Motorola phones often play third (or fourth) fiddle to Samsung and Google, but the winds are changing. Motorola is now one of the fastest-growing mobile companies in the world, and the company claims its Razr folding smartphones are the number one in the flip category in North America. The company has also been experimenting with colorful Android phones and fun textures, making its devices stand out from the sea of boring glass handsets.
If you’re an interested buyer, picking the best Motorola phone can be tough, because the company launches many models each year. I’ve tested almost all of them, and in this guide I break down the pros and cons and steer you toward my favorite Moto models—from the Razr Ultra to the Moto G Stylus 2025.
Check out our mobile buying guides for more, including the Best Android Phones, Best Samsung Phones, Best Cheap Phones, Best Pixel Phones, and Best Phones With a Headphone Jack.
Table of Contents
Updated May 2025: We’ve added the Motorola Razr 2025 series.
What’s WIRED About Motorola Phones
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Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
Motorola phones have a simple Android interface. This means the company hasn’t done much to gunk up the software. It’s simple and easy to use. There’s increasingly a lot of bloatware, but you can easily uninstall almost all of it.
They come with lots of storage. The company stuffs 256 GB as standard into most of its smartphones, even some of the cheap models. Most Android flagship devices still come with just 128 GB. Motorola is also one of the only phone brands to still include a microSD card slot to expand storage on many of its devices, and the Moto G phones retain the headphone jack.
There’s broad carrier support. While some Android phone brands have inconsistent carrier support in the US, like Nothing, Motorola phones often work on most if not all networks (the company lists carrier support details in the Specs section of all its phones). They all work on the big three—T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon. Make sure you buy them unlocked.
The prices dip quite often. Never buy a Motorola phone at its MSRP. They almost always go on sale a few months (or weeks) after launch, sometimes at steep discounts.
What’s TIRED About Motorola Phones
Motorola’s software updates are lackluster. The company is slowly improving here—it promises to deliver three Android OS updates and four years of bimonthly security updates to its high-end smartphones but still lags behind its peers. Most of the Moto G phones only receive one OS Android update—though this is changing in 2025 with new devices getting two upgrades—along with three years of security updates. Fewer updates mean you miss out on new Android features quickly. Even if a phone is promised updates, they take a long time to arrive.
The cameras are lackluster. Among the things putting Motorola behind the likes of Samsung, Apple, and Google are the cameras. Moto phones can take fine photos but they’re eclipsed by their peers. Motorola made some improvements with its high-end phones but it’s still behind.
There’s no always-on display. Most Android phones have a setting you can toggle on if you want an always-on display that will show a clock on your screen even when the screen is “off.” Motorola has Peek Display, which requires you to move the phone or tap the screen to see anything. It’s not a big deal, but it’s a feature you might miss if you’re coming from another phone. Newer Razr devices finally broke the mold with always-on displays, but it’s still not present in the company’s other products.
The Best Motorola Phone
The Razr Ultra (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is the best reason to get a Motorola phone over the likes of Samsung, Apple, and Google. It’s a statement piece, not just because it’s a compact folding flip phone, but because Motorola offers it in several snazzy and stylish designs. There’s the Mountain Trail, which employs sustainably sourced wood; Scarab, the first use of Alcantara on a smartphone; Rio Red, a leather-inspired finish; and Cabaret, which feels like satin. You’ll be hard pressed to find a phone that looks this fashionable these days.
The spacious 4-inch OLED screen has more customization options than ever, with the ability to add more widgets for glanceable information, so you don’t need to constantly open the phone. Once you do, you’re treated to a large 7-inch AMOLED display that’s sharp, bright, and smooth thanks to the 165-Hz refresh rate. Motorola has improved the Razr Ultra’s durability with a new Gorilla Glass Ceramic mixture for the screens that makes it tougher to crack, and the titanium-reinforced hinge design is supposedly stronger, too. It now has an IP48 rating, offering some proper dust protection.
Motorola has stuffed flagship features through and through (which explains the high price), from 512 GB of internal storage to the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset powering it all. Performance is not a problem at all, with apps and games operating smoothly. This Razr Ultra also has the biggest battery ever in a Razr at 4,700 mAh, and it reliably lasted me a full day with average use. That said, power users who rack up screen time may find themselves reaching for the charger before bedtime. At least it supports fast charging speeds, wired and wirelessly.
The cameras are a nice improvement—you can get pretty great photos from the 50-megapixel primary camera and the 50-megapixel ultrawide. You need to stay still in low light, especially since Motorola confusingly hides the Night mode function in the “More” tab of the camera app. (It doesn’t automatically kick in in low light.) The best part is that you can use the superior primary cameras—typically on the “back” of the phone, but are now at the front—to snap selfies and see previews on this external screen. They’re some of the sharpest selfies you’ll snap.
Video capture is also much better on the Ultra than on any other Motorola phone. Once you enable Dolby Vision (and you do have to tap it manually), you can get well-exposed footage that’s not too grainy or shaky. The camera results, whether in photo or video, still don’t quite match the competition at this price, but this is still Motorola’s best camera system to date.
The software experience is great, except for all the artificial intelligence features Motorola is marketing. Copilot! Perplexity! Gemini! Moto AI! There’s a boatload of options, even a dedicated AI button, though I haven’t found Moto AI too helpful. The best perk is Pay Attention, which makes the phone start recording with real-time transcriptions—handy for interviews, but that’s a common feature on most phones. It’s also a shame that Motorola’s software update policy is still not as good as the competition.
As always, I recommend waiting for a big sale event, as Motorola phones are frequently discounted. The Razr Ultra is the most expensive Razr to date, but I think it’ll be a great buy once it comes closer to $1,000 or $1,100. It barely takes up any room in your pocket or purse, will look more fashionable than any other smartphone out there, and you’ll feel super satisfied ending a phone call with a flip.
The Best Cheap Folding Phone
You don’t need to spend $1,300 to get a good folding flip phone. The Razr 2025 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) wins the “Most Improved” award because performance is finally not as choppy as on prior models. Mind you, it’ll still stutter here and there, but that’s not a defining aspect of this phone anymore. My experience with it wasn’t massively different from the Razr Ultra—battery life is roughly the same, lasting a full day with average use, and the screens are nice and bright, even if they’re slightly smaller.
Cameras are its weak point compared to the Ultra. You can get some nice photos, but they’ll struggle more in high-contrast scenes, look grainy in low light, and feel a bit more processed. Skin tones and colors are also not as accurate as with the pricier sibling, and video capture is noticeably worse. Still, considering the $700 price for a folding smartphone, it’s an incredible value, while still managing to look gorgeous.
The Best Trad Moto Phone
Note: Motorola is expected to announce a new 2025 Edge phone this summer.
This phone is frequently on sale for $330, and it’s a no-brainer for anyone on a budget. You get a large 6.6-inch AMOLED screen with a 144-Hz screen refresh rate and speedy performance thanks to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 chipset. It’s not a flagship processor, but enough to deliver snappy app launches and lag-free gameplay, and it’s leagues better than the performance you’ll find on the other Motorola phones featured below.
It has all the basics from NFC so you can pay with your phone via Google Wallet, plus an IP68 water resistance rating, ensuring it won’t succumb to a drop in the pool. It supports wireless charging, comes with 256 GB of storage, and packs some pretty loud Dolby Atmos stereo speakers. I used it as my daily phone for two weeks, and it performed remarkably well. The 5,000-mAh battery comfortably lasts a full day with average use and often can go well into the second day before a top-up. Use the Edge heavily, and it’s firmly in the charge-once-a-day territory.
I do have a few gripes, though. The Edge uses a so-called waterfall display, where the glass on the front curves into the edges for a more immersive look. It certainly looks fancy, but I’ve had several moments where my fingers holding the phone’s edges disrupted an action I was trying to complete with my other hand. This has long been an issue on phones with curved screens. It’s easy to get used to and adjust your grip quickly, but it’s annoying.
Second, the 50-MP main camera has a bit of shutter lag, which can be frustrating when you’re trying to capture moving subjects (like my dog, who won’t sit still). The pics you can get out of it are solid, perfectly acceptable images during the day. The contrast is a little too strong sometimes, and it doesn’t handle high-contrast scenes all that great, but there’s good detail. In low light, you’ll encounter a few more blurry photos due to that shutter lag and shaky hands, but if the conditions are right, you can get some sharp, in-focus shots. This is where a phone like the Google Pixel 9a handily beats the Edge 2024.
Unfortunately, Motorola promises only two Android OS upgrades (up to Android 16) and three years of security updates to the Edge 2024. The Pixel 9a will get seven years of software support. This is one of Motorola’s biggest weaknesses, but this may not be as much of an issue at its frequent sale price.
