5 Android phones you should buy instead of the Motorola Razr Fold

There’s a lot to get excited about here, including the large 8.1-inch 2K LTPO display with pen support, the 6,000mAh battery with 80W of fast charging, and a triple 50MP camera setup with a main lens, an ultrawide, and a 3x telephoto. But, despite Motorola’s pedigree in the Razr clamshell line-up, this is still its first foray into larger foldables, and there are concerns about the Razr Fold’s crease, the real performance of those cameras, and whether the software optimization is just as good for a larger screen as it is for a smaller one.

You might not want to splurge the full $1,900 asking price on the Razr Fold’s unproven track record, so here are five other options you should consider before buying Motorola’s first book-style foldable.

If you’re in the market for a book-style foldable, your first option on the list should be the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7. It’s the thinnest and lightest phone in this category in the US market, and it comes as the seventh-generation foldable from a company that has mastered the category so far.

Whereas I have many questions around Motorola’s unproven software for larger foldables, Samsung has been refining One UI to adapt it to foldables and offer optimized multitasking and a seamless transition between closed, open, tent, and laptop mode, as well as some other unique Fold-only features.

The Galaxy Z Fold 7 also packs a more powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 in the Motorola Razr, a 200MP main sensor, and Ultra-wideband, even though it loses a bit in terms of display brightness, charging speeds, battery capacity, and telephoto lens resolution. Motorola’s foldable also supports pen input, whereas Samsung’s doesn’t. But when you consider that Samsung’s foldable has been out for a while and often drops to $1600, $300 cheaper than the Razr Fold, these small differences become easier to disregard.

Look, on paper, there shouldn’t be many reasons to consider Google’s foldable over Motorola’s Razr Fold. But hear me out for a second.

Focusing on the negatives first, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold is a heavier and slightly thicker phone. Its display is not as bright, its Tensor G5 processor is not as performing, its battery is smaller and charges slower, and its ultrawide and telephoto lenses don’t compare to the 50MP setup on the Razr Fold. But, it does have some redeeming qualities.

For one, this is the only foldable with a proper dust resistance rating of IP68, whereas Motorola has kept the dust ingress of the Razr Fold at level 4. For a phone with moving hinge parts that can be easily damaged by a speck of dust, this is crucial. I don’t fear anything carrying my Pixel 10 Pro Fold all the time, but with other foldables, I used to babysit where I placed them and avoided lint-filled pockets all the time. Google also offers Qi2 charging with built-in magnets, Ultra-wideband, Satellite connectivity in emergencies, and a whole suite of unique software features like car crash detection, assisted calling features, and more.

It also helps to look at pricing. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold often drops to $1,500, sometimes even $1,400. That makes it $400 to $500 cheaper than the Motorola Razr Fold. Plus, it means you get all the brand-new Android features and updates immediately.

If you love Motorola and want to stick with the brand, perhaps the most judicious question you should ask yourself is whether or not you want a book-style foldable. Sure, they’re nice when you open them up and have a larger screen at your disposal, but what if you went the other way around? The Razr Ultra (2026) is a phone that packs up even smaller, so you can put it in the tiniest of jeans pockets.

The Razr Ultra is obviously lighter and more compact than the Fold, packs a very bright display, runs a better Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, and starts at 512GB of storage with 16GB of RAM, which is the higher, more expensive tier of the Razr Fold. The two phones share a lot of the same, or equivalent DNA, too, with similar cam setups (minus the telephoto that is absent on the Ultra), charging speeds, and battery technologies.

What tips the balance in the Ultra’s favor is that Motorola has mastered the art of the clamshell. Its software has been impeccably optimized for the smaller outer display over many years and iterations. Plus, it is significantly cheaper than the Fold, starting at $1,500.

Even though I love carrying my foldable almost everywhere, it’s not my primary phone for a reason: It is too uncomfortable to use as a main device all day long. This is why I recommend anyone looking at book-style foldables really think about their use cases and whether or not they’re willing to sacrifice the convenience of a phone for the limited perks of a small tablet.

In that case, my recommendation would go to Samsung’s latest and greatest — the Galaxy S26 Ultra. You get the best processor out there in the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, a powerful 200MP main lens with two telephoto lenses and an ultrawide, an IP68 rating, and a built-in stylus without having to pay for it. Plus, there’s that fancy new Privacy Display that hides parts or all of your screen from curious eyes.

If you’d rather skip foldables, the Galaxy S26 Ultra can save you a lot of money and still give you an excellent smartphone experience. It often drops to $1,000, sometimes even $950, which is half the price of the Razr Fold sans pen, i.e., practically a steal.

Going back to foldables, one final option you should absolutely consider instead of the Motorola Razr Fold is Samsung’s last-generation Galaxy Z Fold 6. While the phone was released in 2024, it still packs a punch at a ridiculously affordable price.

As with the Galaxy Z Fold 7, you get all of Samsung’s software optimizations for large-screen foldables, and a decent Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor with 256GB of storage and 12GB of RAM. Everything else is a little worse on paper (cameras, display brightness, battery capacity, charging speed, and the remaining promised updates before the phone is EOL’ed), but don’t forget that this is the “budget” option nowadays.

You can get a renewed unit for $600 on Amazon, making it an absolute steal and an easy way to test your commitment to foldables before splurging nearly two grand on a newer model.