Back in late 2023, OnePlus unveiled the OnePlus Open. The company’s first foldable, which was essentially the OPPO Find N3 – it was really the first time that OPPO just slapped OnePlus logo on its device and called it a day. It got a ton of praise for being basically everything we wanted from a foldable.
The OnePlus Open was cheaper than the other options here in the US – Galaxy Z Fold and Pixel Fold – it also had better cameras, bigger batteries, better displays, and a smaller crease. And from the data we could gather, it seemed to have done pretty well.
In 2024, we didn’t get a new foldable from OnePlus nor OPPO. But in early 2025, we started to hear more about the new OPPO Find N5. Which was an incredibly thin device, with the largest battery in a foldable (at the time). Many of us assumed that would be the OnePlus Open 2. We were wrong.
OnePlus announced on its community that it was hitting pause on foldables for this generation, and would not launch one in 2025. That really should have been the first hint that big changes were coming to OnePlus.
This left Americans with essentially two options for bookstyle foldables, unless you wanted to import one. That’s the Galaxy Z Fold or the Google Pixel Pro Fold. And unfortunately, both are pretty far behind what is being made available in other markets like Europe and Asia.
Then, in early 2026, Motorola unveiled the Razr Fold. Their first bookstyle foldable, which is coming this Summer. And from the specs that Motorola has announced, this could be a spiritual successor to what OnePlus was offering.
So the question here is, could Motorola fill in the gap that the OnePlus Open left?
Motorola’s Razr Fold looks very promising
I’ve now touched the Razr Fold twice – at CES and again at MWC – with the official unveiling coming really soon. And from the moment I saw it in a pre-briefing ahead of CES, I was hooked. It’s one of a very small group of phones I’m excited for this year (right up there with the OPPO Find N6 and vivo X300 Ultra).
The Motorola Razr Fold isn’t as thin as those coming out of OPPO, HONOR and even Samsung, but I do think it is “thin enough”, and it’s not going super flagship here, instead using the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 which I think is perfect. It’s a good mix of “flagship” while hopefully keeping the price down a bit.
Outside of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, this is basically a flagship foldable from Motorola. The company has already confirmed that it will have a 8.1-inch main display, and a 6.6-inch cover display, both of which hit over 6,000nits of peak brightness. And it’ll also use a silicon-carbon 6,000mAh capacity battery. That makes it 36% larger than the Galaxy Z Fold 7 battery, which is pretty impressive. It’ll be the only foldable in the US using silicon-carbon batteries too.
But that’s not even the most exciting part. Cameras. Motorola is using triple 50MP cameras here, while not the most bleeding edge sensors on the market today, these are very capable sensors. And DXOMark seems to believe so, as well. Having given the Razr Fold a score of 164. That’s enough for the Razr Fold to be the best foldable camera system DXOMark has tested, and the second best camera system in North America. That’s quite telling, because we all know cameras haven’t been Motorola’s strong suite over the years. And that right there has me very excited for the Razr Fold.
The big question mark is, Software
You can make a foldable with the most high-end specs, the best hardware, but if the software sucks, it’ll be dead on arrival. Motorola hasn’t talked a whole lot about the software on the Razr Fold yet – we expect to hear more soon at the launch event for the 2026 Razr family.
Motorola really needs some tricks to take advantage of that large inner display. Since it isn’t your typical aspect ratio for an Android display, some OEMs have made some pretty nice contributions to Android foldables. Like OPPO/OnePlus and its Boundless View, allowing you to have three apps open side-by-side, and now OPPO’s new Free Floating Window feature.
I do have some doubts that Motorola can make this happen on the software side. But then I think about the Razr. It’s got some of the best software ever on a flip phone. Now, obviously, there’s not a whole lot of competition there, but they are mopping the floor with Samsung on the flip phone side of things.
Motorola might have a win, if they can undercut Google and Samsung
Currently, Google’s foldable sells for $1800 and the latest Samsung Galaxy Z Fold sells for $2,000. Those are pretty pricey, and likely a big reason why foldables haven’t really taken off. If Motorola can price the Razr Fold, and undercut both of those, they might have a homerun.
One of the bigger issues with foldables these days is the price, and with Motorola using a slightly lower chipset here in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 (versus the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5), this could be a way for Motorola to sell the Razr Fold for say, $1600, or maybe even $1500.
Now, it is actually already available on the Motorola UK website for £1,799.99 which would translate to around $2,300. Making it more expensive than Samsung and Google, and even the rumored price for the Apple iPhone Fold. This is likely just a placeholder, though a bit odd that Motorola would even publish this page so far ahead of its launch.
Motorola’s going all-in on the World Cup
What might be the biggest driver for this phone is actually the World Cup. Lenovo and Motorola are big sponsors of the FIFA World Cup, which is taking place here in North America this Summer. And Motorola has prepared a FIFA World Cup version of the Razr already, and the Razr Fold coming later this Summer. Which could be a real driver for selling this phone. As Soccer (or Football for the rest of the world) is a hugely popular sport. And the Razr Fold World Cup model looks insanely good.
The only foldable pushing boundaries in the US
With OnePlus’ reported demise in the US and other global markets, this leaves Motorola as the only OEM bringing over cutting edge tech from China, to the US. Remember, Motorola is technically a Chinese brand now, seeing as they are owned by Lenovo. And they’re the only ones here using silicon-carbon batteries, fast charging (via USB-C too!), among other technology.
Over the past few years, Motorola has really been growing in North and South America, after having lost a ton of market share in the early days of the Lenovo ownership. It kinda seemed like Lenovo wasn’t sure what to do with Motorola, but now they know what to do.
Either way, we’ll find out more about the Razr Fold in the coming months. Hopefully it launches sooner rather than later, as that chipset is already about 6-7 months old.
