Motorola Razr Ultra (2026) vs Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7: I used both and one thing Motorola did makes no sense
Motorola wins in battery size and charging speed, but still hasn't improved the software update situation.
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Samsung might have been first to the modern flip phone race, but in recent years it was Motorola who was setting the tone. The latest Moto Razr phones were first to introduce an edge-to-edge cover screen, first to launch with the latest Snapdragon chips, and with their sleek designs, they are a huge challenge to Samsung's positions.
However, after years of sleep, Samsung finally awakens with the Flip 7, as this is the first Samsung flip phone with a cover screen that goes edge to edge, just like the Razr.
But the Flip one-ups the Razr with even thinner bezels on the cover screen for a truly futuristic appearance. The Samsung flip phone also improves in a few other areas, including adding support for Samsung DeX. And just price-wise, the Flip 7 undercuts the Razr Ultra by quite a lot. Let's explore that and a lot more below.
Motorola Razr Ultra (2026) vs Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 differences:
| Motorola Razr Ultra (2026) | Galaxy Z Flip 7 |
|---|---|
| Beautiful design with unique finishes like alcantara | Typical smartphone glass and aluminum design |
| Slightly thicker design | Thinner design |
| Rounded sides, easier to unfold | Flat sides, a bit harder to open |
| 7-inch main screen with 165Hz refresh rate | 6.9-inch screen with 120Hz refresh rate |
| Screen can get slightly brighter | - |
| 16GB of RAM | 12GB of RAM |
| Faster charging at 68W | Slow-ish 25W charging speed |
| Prices from $1,500 for 512GB | $1,100 starting price (lower with discounts) |
| New LOFIC camera sensor for better dynamic range | - |
| Only 3 years of software updates | Much longer software support with 7 years of updates |
Table of Contents:
Also read:
- Motorola Razr Ultra (2026) Review
- Motorola Razr Plus (2026) vs Razr Ultra (2026)
Design and Size
Samsung is going edge-to-edge with the cover screen, finally
Image by PhoneArena
First, the Motorola is a looker. We have the Pantone Orient Blue model with a luxurious soft touch alcantara finish. I just don’t want to put a case on this phone, ever. The Galaxy also looks good, but definitely different — it’s a plain metal slab, as minimalist as they come.
Image by PhoneArena
The Galaxy Flip is also thinner and a tiny bit lighter.
However, I absolutely despise the flat sides of the Galaxy, they make unfolding the Flip 7 so complicated, your finger doesn’t have a comfortable place to open the phone and you have to be extra careful not to drop it.
However, I absolutely despise the flat sides of the Galaxy, they make unfolding the Flip 7 so complicated, your finger doesn’t have a comfortable place to open the phone and you have to be extra careful not to drop it.
Image by PhoneArena
The rounded sides of the Razr Ultra are just much more sensible, so in my view, it wins the design round easily.
Display Differences
Image by PhoneArena
Both have a very minimal crease on the main screen, honestly, I cannot tell if one is a bit narrower than the other. The hinge also feels nice and sturdy on both phones, and they close with a satisfying thump.
As for the cover screen, the official specs say 4.1 inches on the Samsung phone and 4 inches on the Razr, but you probably won’t even notice that difference. What you can spot, though, are the super thin bezels on the Samsung, while the Motorola has bigger screen borders and doesn’t look quite as cool.
As for the cover screen, the official specs say 4.1 inches on the Samsung phone and 4 inches on the Razr, but you probably won’t even notice that difference. What you can spot, though, are the super thin bezels on the Samsung, while the Motorola has bigger screen borders and doesn’t look quite as cool.
The main screen is slightly bigger on the Motorola, 7 inches vs 6.9 on the Galaxy, but what matters more is that the Razr can get much brighter. We measured around 2,200 nits of peak brightness on the Razr Ultra and 1750 nits on the Samsung, so using the Motorola outdoors is definitely easier.
On the flip side, though, at night, when you need the brightness to dip as low as possible, the Samsung can go under 1 nit, while the Motorola only reaches around 2 nits, so night birds would prefer the display on the Galaxy.
On the flip side, though, at night, when you need the brightness to dip as low as possible, the Samsung can go under 1 nit, while the Motorola only reaches around 2 nits, so night birds would prefer the display on the Galaxy.
Performance and Software
An Elite battle
Image by PhoneArena
Samsung decided to skip the high-end processor on its flip phones, so the Motorola definitely has an advantage here. The Razr also has more RAM: 16GB vs 12GB on the Flip 7.
In terms of power user features, Samsung added DeX last year to the Galaxy Flip 7, so you can just plug in an external monitor, and with a paired keyboard and a mouse, you have your personal productivity station.
Motorola has an alternative with Smart Connect, but that only works wirelessly, you can connect to a smart TV or a windows laptops, but you don’t get the low latency of a wired connection.
Samsung also scores a big win with software updates with seven years of promised OS updates, while Motorola drops the ball with just 3 years of OS updates, which is just baffling on such an expensive gadget like the Razr Ultra.
Motorola has an alternative with Smart Connect, but that only works wirelessly, you can connect to a smart TV or a windows laptops, but you don’t get the low latency of a wired connection.
Samsung also scores a big win with software updates with seven years of promised OS updates, while Motorola drops the ball with just 3 years of OS updates, which is just baffling on such an expensive gadget like the Razr Ultra.
CPU Performance Benchmarks:
Geekbench 6: A high single-core score is what makes your phone feel snappy during everyday tasks like opening apps, typing and browsing. The multi-core score matters most when doing heavier work like video editing or gaming.
And you can see the Geekbench scores show the Motorola is indeed faster.
AI Quantized: This test measures how efficiently your phone’s 'brain' handles AI tasks, ensuring that features like live translation and smart photo editing feel instant and fluid without draining your battery.
GPU Performance
Wild Life Extreme is a heavy graphics workload used to measure a device's sustained GPU performance and thermal throttling. It uses older mobile rendering techniques and is friendly to older or lower-end mobile devices.
But we noticed something troubling: when we ran the 3D Mark gaming benchmark, the Razr got incredibly hot, so much that the 20-minute test had to stop after just 5 minutes because of overheating.
If you play super demanding games, this can be an issue.
If you play super demanding games, this can be an issue.
Steel Nomad Light Stress Test: Measures your phone’s "gaming stamina" by comparing its peak speed (High) against its throttled speed after it heats up (Low), revealing whether your performance will stay smooth or start lagging during a long session.
Here, it’s a good time to mention that both the cover and main Motorola screens can run at 165Hz for gaming, which is good for fast paced action, but you probably should avoid maxxing out settings to avoid overheating.
Storage speed
The Motorola comes with 512GB of native storage, which is probably part of the reason for its sky-high price, while the Flip 7 is offered in a base model with 256GB storage and you can also upgrade to 512GB.
Storage tests measure how quickly your phone can move data. Random read and write show how fast your phone can find and move thousands of tiny, scattered files. This is the most important metric for an average user because it’s what happens when you open an app, check your notifications, or search through your photo gallery. Sequential read and write measure the speed of moving one giant, continuous file. You’ll notice this when you are saving a 4K video you just recorded or downloading a massive game update.
Interestingly, we measured random speeds were faster on the Motorola, while sequential tests showed the Galaxy scoring better.
Camera
Two cameras on both
Image by PhoneArena
Flip phones are not exactly known for superb cameras, and I don’t think the new LOFIC main camera sensor on the Motorola makes a huge difference. This new technology allows for better dynamic range, so the bright areas in an image don’t get overblown, but in real use, I found this to be mostly a subtle thing.
PhoneArena Camera Score:
Samsung has one advantage when we talk about cameras and it is about AI. Features like the Magic Eraser can remove parts of your images in a very seamless way, while the Motorola is not quite as good with the AI trickery.
Main Camera
On this photo with me in it, the Motorola goes for the warmer colors, but notice how the Galaxy blows out these brighter areas in the image.
What I notice more is just the pure color science difference on these two. Once upon a time Samsung was known to take photos with excessively vibrant, overblown colors, but now Motorola seems to carry that torch. Just look at the bright sky and the green grass on the Motorola compared to the Galaxy.
The Razr Ultra consistently looked brighter and more saturated, and the Galaxy Flip was more toned down.
Portrait Mode
Here are a couple of portrait photos, you can shoot at 2X and 1X magnification, the Motorola consistently takes warmer pictures, but look at the difference in the background blur at 1X, it looks much sharper on the Motorola, which can be an artistic effect, but I prefer the softer blur on the Galaxy.
Zoom Quality
I also tried snapping a few photos at 10X zoom, but both phones fail spectacularly here. It doesn’t even make sense comparing them, they are just not great at zooming. I’d recommend taking photos at 5X zoom level tops. If you go to concerts or film things far away, you will be much better off with a phone that has a telephoto camera.
Ultra-wide
And finally, for the ultrawide camera, the Galaxy sometimes just goes way too dark, while the Motorola is able to light me up as the subject and I typically prefer its photos.
Selfies
I should also say that selfies on the Motorola have MUUCH better dynamic range, look at the window behind me on the Galaxy, it’s just plain white, and on the Motorola you actually get to see the view outside.
Battery Life and Charging
An easy win for Motorola?
Image by PhoneArena
While camera quality is a toss between the two, one area where the Motorola clearly has the upper hand is in battery size.
The Razr Ultra has a 5,000mAh battery, 15% bigger than the Galaxy Flip 7, which has 4,300mAh.
The Razr Ultra has a 5,000mAh battery, 15% bigger than the Galaxy Flip 7, which has 4,300mAh.
PhoneArena Battery and Charging Test Results:
Recent Motorola phones don't perform well on our in-house battery tests. Specifically, on our web browsing test where we just run the same script in the Chrome browser over a Wi-Fi connection (we pre-set all phones to the same brightness level and run them over the same Wi-Fi network), the Razr perfrormed noticeably worse than the Galaxy.
On our second test, YouTube video streaming, though, we saw it outrank the Galaxy.
The Razr also has much faster charging at 68 watts versus just 25 on the Samsung, but be warned - you need to have Motorola’s own TurboPower brick to get those speeds. If you have just a regular USB Power Delivery charger, you will get much slower speeds.
Both phones also support wireless charging, but there are no magnets. The Motorola is once again faster here, supporting 30W speeds vs 15 watts on the Galaxy.
The Razr relies on Motorola's proprietary TurboPower, while Samsung uses the USB Power Delivery standard.
Both phones also support wireless charging, but there are no magnets. The Motorola is once again faster here, supporting 30W speeds vs 15 watts on the Galaxy.
The Razr relies on Motorola's proprietary TurboPower, while Samsung uses the USB Power Delivery standard.
Specs Comparison
And here is an overview of the Galaxy Z Flip 7 vs Motorola Rarz Ultra (2026) specs:
|
|
| Motorola Razr Ultra (2026) | Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 |
| Dimensions | |
|---|---|
| 171.48 × 73.99 × 7.19 | 166.7 x 75.2 x 6.5mm (~8.6 mm with camera bump) |
| Weight | |
| 199.0 g | 188.0 g |
| Size | |
|---|---|
| 7.0-inch | 6.9-inch |
| Type | |
| AMOLED, 165Hz | Dynamic AMOLED, 120Hz |
| System chip | |
|---|---|
| Snapdragon 8 Elite SM8750-AC (3 nm) | Exynos 2500 S5E9955 (3 nm) |
| Memory | |
| 16GB (LPDDR5X)/512GB (UFS 4.0) | 12GB (LPDDR5X)/256GB (UFS 4.0) 12GB/512GB |
| OS | |
| Android (16) | Android (16) |
| Type | |
|---|---|
| 5000 mAh | 4300 mAh |
| Charge speed | |
| Wired: 68.0W Wireless: 30.0W |
Wired: 25.0W Wireless: 10.0W |
| Main camera | |
|---|---|
| 50 MP (OIS, PDAF) Aperture size: F1.8 Focal length: 24 mm Sensor size: 1/1.56" Pixel size: 1.0 μm | 50 MP (OIS, PDAF) Aperture size: F1.8 Focal length: 23 mm Sensor size: 1/1.57" Pixel size: 1.0 μm |
| Second camera | |
| 50 MP (Ultra-wide, PDAF) Aperture size: F2.0 Focal Length: 12 mm Sensor size: 1/2.93" Pixel size: 0.6 μm |
12 MP (Ultra-wide) Aperture size: F2.2 Focal Length: 13 mm Sensor size: 1/3.2" Pixel size: 1.12 μm |
| Front | |
| 50 MP | 10 MP |
See the full
Motorola Razr Ultra (2026) vs Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 specs comparison
or compare them to other phones using our
Phone Comparison tool
The one thing that sticks out in the Galaxy specs is the use of the Exynos processor, but also the unchanged (kind of slowish) 25W charging speeds.
Summary
Image by PhoneArena
The Motorola Razr Ultra has not changed much this year, but it's still an excellent flip phone. Its price, however, has ballooned to $1,500 which is just way out of reach for most people.
Samsung's Galaxy Flip 7 might be the older phone, but it is commonly found on discount at prices as low as $900.
With such a massive gap between the two, the practical choice is clear, but if price is no issue or if Motorola introduces some big discounts, the Razr wins on battery size, charging and just pure looks and comfort, while the Galaxy gets longer updates and a more feature rich One UI skin.
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