If you're buying a foldable-screen flip phone, you should get a Razr. If you want the best one, you should get the new Motorola Razr Ultra. That's what you need to know.

Flip phones certainly aren't for everyone, so that's the qualifier for this purchase. If you're looking for a device with the small footprint that a Razr Ultra provides, with Snapdragon 8 Elite-level performance, then that's what you get.

The Razr Ultra comes in an array of colors, finishes, and materials, just like most of Motorola's phones, and while it's the best in its category, it still doesn't live up to the smartphone market as a whole. The smaller form factor limits what can be done in terms of the camera, battery, and anything else that can be affected by size restraints.

Motorola sent XDA the Razr Ultra for review. It did not have any input on the contents of this article.

Motorola Razr Ultra pricing and availability

The Motorola Razr Ultra is available now from Motorola.com, Best Buy, Amazon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. Verizon isn't selling it, which is probably why AT&T has the Rio Red color. Pricing is $1,299 and $1,499 for 512GB and 1TB storage, respectively, although AT&T has a modest markup of $1,319 for the 512GB model.

Motorola.com obviously has all four colors, being Scarab, Rio Red, Mountain Trail, and Cabaret, although Scarab is the only one it's selling in 512GB at the moment. Other retailers offer other colors at 512GB.

The Motorola Razr Ultra is beautiful device

Motorola is making unique designs, unlike everyone else

Most phones these days are glass sandwiches with frames made of titanium, stainless steel, aluminum, or something else. Gone are the days of aluminum unibodies, playful polycarbonate colors, and even unique materials such as wood and leather. When any new phone launches, you usually get 2-4 colors, at least 50% of which consisting of black and white, one neutral color called 'Dune' or 'Desert', and if the company is feeling particularly spicy, one bold color.

Motorola throws that out the window. It's making a clear effort to release phones in not just different colors, but different materials and finishes. The company originally sent me Rio Red, a vibrant red color with a vegan leather back. Naturally, I told them I needed Mountain Trail, which is made of wood (come on, my name is Woods - think of the SEO!). It comes in Alcantara too.

It's a beautiful device, and it feels refreshing to return to an era where your phone can be truly yours. The 2025 Razr and Razr+ also come in ranges of colors and finishes.

Also, shout-out to Clicks. If you're unfamiliar with Clicks, it makes keyboard cases for phones, and the new one the company just released for Razr devices is super-cool.

But to be clear, the Razr family isn't for everyone, and I really want people to understand that. You have to be in the market for a phone with a small footprint. If you're just looking for the best phone with the best camera and performance, this isn't it. This is the best foldable flip phone, so just make sure that you actually want a foldable flip phone.

There are usability compromises to be made here. Most times you check your phone, there's that extra interaction you have to take to check it, as much as Motorola continues to improve the experience of using the device on the external display.

This is a stunning device, no matter which color or finish is for you. To be fair, Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip 6 also comes in a range of colors, but they're just colors. There's no wood, no vegan leather, no Alcantara, etc.

While I do want to hammer down how beautiful the Motorola Razr 2025 series is (it's not just the Ultra, they're all great), I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't point out the mouse in the room. You know the mouse in the room, right? It's like an elephant in the room, but the exact opposite because almost no one is thinking about it. But I am!

I'm talking about Moto Maker, that wonderful program Motorola ran for the Moto X back in 2013. It was so cool. You could choose from a range of colors and materials for your phone's back cover, but you could also customize things like the colors of the buttons and rings around the camera. Customizable devices are not easy, but it's not my job to figure out how to make them sustainable from a business perspective. It's my job to say that if Motorola really wants this to fit every user's personality, it already has the best solution.

You don't have to open your phone

Motorola put a lot of work into making the external display useful

Any Motorola Razr will let you open any app you want on the external display, although not necessarily by default. For some, you have to explicitly allow it. But all of your main apps can do it, such as Messages and Maps. That's right, you can use the full Google Messages experience, complete with a full size keyboard to respond to messages.

And then there are various widget panels, which you can swipe through and are completely customizable. There's one for your calendar, for weather, and for groups of apps like communication and games. You can add your own panels as well, including a widget panel, a timer, a stopwatch, Google Fit, Google News, Google stock, and Spotify. It's pretty great.

And yes, you can play games on the external display. It's always fun, although you won't want to play all games in the external screen.

The Razr Ultra has a dedicated button for Moto AI, which is fine. One of the features included is 'Pay attention', so without ever opening the photo, you can launch that and record a meeting. There's a 'Catch me up' feature as well, which will give you a summary of your notifications.

It's actually not very Ultra

What does Ultra actually mean in a brand?

Samsung really pushed forward with its Ultra branding on its Galaxy S phones, basically giving users the best it possibly could, compromising everything else. If you wanted the best camera, performance, battery, screen, etc., you can have it, as long as you're willing to pay and willing to carry a brick. While there's no industry standard for what 'Ultra' should mean, I feel like a good starting point is the best possible experience.

While sitting in the audience at the launch event, I thought, why is Motorola doing a Razr Ultra? The biggest advantage is the Snapdragon 8 Elite instead of Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, and you get 16GB RAM instead of 12GB, and 1TB storage instead of 256GB. The display is 0.1 inches larger, a bit brighter, and a bit higher resolution. Most importantly, you get an ultra-wide sensor instead of a telephoto lens.

The Razr+ still comes with a telephoto lens as its secondary camera, and that's the kicker. You still have to make a choice between telephoto and ultra-wide. Granted, on a device like this, I think ultra-wide is the choice you'd make, but to me, 'Ultra' means no compromises at all, and I don't think that the Razr Ultra is quite there.

The Razr Ultra is definitely the best Razr, and the Razr is still the best foldable flip phone. There's no doubt about that. It's just that calling it Ultra and putting it at a higher price point feels forced. It feels more like the Razr+ is a very minor change from last year, and in order to do a proper refresh, Motorola had to charge more money for it, so it just created a new tier.

The camera is good for a flip phone

It's not on par with top-tier flagship phones

Motorola went with triple 50MP cameras on the Razr Ultra, including the main and ultra-wide sensors on the outside and the internal camera. As the header says, the camera is fine. If you compare it to any mainstream smartphone camera on the market for photo quality and low-light performance, it's likely going to lose. There are some caveats there though, since I did get better selfies from the Razr Ultra than I did with my iPhone 15 Pro Max.

But one thing that's always true of Motorola cameras is that they have the best features. A benefit of an external display is that you can use the rear camera to take selfies, obviously. In fact, I took very few pictures using the actual internal camera. If the device is unfolded and you're taking pictures externally of a person, they can get a view of themselves and know how they look in the picture. If that's not for you, you can have it show silly faces. My daughter loved that last one.

The ultra-wide lens is key, given that this is a device that's made for selfies. And if you're in a group setting, you'll probably want the wider lens.

For regular photos, the Razr Ultra does a fine job. It starts getting a little more challenged in low-light, particularly in tricky lighting situations, such as bright lights in a dark setting. However, I do need to point out that with the ability to take selfies with the rear camera, you'll get a better shot from that than from most phones' front cameras.

Looking at the two photos above, my iPhone added a lot of artificial brightness to the foreground that didn't come across well, and totally blew out the background. While the foreground is darker on the photo taken with the Razr Ultra, that's the one I'd want.

Motorola continues to do better with its camera chops. I just want to see it make it the same level of a priority as its competitors do.

Snapdragon performance is top-notch

Snapdragon 8 Elite for the win

Performance is great. That's pretty much all you need to know. I firmly believe that this is a lifestyle device, and if you're buying a Razr, you really don't care if you get the Snapdragon 8 Elite in the Ultra or the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 that's in the Razr+. You're probably not looking for serious gaming chops, and I'm not sure that Moto AI actually matters to people. In fact, I don't know if anything branded as AI matters to anyone.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite is Qualcomm's current flagship chipset, so you can be sure it's legitimately good. However, just given the constraints of a flip phone, you don't get quite as much performance as you would out of a regular phone. For example, Geekbench 6 scores on the Razr Ultra are 2,739/8,799, while it's 3,025/9,410 on the OnePlus 13.

Battery life is solid too. I had no problem getting through a full day, with plenty of room to spare. I do think it relies on using it right; yes, I'm going there. I'm pretty confident that the more you interact with the external display rather than the larger internal screen, the better your battery life is going to be. And yes, you should be interacting with the external display. That's the thing about flip phones. If you have to open it every time you use it, it becomes a pain to use.

Should you buy the Motorola Razr Ultra?

You should buy the Motorola Razr Ultra if:

• You want the best phone with a small footprint
• You take a lot of selfies
• You want a design that's tailored to you

You should NOT buy the Motorola Razr Ultra if:

• You just want the best phone or camera
• You're going to be unfolding the display every time you use it

The thing I really want to get across is that while the Motorola Razr Ultra is the best foldable flip phone on the market, it's not the best phone on the market, and we really shouldn't pretend that it is. If you want the best camera, best performance, and best battery life, you'll still do better with a regular old glass sandwich.

Motorola continues to innovate on design, offering a range of materials like wood, which allows me to craft a title with my name in it. And yes, that's something that only I will find humorous, but that's OK. Anyone that knows me knows I love colorful and personalized phones, so this was right up my alley.

The big benefit of the Razr Ultra over the Razr+, if you ask me, isn't the Snapdragon 8 Elite or extra RAM; it's the ultra-wide camera. This is a selfie phone, so it just makes more sense. The telephoto lens was my biggest complaint for last year's Razr+, so here's to once again hoping that next year's model will somehow defy physics and include all three.