google’s own Pixel phones. 

That does mean there’s very little in the way of bloat, and the customisation options mean you can get it looking and feeling the way you want it to without too much trouble. 

Moto AI is present again, and – again – I found very little use for it. To me, using the feature felt clunky, and every task you’d want it to do, whether that’s remembering what’s on screen or summarising your notifications, needed more steps and tapping the screen than should be necessary. Especially in an era when smartphone AI is supposed to reduce the number of steps required to do anything. 

You can also activate a feature that activates Moto AI on your cover screen when it’s partially folded on your desk in tent mode or stand mode. The only problem is that I didn’t find a single reason or use case where it made my life any easier. It can’t do all that much, and it doesn’t even have the functionality to set reminders. So in the end, it’s probably best to just stick with Gemini, Perplexity, or ChatGPT for an AI action. 

Similarly, Motorola’s software doesn’t particularly make the most of the display’s flexibility. Where Samsung offers a trackpad mode when you partially fold the display upwards, to navigate the top half of the screen, Motorola doesn’t. Apart from apps like YouTube, which have it built into the app. 

Still, I’m a fan of Motorola’s clean interface and software. I just wish they didn’t feel the need to clamber on the AI bandwagon for the sake of it and offer very little of value. 

Cameras 

• Good daylight performance
• Strong colours, warm tones
• Weak zoom beyond 2x

When it comes to any foldable phone, it’s always best to temper expectations as to what you can expect from the cameras. They might be quite expensive phones, but because of limited space, they will not have the biggest sensors and lenses available. Especially not these compact, fun flip-style phones where compactness is key. 

So you won’t get the same versatility or quality as you’d find on something like the Vivo X300 Ultra or Oppo Find X9 Ultra. Even compared to less niche phones like the Galaxy S26, the cameras are a little lacking, but I suspect more than good enough for most people who just need to know their photos will come out sharp and colour-rich. 

Like so much of this phone, the camera makeup is largely the same as before. It’s a dual-camera system with a primary wide camera joined by an ultrawide. And, as is typical, that main sensor is bigger and very pixel dense, so that if you do decide you want to zoom in to about 2x zoom, you’re not going to lose much in the way of detail or quality. 

On the whole, at least when shot under bright conditions, images generally look sharp. And – for the most part – I found that colours and contrast were generally consistent when comparing the results between the two different cameras. 

They’re very colour-rich too and have a pleasantly warm summery tone, with saturated blues and greens. And it’s really good to see that when HDR kicks in, it doesn’t aggressively lift the shadows. It keeps them quite dark, so that the image still has some contrast. 

I primarily shot photos and video in its default, zero-filter mode, and in a neutral setting it’s very vibrant and colour-rich. Particularly from the primary camera. But I was genuinely very happy with most of the shots taken with that lens. They’re sharp and attractive, with enough pop and warmth to share on social media. The utlrawide is decent enough too, although that does tend to over-expose a little more. 

There’s no zoom lens, of course, and so you’re pretty much limited to 2x zoom if you want any form of zoomed-in shot. At that focal length – roughly the equivalent of 48mm – pictures still have that lively, sharp, colourful look. But as soon as you get past that, even at 4x and 10x, the AI processing has to kick in quite a lot – and ends up creating quite a soft, oil-painting-like texture. 

And I sometimes found the primary lens struggled to focus on small objects within a few centimetres of the lens, prompting a switch to a poorer-quality macro mode. I found it best in those situations to take a little step back, hit the 2x zoom button and shoot from further away. 

My only real criticism is white balance. I mentioned that images can be quite warm, which is usually fine. But kick into video mode, and that seems to be cranked up a notch, and ends up making everything look just a bit too red. 

As for the internal selfie camera, it’s fine when needed, but it’s noticeably paler and grainier than the other cameras. To the point where I’d suggest maybe not using it unless you absolutely have to on video calls, etc. 

At night time, you can make use of the night mode, which does a solid job of keeping footage blur-free, clean and in focus. Again, the colours are vibrant, and if you want to take a selfie with the front cameras, it will light up the display to illuminate your face, ensuring you can get a good photo. 

Performance

• Same Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset
• Still very fast
• Beats current Flip rivals

Those who follow phones closely will already know (and have an opinion) that Motorola’s latest flip-style Razr Ultra model has the same processor as its predecessor, the Razr 60 Ultra. 

We’ve become so accustomed to each new generation of an Android phone having the next, upgraded version of whatever series chipset is in the previous one, that it comes as something of a shock that Motorola decided not to bother. 

And, while it’s true that there’s not much of an upgrade on last year’s model, that doesn’t tell the whole story. Because, at the time of launch, it’s still the most powerful flip-style foldable you can get in Western markets. 

Its higher-clocked main cores mean it’s ever so slightly more performant than the Razr 60 Ultra that came before. And using objective benchmarking scores like Geekbench and 3D Mark’s CPU, GPU and graphics tests, it comfortably outperforms Samsung’s Z Flip 7. But that likely won’t be the case for much longer, with the upgraded Flip 8 expected within the next few months.

Battery Life

• Solid all-day battery
• Fast 68W hargign
• Aggressive background management

Battery life is pretty solid too, thanks to the 5000mAh battery inside. It’s up slightly from the last model, and still comfortably more than what you’ll find on the Samsung equivalent. 

I’m a pretty light user and never struggled to get through a full day. It’s not that far off being a two-day phone for me, which suggests that even more demanding users who are on their phone all the time would still manage a full day. You might just find it hits that 20% red zone before bedtime, but it’s still more capable of lasting a full day than Samsung’s equivalent. 

Part of that is down to the aggressive software management of background tasks and apps. It defaults to what it calls ‘Smart’ management, which somewhat restricts background use to prevent apps like WhatsApp or widgets that need constant background refreshing from draining the battery too much. 

The only downside is that I’ve found notifications from apps like WhatsApp can end up being a bit delayed. So if you want to avoid that, you can choose to have specific apps unrestricted. This is vital if you have any fitness or smartwatch apps that need constant connection and access to your smartwatch. 

Still, I can’t say battery anxiety was ever a problem, but Motorola still gives you properly fast charging speeds with the Razr 70 Ultra anyway. It can accept 68W speeds from a compatible charger, and with my Anker Prime 140W adapter, which easily meets those speeds, it only took 20 minutes to do a 50% top-up and completed a full recharge in just over 50 minutes. 

That’s the kind of convenience that lets you plug it in while you shower, get dressed, eat, and be ready to go out or go to work with enough juice to last the day. 

If you’re more of an overnight charger, it’s got battery protections in place to make sure it’s fully topped up by the time you wake up, without trickle charging or damaging the battery.

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Should you buy it?