Motorola is practically a veteran when it comes to foldables, which makes the Razr Fold all the more surprising. When I got my hands on it at a Hollywood villa overlooking the Los Angeles skyline, it felt less like an iteration and more like a fresh take.

The phone-maker's first book-style foldable incorporates all the know-how it gained from making clamshell foldables dating back to the first modern Razr in 2019 -- a launch I also attended at a similar event in Los Angeles. As advanced as it felt back then to hold a smartphone that folded in half, the foldable niche has come a long way since. The Motorola Razr Fold shows the company has moved beyond the rookie missteps typical of first-generation book-style foldables. The Google Pixel Fold, for example, notoriously didn't unfold completely flat -- an issue the Razr Fold avoids and a clear advantage in this space.

My first impression of the Motorola Razr Fold, as I held it in my hand, was that it had the polish and heft of a book-style foldable refined over many iterations, such as the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7. It's not quite the thinnest folding phone around -- measuring just over 5mm thick when unfolded and about 10mm when folded -- but it's reasonably trim and didn't feel clunky at 8.6 ounces (243 grams).

The Razr Fold is also unmistakably a Motorola phone, thanks to the design of its back, which is covered in a textured material that curves up to meet the camera bump, similar to the Moto G (2026). For the record, I find the textures classy, with a matte feel for the lily white color and cross-hatched nylon weave for the blackened blue hue.

Speaking of feel, the hinge and opening and closing of the Razr Fold feel satisfyingly sturdy -- an odd but perhaps necessary reassurance that Motorola successfully translated its clamshell expertise to book-style foldables. Moreover, the Razr Fold is both well-specced and priced competitively against rival foldables: At $1,900, it lands right between the $2,000 Galaxy Z Fold 7 and the $1,800 Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold. The Motorola Razr Fold is available for preorder on Motorola.com and retailers on May 14 and will go on sale May 21.

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The specs under the hood

The Razr Fold is powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chip, which is less powerful than the highest-end Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor, according to NanoReview's benchmarks. With 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, the foldable is powerful on paper; we're looking forward to seeing how its performance compares to Samsung's and Google's devices.

The Razr Fold's 6.6-inch pOLED cover display is sharp and vivid, as is its 8.1-inch LTPO OLED inner display, both roughly the same size as screens on other foldables. What sets them apart is how bright they can get, with peak brightness rated at 6,200 nits for the main (unfolded) display and 6,000 nits for the external (folded) display -- easily double that of many other phones, something I'm eager to test in harsh lighting conditions. That brightness could make the Razr Fold one of the best foldables for the beach or a park picnic, though it may also drain the battery faster.

If that's the case, it's a good thing the Razr Fold packs a 6,000-mAh battery, offering more capacity than its rivals -- and even the Galaxy Z TriFold. Better still, you can recharge the foldable with 80-watt wired charging and 50-watt wireless charging, far faster than the Galaxy Z Fold 7 (25-watt wired) and Pixel 10 Pro Fold (30-watt wired). Based on our extensive battery testing, I'd expect those speeds to recharge most of the Razr Fold in about half an hour (though we'll have to confirm that in our review). The foldable also supports 5-watt reverse wireless charging to share power with other devices.

The Razr Fold has some of the best cameras on any Motorola phone, featuring a triple 50-megapixel rear camera array (main, ultrawide and telephoto). The telephoto uses a periscope lens with 3x optical zoom and up to 100x digital zoom. The front display has a sharp 32-megapixel selfie camera, which makes sense, as book-style foldable owners use the cover screen more often. When they pop the Razr Fold open, they'll find a 20-megapixel camera for video calls and similar tasks.

No book-style foldable would feel complete without a stylus -- or so we thought until Samsung dropped S Pen support from the Galaxy Z Fold 7. I had a chance to handle Motorola's Moto Pen, though I didn't have time to pair it with the Razr Fold. Tucked neatly into its holster (which looks a bit like a vape), the Moto Pen pops out easily, and the brief writing I tested on the Fold's screen felt smooth enough. I'm not surprised that the phone-maker behind the Moto G Stylus pulled off a sleek standalone digital pen, though I'm curious about how its physical buttons function.

I have a laundry list of questions left to answer when we get our hands on the Motorola Razr Fold, from performance to camera capability to recharging rates. It's tough to get a full picture of a phone from just an hour meet-and-greet in a fancy Los Angeles event space. But I'm confident that Motorola's first book-style foldable will be a great alternative for folks who haven't yet been convinced to pick up one from Samsung or Google. We'll just have to see if Motorola has enough time to make a splash with the Razr Fold when it goes on sale May 21 before Apple potentially steals the spotlight with its long-rumored foldable iPhone expected to make its debuted in September.