Motorola Razr+ vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6: Which foldable phone is best?

This article is part of our series Battle of the Brands, in which we compare category-leading products to their counterparts to determine which are actually worth your money.

The past year has been very exciting in the foldable phone category in the United States. After long being dominated by Samsung, a new competitor has emerged with a really compelling offering. The Motorola Razr+ (2024) is not new — indeed, Motorola launched its first flip-style foldable before Samsung, but 2023 was really the first year when Motorola started to challenge, and in some ways surpass the Galaxy Z Flip.

This year, the battle for best foldable phone between these two is ridiculously close, with Samsung outshining Motorola in several categories, but Moto clapping back in others. If you are in the process of choosing between the Razr+ or Galaxy Z Flip 6, you are going to have your work cut out for you. The great news is, you don’t have a bad choice. Both of these phones are really refined products that are fun to use and come in some great colors. So we’re here to try and help you figure out which one will get your dollars by looking at the screens, the cameras, the software and more.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 vs. Motorola Razr+ at a glance

Quick comparison

Design

Right off the bat, the Motorola Razr+ looks like an early favorite for the design — and it’s hard to argue against that. The palatial cover screen at four inches is big enough to use most apps, even streaming ones. You can read with your Kindle app, stream baseball games, check email and more. Meanwhile, Samsung stuck with the same 3.4-inch cover screen from the Z Flip 5 for the Z Flip 6. But it’s not that straightforward.

Specifically, the cameras on the bottom of both display take away a lot of screen real estate. Motorola shrugs its shoulders and wraps the display around those cameras. Samsung makes a deliberate cutout around those cameras, and the result is the same, but it looks more classy on the Samsung phone. This will be a theme, by the way, so pay attention.

For the rest of the design, the two companies take different paths. For the bottom half of the phone (the back when it’s closed) Motorola went with vegan leather/suede options (or in one case, both) which gives the phone a delightful feeling when you’re holding it. You won’t want to put a case on this phone. Meanwhile, Samsung is going with the traditional glass backplate, though the company offers a virtual box of crayons in color choices — Silver Shadow, Yellow, Blue and Mint along with Samsung.com exclusives: Crafted Black, White and Peach. Meanwhile, Motorola counters with Infinite Black, Glacier Blue, Viva Magenta and Peach Fuzz. Colorful smartphones are back, people!

In terms of build, Samsung has a definite edge here. The hinge on the Flip 6 is smooth and can support the phone at basically any angle, while the Motorola feels more springy, and is limited to an open posture of between around 45 and 135 degrees. There’s also a bit of lateral movement on the two halves of the Razr+ that isn’t nearly as prominent on the Flip 6. Samsung has been doing this for a long time, and it has refined the hinge and hardware down to a science. Metaphorically speaking, the Razr+ is more like a stone, while the Samsung Galaxy Flip 6 feels more like a brick. That being said, the crease on the Razr+ is less noticeable that than on the Flip 6, but that’s a very close call.

TL;DR:  While the Motorola Razr+ has the larger cover screen, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 has a more refined design and better hinge. Winner: Samsung.

Software

When it comes to software on the cover screen, it really comes down to two fundamental philosophies on how to manage apps and features on the cover screen. Which one you like better is 100% a matter of taste, but they’re coming from two very different directions.

Both phones allow you to have apps and widgets that run on the cover screen, but Samsung takes a much more reserved approach to it. There are a very select few apps that have been “blessed” by Samsung to run on the exterior display. These apps — Messages, YouTube, Netflix and Maps — have all been optimized to work with the cover screen and the cutout on the external display.

Meanwhile, Motorola takes a very laissez-faire approach, basically allowing a user to run most of their apps on the cover screen. Now, many of those apps will not work well, or at all, but that’s up to the user to find out. If you want to add apps to the Razr+ cover screen, just tap the edit button on the app launcher panel. On the Samsung, there are nine separate steps you need to run through, including installing a separate app from the Galaxy Store in order to run any app you want. Once you get there, the experiences become very similar, but getting there is simple on the Razr + and very complicated on the Samsung.

It’s also worth mentioning that just about everything you try to configure on the cover screen of the Samsung phone requires you to open the phone. Meanwhile, Motorola makes just about everything work on the cover screen.

As for the software on the rest of the phone, you get OneUI 6.1 on the Flip 6 and Motorola’s very clean Android 14 build on the Razr+. Ever since Motorola lived under the Google umbrella, the company has focused on keeping its Android builds pretty close to a stock experience. But Motorola adds on preferences in its Moto app where you can personalize your phone quite a bit.

Samsung, meanwhile, has been building OneUI for years now. Samsung prefers to load its phones with its own ecosystem of apps, which, if you buy into the Samsung ecosystem can be pretty great. If you don’t, they can be annoying.

TL;DR: Samsung’s OneUI is getting a bit long in the tooth, and honestly isn’t for everyone. Motorola’s clean build and more open approach to software feels more like how Android should feel. Winner: Motorola

Performance and battery life

One area where the Z Flip 6 really stands above the Moto Razr+ on paper is in the processor. The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 packs the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy chip, which is an overclocked version of Qualcomm’s flagship processor. Meanwhile, the Motorola Razr+ runs a Snapdragon 8S Gen 3 processor, which is a bit of a step down in performance from the flagship processor. The Geekbench numbers bear that out:

That’s on paper. In reality, when it comes to day-to-day performance, there’s very little difference between the two. From opening apps to in-game performance, the Z Flip 6 performs faster, but it’s not to any kind of noticeable degree. Unless you’re a truly hardcore gamer, you won’t notice much of a difference between the two handsets.

The same goes for battery. Both phones feature a 4,000 mAh battery, which is slightly small by flagship standards, but not bad by any stretch. In day-to-day use, I have yet to run short on battery for a given day for either phone, but that comes with a caveat.

Put simply, and especially when you’re going to be away from Wi-Fi, you’ll want to do as much as possible on the cover screen. The physics are simple — a smaller screen takes less battery. Beyond that, with light-to-medium usage, either phone lasts a day with no problem. Heavier usage is even possible, as long as you offload some of those tasks to the smaller screen.

TL;DR Both phones can last all day, but overall, the Moto Razr+ would have more left in the tank at bedtime. The Z Flip 6’s battery isn’t bad per se, but Motorola is slightly better. Winner: Motorola

Cameras

Both phones feature dual camera setups on the cover screen, but they are pretty different from each other. The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 features a 50-megapixel main camera with f/1.8 aperture and a 12-megapixel ultrawide camera with f/2.2 aperture and 123-degree field of view. Meanwhile, the Moto Razr+ also features a 50-megapixel main camera with f/1.7 aperture and a second 50-megapixel 2x optical telephoto sensor with f/2.0 aperture. There is no ultrawide camera on the Razr+ and there is no telephoto on the Z Flip 6. So right off the bat, you have a decision to make.

Theoretically, a 50-megapixel camera should allow you to crop in on the sensor in order to get a decent lossless 2x “zoom”, so in that respect, Samsung may have the advantage here. The lack of an ultrawide sensor on the motorola Razr+ is surprising. The last major phone to ship without such a sensor was the Pixel 4, so it’s an odd choice. As for the quality of those cameras, let’s dive in.

The main cameras on both phones perform quite well in good light. It’s actually pretty hard to find flagship cameras that don’t, which is a good thing. Most of your photos, with few exceptions, will falter in broad daylight, which is why it’s important to look at the secondary cameras under the sun. Specifically, the Moto Razr+ telephoto lens loses quality dramatically, especially at 4x zoom, which should really just be a sensor crop from the secondary telephoto camera.

View this interactive content on CNN.com

But when you look at these two photos — both shot at 4x on the Motorola and the Samsung respectively, you notice a shocking lack of detail in the subject’s face on the Razr+, especially when compared to the Samsung which doesn’t even have a telephoto lens. Those aren’t just the dead eyes of a teenage boy — that’s also bad photo processing.

Meanwhile, the ultrawide algorithm could use some tweaking to reduce the fish eye effect from grabbing the 123-degree wide shot. That’s certainly not a terrible problem, nor one unique to the Z Flip 6.

Both phones capture action shots pretty well. Running subjects shot with burst mode or just a standard point and shoot in auto both turned out pretty well, which is a nice surprise. Most cameras can capture landscapes where nothing is moving pretty well. Action tends to gum up the works, but not here.

The front facing selfie camera is also pretty decent on both phones, though you’ll probably almost always be better off keeping the phone closed and taking a photo with the main camera. That being said, the Flip had trouble capturing a group selfie with the front facing camera, blurring out my son along with the rest of the background in what was otherwise a nice moment.

View this interactive content on CNN.com

At night, that’s where the action is — or isn’t as the case may be. The main cameras in both cases do a pretty good job at night, all things considered. Neither phone captures motion well at all, whether it’s a flag blowing in the breeze or a former gymnast doing a one-handed cartwheel while also holding her phone — which, by the way, is as heart-attack inducing as it sounds.

The Motorola Razr+ picks up a lot of light streaks from light sources, which is certainly not ideal. The Z Flip 6 still blows out light sources, giving them large halos, but it’s nowhere near as bad. Overall, neither of the main cameras are bad, though I’d give the edge to Samsung.

As for secondary cameras, the main issue with the telephoto sensor on the Razr+ is a lack of focus. This is most noticeable in the 4x photo of Streamwood Village Hall. Once again, the Flip 6 — which does not have a telephoto lens — did a better job capturing 4x zoom than the Razr+.

View this interactive content on CNN.com

The ultrawide camera on the Z Flip 6 is not bad at night. The main issue is when subjects are lit harshly, that gets reflected in the photo. You also lose quite a bit of detail in things like grass and evergreen trees.

As for video, during the day, there are zero complaints. Stabilization is solid, and picture quality is great with the front- and rear-facing cameras. Again, daytime/good light scenarios aren’t really the problem. At night, the Razr+ gets quite a bit of judder and wandering focus when you’re moving. There are no such issues with the Z Flip 6, or at least they’re greatly reduced. The Flip 6 has more grain in the dark areas than the Motorola. Generally, if you are still and your subjects are moving, you can capture decent footage with both cameras.

If you made me choose a phone to carry for cameras, I’d probably go with the Flip 6. The Motorola offers the telephoto zoom which I crave, far more than an ultrawide lens, but the results are consistently more reliable with the Flip 6. But it’s a close race, overall.

TL;DR This is the best camera that Moto has shipped on a phone, but it was a low bar. Samsung’s camera does a better job in low light, especially where video is concerned. Winner: Samsung

Bottom line

All that really sets the tone for this comparison — it’s a close race between the two. One phone does things much better than the other in one category, but then the other claps back with solid performance in a different category. But there’s still one thing we haven’t looked at yet, and that is price.

The Motorola Razr+ checks in at $999, which you might remember is the same price as the Razr+ and the Z Flip 5 from last year. This year, Samsung upped its price tag for the base Flip 6 to $1,099 which means that these phones aren’t on equal footing any longer. Considering how close these phones run to each other, you might as well go ahead and save $100 by grabbing the Moto Razr+. You will get more build quality and a more refined experience from the Samsung Galaxy Flip 6, while you’ll get a much more user-centric experience from the Motorola Razr+. There’s no really wrong answer here.