OPINION: Motorola made a huge splash this week, revealing not only the Edge 60 and Edge 60 Pro but also its upgraded foldables for 2025: the Razr 60 and Razr 60 Ultra.
At a glance, you might not notice much of a difference between the top-end Ultra and last year’s Razr 50 Ultra – but I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all.
The Razr 50 Ultra was a fantastic foldable
Sure, the Razr 60 Ultra shares the same design language, including curved edges and that edge-to-edge 4-inch cover screen, but considering I thought the Razr 50 Ultra had the best flip-style foldable design in 2024, that’s no bad thing.
It was light, the curved edges felt nice in the hand, and the Pantone-certified colour options were stunningly eye-catching.
It was the 4-inch cover screen that really stole my attention, though. Unlike most flip-style foldables, which limit cover screen access to elements like notifications, camera, widgets, and, at a push, a small collection of apps, the Razr 50 Ultra had no such restrictions.
You could run any app on that four-inch screen, from Google Maps to Call of Duty Mobile (it wouldn’t be great, but you could), making it a more versatile experience overall.
It allowed me to unfold the phone less often, which was handy because beyond the initial fun of seeing that larger screen present itself, it can get annoying after weeks and months of use – and it’s not really necessary for quickly replying to messages or checking on directions.
The Razr 60 Ultra focuses on all the right elements
The Razr 60 Ultra continues to offer that same experience, paired with what I’d class as genuinely useful upgrades, making this year’s model just as tempting as its predecessor – if not more so.
That starts with arguably the most important upgrade for a foldable: durability. While the Razr 50 Ultra’s IPX8 was fine in this regard, it offered no official protection from dust. And if there’s one thing that’ll break the intricate components in a foldable hinge, it’s dust and debris.
Motorola has rectified things with this year’s Razr 60 Ultra and its IP48 rating, which offers the same flagship-level water resistance and the ability to protect from dust and other detritus larger than 1mm. It’s still not the full IP68 we see on regular phones, but no foldable has achieved that lofty aim – not yet anyway.
The company has also increased the internal screen from 6.9 to 7 inches, not by making the pocketable device any bigger mind, but by shrinking the screen’s bezels. This, paired with a new flexible glass finish and a further reduction in the crease, should translate to a much nicer screen experience – especially when paired with a rapid 165Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 4500nits.
A key upgrade for the Razr 60 Ultra is the processor. Last year’s Razr 50 Ultra featured the premium, but not top-end, Snapdragon 8s Gen 3. This was easily one of the biggest weaknesses compared to Samsung and its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-equipped Galaxy Z Flip 6.
Motorola has rectified that by including the top-end Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset – the same as in the Galaxy S25 Ultra, OnePlus 13 and other flagship smartphones. This should translate to impressive everyday performance as, even compared to the 8 Gen 3, the year-on-year jump in processing power is noticeable – or at least it has been on other devices.
I haven’t yet benchmarked the foldable, so I’ll reserve my final thoughts for now, but I’m quietly confident of its capabilities – especially when paired with up to 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.
The cherry on top has to be the bigger battery, with a 4700mAh cell that’s larger than its predecessor and the competing Samsung foldable. Considering I had no complaints about battery life on last year’s Razr 50 Ultra, I’m excited to see just how well this year’s model performs. Plus, with 67W TurboCharge support, it should go from flat to full even faster this time around.
Yes it’s familiar, but that doesn’t really matter
Hardware updates aside, I don’t feel like Motorola’s approach is as egregious as what we see from brands like Apple and Samsung, which rely upon the same general design – and sometimes specs – for years on end.
The iPhone 16 looks a lot like the iPhone 12, while the Samsung Galaxy S25 shares a lot of similarities with the Galaxy S21.
This is only the second year that Motorola has used this design, and I don’t think there’s much to worry about just yet. Like the adage goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I for one certainly look forward to testing the Razr 60 Ultra in the coming weeks.
