Android Central Labs
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Motorola phones aren’t usually known for having exemplary cameras. Most of Motorola’s phones in North America these days are budget-friendly models and, by extension, don’t leave much room for impressive camera performance. However, the Motorola Razr Fold is a different beast entirely, and after capturing hundreds of photos with the foldable, we’re confident when we say that the Razr Fold continues to blow us away.
That said, we’re breaking up this camera review a little differently than usual. Managing editor Derrek Lee will focus solely on the Razr Fold and how it stands on its own, while Nick Sutrich is comparing the Razr Fold to some of its biggest competitors, both in the U.S. and abroad.
Motorola Razr Fold cameras
Motorola is using a Sony Lytia sensor for the primary 50MP camera, further enhancing it with Pantone Validation. That means the camera should produce truer-to-life colors and more accurate skin tones, though you may need to be patient as the phone takes a few seconds to fully process images.
Photos taken with all three cameras all look extremely pleasing to me. The Razr Fold captures very bright, vibrant images that look very pleasing on the phone’s Extreme AMOLED displays. In good lighting, particularly on sunny days, the Fold camera is at its best and tends to brighten darker areas, softening harsh shadows. The result is that blacks are not as rich as they could be, but this is often not a huge problem, and low-light images appear a bit brighter with minimal noise.
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The Razr Fold camera has decent dynamic range, but I often wish Motorola would punch it up a bit. I notice that the details in the clouds tend to get lost and a tad overexposed, but I don’t think this is the Fold’s biggest problem.
In fact, as far as colors go, Motorola could stand to tone them down a little. The Fold produces very punchy colors, but sometimes it can go a little overboard. This is precisely why I stick with the Normal Mode in Motorola’s camera, though if you like punchy colors, you can always opt for Vivid Mode.
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The Razr Fold also handles movement well, even in low-light situations, although it has its limits. You can capture moving subjects in focus pretty well with the main sensor, and the Action Shot feature takes things to the next level, allowing you to zoom into fast-moving subjects for a clear image, something even the Razr Ultra 2025 couldn’t do.
Zoom camera
Where the Razr Fold really shines is in its zoom capability. This was never a particularly strong area for Motorola, but the company was clearly cooking with its imaging engine. The Razr Fold sports a Sony Lytia 600 3x optical telephoto camera, but it’s capable of up to 100x “Super Zoom.”
This probably sounds like a gimmick, because who would be taking photos at 100x zoom? I’ve seen time and again that those images don’t amount to much. Well, the Razr Fold has proven me wrong.
The Razr Fold manages to take some rather impressive photos at just about any zoom level. Clearly, 3x images are its bread and butter, and photos appear crisp and detailed. However, at a concert in a relatively dark theater, I found that photos taken at 6x and even 10x zoom were almost as impressive, and I stuck to these zoom levels throughout the show.
It’s when you get to 10x and beyond that the Fold really shows off what it can do. It’s here that the AI is clearly doing a lot of the heavy lifting, as the resulting photos don’t look like much until the Fold finishes processing, at which point I’m blown away by how well it cleans up photos at 50x and even 100x. The fact that I can capture individual people on a boat that I can barely see with my own eyes is quite impressive.
Every camera on the Razr Fold is great, but the telephoto sensor is so good that I find myself defaulting to it, using it more than I have any other phone with a telephoto camera. That’s not to say there aren’t other phones capable of this level of zoom, but it’s more than I ever expected from Motorola.
Motorola Razr Fold vs. Galaxy Z Fold 7
Motorola is finally offering North American Android users a reason to get excited about foldables again. Not only does the Razr Fold 2026 offer a bigger battery, better displays, and even stylus capability than Pixel Fold or Galaxy Z Fold phones, but it’s also delivering a better camera experience.
To say the Razr Fold 2026’s camera annihilates Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7 is a huge understatement. The Z Fold 7 doesn’t exactly set a high bar for camera quality, but it’s still the best foldable available in North America today, and that’s what really matters.
Motorola has two main advantages you’ll see in the following comparisons. First, the company’s use of Pantone color science absolutely shines in every picture, making this the most color-accurate foldable camera I’ve ever used. Second, the phone’s cameras provide exquisite detail in every lighting situation, eclipsing Samsung’s efforts every single time.
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You’ll find the largest quality gap between the Razr Fold and the Galaxy Z Fold 7 at virtually any zoom level. The Razr Fold not only captures substantially more detail but also produces photos with a convincing depth of field that you’ll only get from larger, better sensors. If you look at any of my comparison examples at 3x and beyond, you’ll see the Razr Fold captures the subject in impressive detail, while the background naturally blurs behind it.
Meanwhile, the Galaxy Z Fold 7’s photos often look flat and very obviously come from a smartphone. This is a problem with all Samsung phones, including the Galaxy S26 Ultra, because Samsung consistently uses smaller, cheaper sensors. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 also maxes out at 30x zoom, and most photos beyond 10x simply aren’t usable on that phone, while the Razr can produce great photos even up to 50x and 100x (as Derrek noted above).
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The Razr Fold’s main and ultrawide cameras produce incredible detail, dynamic range, and a general “punchiness” that the Galaxy Z Fold 7’s cameras lack. Many photos from the Z Fold 7 are on the cool side and often look flat.
I only found one example when the Z Fold 7 produced a better photo — the very dark image of the two keyboards and monitors on a desk — but this was also a time when the Z Fold 7 took a 2-3 second-long exposure to capture the image, while the Razr Fold’s photo was taken instantly.
Motorola Razr Fold vs. Honor Magic V6
Folks in Europe and Asia have a much wider range of phones to choose from, giving the Razr Fold some actual competition. Even so, I’ve found that the phone tends to keep up quite well, and often still produces the most color-accurate image.
Compared to the Honor Magic V6, I’ve found the Razr Fold’s main and ultrawide lenses generally come out slightly on top. Dynamic range and colors are particularly impressive, even if the gap isn’t as wide as it was when compared to the Z Fold 7.
Between roughly 8x and 19x, the Razr Fold sometimes performs slightly worse than phones like the Honor Magic V6, but it’s highly situation-dependent. The photo of my cat below shows an obvious difference between the two phones, while the photo of the moss is nearly indistinguishable.
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But something interesting happens at 20x and beyond, and it’s powered by generative AI. You can choose to turn this off in camera settings if you prefer a more “raw” image. But the reality is that this turns the tables on extreme zoom smartphone photography. Images go from a neat parlor trick to actual usable photos at 50x and beyond, and that’s not something I expected to see from a foldable, much less a standard non-foldable smartphone.
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The winner is a toss-up between the Razr Fold and Honor Magic V6, and it’s entirely situationally dependent. Generative AI features seem to apply their magic to whatever they feel like, rather than being consistent all around.
The photos of the statue I took above are a perfect example of this, as Honor’s does an exemplary job at 30x but seems to forget to work beyond that, whereas Motorola’s AI additions only seem to kick in at 100x. Your mileage will absolutely vary with this feature, but it ensures that you’re more likely to get a usable photo of something far away, and that’s a great thing.
A real winner
Before I started my review, my biggest concern with the Razr Fold was the camera performance. Motorola doesn’t have a great track record with good camera quality, but the Razr Fold has proven that the company can not only get it right but can beat the competition.
I’m sticking with this phone for the foreseeable future, and a large part of that is because of the camera quality. Oftentimes, when you choose a foldable, you have to sacrifice camera quality to get a good foldable experience, but Motorola has proven that this is no longer the case with the Razr Fold, and I couldn’t be happier about it.
Level up your smartphone experience with the Razr Fold 2026, Motorola’s first book-style foldable that redefines the foldable camera experience.