The Galaxy Z Flip 7 isn’t even official yet, but Motorola’s already dunking on it like it’s 2022. With the Razr Ultra 2025, Motorola didn’t just catch up — it lapped Samsung in some of the most important categories foldable fans actually care about. Bigger screen, smarter software, better battery — and it’s available later this month.
Here are 5 ways Motorola pulled off the upset before Samsung even showed up to the fight.
The Front Display That Makes Samsung Look Lazy
Sure, Samsung has added a larger front display to its Galaxy Z Flip phones over the past few years, but it’s still fairly small. With a pretty thick bezel and a camera cutout. It is only a 3.4-inch display, while the Razr has a 3.6-inch display and the Razr Plus and Ultra has a massive 4-inch display. Allowing you to do way more on that cover display.
However, it is not just about the display size, Motorola also lets you do more. Motorola was first to let users run any Android app on that cover display. Samsung kind of brought that feature to the Galaxy Z Flip, but you’re limited to a handful of apps, and it’s also a feature you have to turn on in the “Labs” setting. So its essentially a beta feature.
To be fair, Samsung is rumored to be giving users a larger display this year, getting rid of that very thick bezel, as we’ve already shown off in an exclusive leak. However, we do not know if they will open up the apps that can be run on that cover display. That’s what really sets the Razr apart. Because you can do so much more on that cover display.
Battery Life That Doesn’t Suck
One of the main issues with foldable devices has been the battery capacity. Though OPPO and OnePlus have gotten rid of that issue with their recent foldables, it’s still an issue for some. Like Samsung. The Galaxy Z Flip 6 has a 4,000mAh capacity battery, and the Flip 7 recently leaked with a 4,272mAh capacity battery. So it looks like it will be larger this year, but Motorola is still much larger.
The new Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 has a massive 4,700mAh capacity battery. Compared to the Flip 6, that’s about 17% larger. Which is really impressive. It is thicker, but only barely. We’re looking at 6.9mm on the Flip 6 and 7.2mm on the Razr Ultra when unfolded.
Please, Samsung, for the love of God, please include larger batteries in your phones. Especially your foldables. Slab phones have pretty good battery life, but foldables like the Flip and Fold are both power-user devices – moreso the Fold than the Flip – so that extra battery capacity will not go to waste.
I haven’t yet used the Razr Ultra 2025, other than for a short hands-on time last month, but I fully expect it to run circles around the Galaxy Z Flip 7.
Flagship specs that actually matter
Another place that Motorola is beating Samsung is in the specs and price. The Razr Ultra does cost $1,299 this year, which is more than the Galaxy Z Flip 6, though we do expect the Flip 7 to go up again this year, partly thanks to the tariffs.
However, with the Razr Ultra only offering a 512GB model, we need to compare it to the Flip 6 512GB, which is $1219, leaving a much smaller gap. Motorola has also outfitted the Razr Ultra with 16GB of RAM, versus Samsung’s 12GB. Now, Samsung could up it to 16GB on the Flip 7, however, with the Galaxy S25 Ultra not even getting a 16GB option, that seems unlikely.
Why do these specs matter? AI. It’s just that simple. AI is going to be here for a long time, and as these AI features get bigger and better, you’ll need that extra RAM and storage. Just look at the Pixel 9 series. Google is typically at the bottom in terms of RAM, but this year, the Pixel 9 has 12GB, and the Pixel 9 Pro models all have 16GB of RAM.
Motorola’s AI Actually Does Something
After sitting in a big room with thousands of other journalists in Manhattan last month, listening to Motorola talk about AI, their partnerships, and then their new phones, one thing was clear: Motorola wants AI to be in the background, not the foreground.
Motorola announced a ton of partnerships at its event in New York City last month, including those with Perplexity, Meta, and even Microsoft with CoPilot. Which sounds like a lot for a smartphone. However, the way that Motorola is going to make this work is really smart. moto ai will be your AI option, and like Apple Intelligence, it will hand off to these different tools when needed. Apple Intelligence does this with Siri, and hands off to ChatGPT when it can’t complete the task. Now Motorola will be doing that, but with a lot more options.
But that’s not all, the AI features that Motorola has introduced and demoed for us are really impressive. There’s three main features: Catch Me Up, Pay Attention and Remember this.
- Catch Me Up: This feature will summarize your notifications for you, a lot like Apple does on the iPhone, but it will also let you reply to messages in-line, without jumping into different apps.
- Pay Attention: This is kind of like Google Recorder on steroids. Just tell your phone to pay attention, and it’ll start an audio recording. Really useful in meetings or briefings.
- Remember This: A bit more of a subtle feature, but tell moto to “Remember this” and it’ll remember what you’re about to say, saving it as a note for you to use later on.
As I’ve already said, I haven’t spent a ton of time with the Razr 2025 series just yet, so my stance on AI might change. But I really like what I see here. Versus Samsung, mostly sticking with Google’s own features from Gemini’s models.
The Price is Right
These days, the most important aspect of a phone is the price. Especially with the current trade war and ongoing uncertainty with tariffs. And Motorola knocked it out of the park on the price.
The Razr 2025 is going to be $699, the Razr Plus 2025 is $999, and the Razr Ultra 2025 is $1,299. Now the Razr Ultra is a bit higher than I would have liked to see, but given the upgrades there, even compared to last year’s Razr Plus (known as the Razr 50 Ultra internationally), it is worth the $300 price bump. Which is likely primarily due to the Snapdragon 8 Elite.
Remember, this is actually the first time in quite a few years that Motorola is using a true flagship chipset in its Razr foldable. And that obviously does raise the cost a bit.
However, having these three options – at least in the US, as the Plus is US-only – means that buyers have options. On top of that, this is Motorola, so the prices will drop a few hundred bucks permanently a few months after release.
The price is a big reason why I believe the Razr has done so well. Motorola owns the flip phone market here in North America, with over 70% market share. That’s rather impressive, and even more impressive is that 25% of Razr buyers are coming from iOS. Which means that Motorola is growing the Android market share as well.
Will Samsung catch up in 2025?
Samsung was first to foldables, with the Galaxy Fold all the way back in 2019. Technically there was a couple foldables before it, like the Royale Flex Pai, but no one counts that. By being first, Samsung was able to take a commanding lead in the foldable market. But that lead has been diminishing. Largely because Samsung has done several iterative updates on its foldables. While its rivals have been making much larger changes year-over-year. Just look at OPPO’s Find N series, or HONOR’s Magic V series, hell even Huawei’s Mate XT. Samsung has gotten comfortable, and that is leading to their decline in market share. This is not exclusive to foldables either.
So will Samsung catch up in 2025? I’m betting no, especially not at this point. Because the Galaxy Z Flip 7 is already finalized and has actually already started mass production for its July launch. Some of these changes are software, so that could still be fixed, but as far as hardware goes, that’s set in stone already.
In order to make foldables better, we need competition. That means we also need Samsung to be great, which will push Motorola to make a better Razr, and vice versa.
That’s five ways Motorola has beaten Samsung to the punch, and we didn’t even talk about the most important aspect: colors and materials.
Which would you choose? The Motorola Razr Plus or Razr Ultra, or the Galaxy Z Flip 7?
