Motorola Razr Fold vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7: Pick your fighter

The North American market for large foldable phones has long been a two-horse race. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold stand alone as the best options available, with the OnePlus Open briefly offering another option before fading away without future revisions. Finally, the market has a true third contender. This time, it's from Motorola.

Motorola spent a few years reinventing itself, specifically in the clamshell foldable space. It's trying to be a hip and fashionable brand, using partnerships with PANTONE and Swarovski to offer unique products. One thing we hadn't seen until now is a large Motorola Razr device, but we've put the first one — the Motorola Razr Fold — through its paces. Here's how the Razr Fold and the Galaxy Z Fold 7 compare.

Motorola Razr Fold vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7: Design and displays

The Razr Fold is an attractive smartphone. When folded, the Motorola Razr Fold looks like a typical Motorola phone on the back. It has a two-tone look with a squircle-shaped platform for the cameras, housing three rear camera sensors and a flash. There's also a Motorola logo on the back-center of the phone and the "razr" branding near the bottom.

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The Motorola Razr Fold has polished aluminum rails that accent the back panel. Instead of a typical frosted glass back color, Motorola is using unique materials on the Razr Fold in collaboration with PANTONE. There are vegan leather back covers for the PANTONE Blackened Blue and PANTONE Lily White colorways. The phone's corners are subtly rounded, but resemble the boxy Galaxy Z Fold 7 more than the curvy Pixel 10 Pro Fold.

The screen sizes tell a lot about a foldable — there's a 6.6-inch cover screen and an 8.1-inch main screen. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 set a new standard for foldable thinness this year, and the Razr Fold doesn't quite match it. Motorola's foldable is 10.04mm thick, falling in between the Pixel 10 Pro Fold and the Galaxy Z Fold 7 in terms of thickness.

Specifically, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 measures just 8.9mm thick when folded. That's only fractions of a millimeter more than the 8.2mm thickness of the non-folding Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. The more impressive spec might be that the Galaxy Z Fold 7 only weighs 215 grams. It does this while offering a premium hinge mechanism and meeting the IP48 rating for durability.

The main display on the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is an 8.0-inch foldable Dynamic LTPO AMOLED 2X panel with a 2184 x 1968 resolution and support for 120Hz refresh rates. Notably, Samsung dropped S Pen support from the Galaxy Z Fold 7 with this generation in an effort to make the display assembly smaller. The Motorola Razr Fold has the larger display, with a slightly bigger 8.1-inch panel and stylus support, but that comes in exchange for the thicker chassis.

The main Razr Fold display panel uses LTPO technology for variable refresh rates up to 120Hz, and it has a 2K resolution. The cover display is a 6.6-inch screen with a higher 165Hz peak refresh rate. It's also using Gorilla Glass Ceramic 3 for the cover glass and offers IP48/49 durability protection.

Motorola Razr Fold vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7: Hardware and specs

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 arguably has more polished hardware, as Samsung has been manufacturing foldable phones — especially large ones — for a long time. The crease on the Galaxy Z Fold 7's folding display is more subtle than the one on the Motorola Razr Fold. The overall hardware experience, from the processor to the build quality, could be to Samsung's advantage, if you care about thinness and refinement. I quite like the character of Moto's foldable, though, with that vegan leather back and flashy design.

The core Motorola Razr Fold specs are slightly underwhelming. The phone uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chip, not the Elite version. That's a midrange chip in a nearly $2,000 smartphone. However, it does perform well in daily use, and it's paired with 16GB RAM and 512GB storage. The real highlight is the battery, though. The Razr Fold uses silicon-carbon tech to pack a 6,000mAh battery capacity in a relatively compact foldable.

The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chipset, which is blazing fast. It comes with 12GB of RAM as standard, but you get 16GB of memory if you upgrade to the 1TB storage variant.

While not as fast as the newer Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, the older Snapdragon 8 Elite is still very capable. Thanks to Samsung's seven-year software update promise, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 has the hardware and software to last for years. Motorola's software commitments and its ability to quickly deliver on them have been less consistent over the years. To its credit, Moto is promising seven years of Razr Fold software support — but it still has to deliver on it.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 has a 4,400mAh battery. This might be enough for all-day use depending on your habits, but people who use the main display often find they need a midday recharge. The phone charges at up to 25W via cable, 15W via Qi2.1 wireless charging (but lacks internal magnets), and supports 4.5W reverse wireless charging.

Motorola Razr Fold vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7: Cameras

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 is equipped with the flashier main camera sensor, but Motorola is poised to deliver the better overall camera array. Samsung put the same 200MP main camera sensor from the Galaxy S25 Ultra on the Galaxy Z Fold 7, which is a nice touch. It's sharper than the 50MP Sony LYTIA sensor that headlines the rear camera system on the Motorola Razr Fold.

However, the rest of the camera system favors Motorola. The Razr Fold has a 50MP ultrawide and 50MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom support for its secondary cameras. Meanwhile, the Galaxy Z Fold 7's secondary cameras are less impressive, offering just a 10MP ultrawide and 10MP telephoto.

Motorola wins the selfie camera battle, too, with a 20MP internal selfie camera and a 32MP external selfie camera. Samsung uses two 10MP selfie cameras on the Galaxy Z Fold 7. It's worth noting that, with a foldable phone, you can use the rear cameras as a selfie camera for the best quality. This makes traditional selfie cameras less important.

Motorola Razr Fold vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7: Which should you buy?

The Motorola Razr Fold introduces the largest inner screen of any foldable phone available in the U.S., and it's adding stylus support at a time when other brands are removing it. Throw in a 6,000mAh silicon-carbon battery with fast charging? Consider me impress.

That said, it's hard to ignore that Motorola faces an uphill battle with its entry into the large foldable market. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 is really good, and it'll be hard for Motorola to match its thinness, premium feel, and durability in its first try. Adding to the difficulty is the timing of Motorola's Razr Fold launch — it could arrive right before, or around the time of, Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 8 launch.

For those who want a great foldable Android phone with a focus on refinement and thinness, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 is the clear winner. If you want style, personality, stylus support, and long battery life, the Motorola Razr Fold crushes Samsung in these areas.