GoKawiilMotorola's 2026 Razr lineup pushes flip phone foldables forward with better batteries, wild new camera tech, and some genuinely enviable new finishes that other phone-makers should take note of -- seriously, who doesn't want a dark wood or indigo Alcantara back on their phone? But the price hikes the new Razrs come with are a tough pill to swallow and they cast a shadow over this otherwise starry lineup.
Each new model costs more than its 2025 counterpart. The standard Razr 2026 is $800 and the Razr Plus is $1,100, each a $100 more. But it's the Razr Ultra's $1,500 price that is truly shocking, $200 more than last year. It's even harder to justify when, at the time that I'm writing this, you can snag the 2025 Motorola Razr Ultra with double the storage (1TB vs. 512GB) and a pair of Moto Buds Plus for $800 (that's $700 less than the new Ultra).
So where does that leave the new $1,500 Razr Ultra and its 2026 Moto flip phone siblings?
In the US, Motorola's Razrs make up roughly half of the foldable phone market, beating rival Samsung, according to a video with IDC's Francisco Jeronimo and Nabila Popal. One of Motorola's best decisions in recent years was to make the Razr fun to use and reflect its owner's individuality with unique colors and fabric backs. The approach has obviously led to many Razr foldables being sold. (Having three models ranging from $700 to $1,300 didn't hurt either.) And that fun design might still be the key appeal to the 2026 Razr lineup.
Once we can test the new phones, we'll have to see if that playful appeal is enough to offset Motorola's new pricing. I should note that it's unclear what Motorola's reasons were for the price increases. Though the ongoing RAM shortage, fueled by demand from AI data centers, may be partly to blame and is affecting the broader industry. In the meantime, you can preorder the new Razr flip phones starting May 14 and they will be available on May 21 alongside the Motorola Razr Fold, the company's first book-style foldable.
Watch this: Motorola's Razr 2026 Phones Are Still Powerful in Your Pocket, Just Pricier 02:35
Motorola Razr Ultra 2026 has a LOFIC camera
The Motorola Razr Ultra has a 50-megapixel selfie camera. Motorola
So much about the 2026 Razr Ultra is a repeat of the 2025 version. And that's not entirely a bad thing, considering that last year's Razr Ultra earned a CNET Editor's Choice Award for its top-of-the-line features and irresistibly playful design. Of the new features, two are actually quite significant.
The Razr Ultra has a larger 5,000-mAh battery compared to the 2025 version's 4,700-mAh one. And the new battery now is silicon-carbon, a new type of anode (the negative end of a battery) that allows phone-makers to increase the capacity without needing a larger physical size. Clamshell-style foldable phones like the Razr Ultra don't have much internal real estate, so being able to boost the battery's capacity without taking up more space is clutch. In fact, all three 2026 Razr flip phone models have silicon-carbon batteries.
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