Motorola’s first book-style fold debuts with one big question unanswered

I tried, but I couldn’t tease even a hint out of the Motorola spokespeople I talked to: How much will the Razr Fold cost?

Here’s what Motorola is willing to say right now: The Razr Fold comes with a 6.6-inch outer screen, an 8.1-inch 2K LTPO inner display, three 50-megapixel rear cameras, one 32-megapixel selfie camera on the cover screen side, and a 20-megapixel camera on the inner screen. It will work with a new Moto Pen Ultra stylus, and it’ll be sold in North America sometime this summer. That’s it! Motorola emphasized that this is an early look at what it’s been working on.

This leaves me with plenty of questions, but my biggest one is price. Is this the comparatively budget-friendlier (emphasis on comparatively) option that this category so desperately needs? Is it a luxury item designed to pair with some Swarovski-encrusted earbuds? Or is it a flag to plant in the market before Apple gets here?

Here’s what I do know after spending some carefully monitored time with some early production samples. The back panel finishes are nice: There’s a blue-black with a woven, textured finish, and a silky white that would surely pick up lint within seconds of landing in my pocket. The phone itself is slim — not Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 slim, but noticeably thinner and lighter than the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold I’ve been carrying around for weeks.

Motorola is also carrying over some of its neat software tricks from the clamshell-style foldables, like the ability to automatically display a clock and calendar on the outer screen when you set it up in a kind of half-propped open tent mode. The inner screen has some multitasking options I didn’t play with too much, but reminded me of OnePlus’ software with the ability to quickly dock an app mostly out of view to the side of the screen while still keeping it active.

It’s a little surprising to see Motorola jumping into this foldable format now, at least half a decade into the era of book-style folding phones. But the company clearly sees an opening in the market, and if there’s one thing we can count on Moto to bring, it’s a little style. The bigger, high-end foldables have largely stuck with a more masculine, tech-y aesthetic. With the Razr Fold, we’ll have an option that’s a little bit softer — literally.

Photography by Allison Johnson / The Verge