Motorola Razr (2023) vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5: Which foldable should you get?

A Motorola Razr (2023) vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 comparison invites you to weigh the merits of a low-cost device against a more fully-featured phone to find out which one is better suited toward your particular needs. And it turns out to be a fairly close competition.

The Motorola Razr (2023) has lots of things going for it from a stylish design to an impressive interior screen, but at the end of the day, it's best known for being the lowest-cost folding phone that you can currently buy. That's no small feat, as high price tags have been a major hurdle for wider adoption of foldable devices.

The Razr's $699 starting price undercuts the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5, which used to the low-cost foldable phone champ and remains one of the best foldable phones out there. Even though you'll pay for Samsung's take on a foldable flip phone, you'll see where the money went with a more powerful chipset running the show and an impressive set of cameras for capturing photos.

Our Motorola Razr (2023) vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 face-off looks at whether Motorola's latest flip phone foldable can beat Samsung's most recent Z Flip on value even with the features that have been stripped out. Read on to see which phone comes out on top.

Motorola Razr (2023) vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5: Specs

Motorola Razr (2023) vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5: Price

There's a clear winner when you're pricing out foldable phones. The Motorola Razr (2023) starts at $699 — a new low for foldable phone prices.

In a bit of an irony, the Razr inherits the low-cost crown from the Z Flip, which became the first foldable to break the $1,000 barrier two years ago with the Galaxy Z Flip 3. The Galaxy Z Flip 5 keeps that $999 starting price. Though it may cost $300 more than the Razr, the latest Z Flip offers double the storage — 256GB vs. 128GB.

The Galaxy Z Flip 5 chips into the Razr's pricing edge in other ways, as it's available from every major carrier in the U.S. At&T and T-Mobile offer the Motorola Razr (2023), but Verizon does not.

Winner: Motorola Razr (2023)

Motorola Razr (2023) vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5: Design

Both phones take the same basic approach to their design — an old-school flip phone that opens up to reveal a much larger screen inside. Both phones close flat with no gap in between the two halves — in the case of the Galaxy Z Flip 5, that's thanks to a new hinge mechanism that Samsung introduced for this version of the phone.

All foldables have a crease in their main display where the phone folds in two. For the Motorola Razr, the crease is not very visible — you really have to stare to find it. The Galaxy Z Flip 5's crease is a little more prominent, particularly when you're running apps with white backgrounds or dragging your finger across the screen.

At 6.7 x 2.9 x 0.29 inches when open, the Motorola Razr (2023) is taller by 0.2 inches than the Galaxy Z Flip 5; it's also modestly wider and thicker. That said, the two phones essentially weigh the same — there's 1.6 grams difference between the two, which is pretty much imperceptible.

With a vegan leather cover, the Motorola Razr (2023) feels a little more stylish than the more expensive Galaxy Z Flip 5. But Samsung's phone can claim better durability with an IPX8 water-resistance rating compared to IP52 for the Razr. That means Motorola's phone can withstand a splash of water but not immersion in up to 1.5 meters of water like the Galaxy Z Flip 5 can.

Winner: Motorola Razr (2023)

Motorola Razr (2023) vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5: Display

You'll get a little more screen space when you open up the Motorola Razr (2023) — it's got a 6.9-inch panel compared to the 6.7-inch main screen on the Galaxy Z Flip 5. Samsung's phone has a brighter display — 1,126 nits vs. 1,003 nits when we measured both with a light meter.

The Razr's saturated mode recreates more colors in both the sRGB and DCI-P3 gamuts, but the Galaxy Z Flip 5 has the edge when both phones are set to Natural modes. In either case, colors are more accurate on the Galaxy Z Flip 5 screen, based on the phones' respective Delta-E ratings, where numbers closer to zero are better.

The phones really separate themselves on the display front when it comes to the exterior displays. The Razr features a 1.9-inch strip on the outside of the phone that's big enough to show the date and time, a few widgets for things like weather and appointments, notifications and a view finder when you want to snap a selfie with the exterior cameras. (For a bigger cover display on a Motorola foldable, you'll need to turn to the more expensive Razr+ model.)

With this version of the Z Flip, Samsung expanded the cover display. It's now a 3.4-inch Super AMOLED Flex Window that can show widgets and, in some cases, full apps. Like the Razr, you can use the outer screen as a view finder for selfies, but I find the Galaxy Z Flip 5 gives you much more space to work with, so photos are easier to snap.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5

Motorola Razr (2023) vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5: Cameras

Both phones use the same basic camera setup — two external lenses, plus a selfie cam on the interior display — though the specs are marked different. Samsung uses a pair of 12MP cameras for the main and ultrawide cameras on the outside of the phone with a 10MP selfie cam once you open up the Flip. Motorola turns to a 64MP sensor for the main camera — by default, it captures 16M images — while adding a 13MP ultrawide shooter. A 32MP camera captures selfies for the Razr.

The Razr camera tends to match up well against the Galaxy Z Flip 5 when you consider color and composition. This shot of a cheeseburger, for example, is bright in both shots, with the cameras showing off the toasted bun, the glowing kimchi topping and the dark red of the ketchup. It's the little details where the Razr comes up short, though — as the onion rings in the background aren't very focused.

You could claim either portrait shot above is the better one based on your own personal preference. My daughter's skin tone is warmer in the Motorola Razr and I like how it captures the texture of her t-shirt. But the Galaxy Z Flip 5 does a better job of preserving facial features like freckles and her eyes are brighter.

Photos from the ultrawide lenses are not particularly close, as the Galaxy Z Flip 5 produces a more colorful shot wit better contrast. Some might contend the bushes around the jet are oversaturated — Samsung camera phones do tend to pump up the greens in images — but the sky is a richer shade of blue and the jet stands out better against that sky than it does in the Razr photo.

I do think the Razr's night shots are better on average than what the Galaxy Z Flip 5 produces. The bones on this skeleton have a more accurate color and the lighting on the surrounding scene feels more natural.

When I conducted a Motorola Razr (2023) vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 camera face-off, Samsung's phone produced the better images more consistently. But the gap wasn't as wide as you might think for phones that have a $300 price difference. You'll get better cameras with the Galaxy Z Flip 5, but the images produced by the Razr are certainly acceptable if you want to spend less on your next camera phone.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5

Motorola Razr (2023) vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5: Performance

It's not really an even fight here, as the two phones rely on different chipsets to drive performance. In the case of the Razr, Motorola has turned to older silicon as one of the ways to keep costs down on this particular foldable.

Specifically, the Motorola Razr (2023) uses a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, which was first introduced at the end of 2021 and powered many of 2022's top Android flagships. It's a capable system-on-chip even now, but it's no match for the more recent Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 that the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 uses. In fact, Samsung has turned to a version of that chip that's optimized for performance, potentially widening the gap between the Flip and the Razr.

Indeed, that's how things panned out when we tested both phones. The Galaxy Z Flip 5 posts better Geekbench scores on a test that measure overall performance, and it's substantially ahead of the Motorola Razr in graphics tests like 3DMark's Wild Life Unilimited benchmark. In our video-transcoding test, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 is more than a minute faster than the Razr.

In everyday usage, we found the Razr was a solid performer, capable of running most apps and even demanding games without a hiccup. But if you want peak performance, you're better off with the Galaxy Z Flip 5.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5

Motorola Razr (2023) vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5: Battery life and charging

It's a challenge for foldable phones to last a long time on a charge, as there are bigger screens to keep powered up and, in the case of flip phones like the Razr and Z Flip, external displays that consume power, too. Past Galaxy Z Flips have struggled to keep up with other smartphones on our battery test, in which phones surf the web continuously over cellular until they run out of power.

The good news is that the Galaxy Z Flip 5 does much better on our test than its predecessors, with a time of 9 hours and 53 seconds — pretty much matching the average result for smartphones we test. That said, the Motorola Razr beat the Flip's time by nearly an hour.

A couple factors may explain the result. The Razr's battery is bigger — 4,200 mAh compared to 3,800 mAh for the Galaxy Z Flip 5 — and its exterior display is much smaller than the panel the Flip has to keep powered. Even with those caveats, though, the Razr is clearly the longer-lasting flip phone.

The Razr charges faster, too, at least when it comes to wired charging. The Razr supports 30W charging speeds to 25W for the Galaxy Z Flip 5. Samsung's phone supports faster wireless charging (15W vs. 5W). That difference saw the Razr get to a 64% charge after half-an-hour while the Galaxy Z Flip 5 topped out at 52%.

Winner: Motorola Razr 2023

Motorola Razr (2023) vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5: Software

Both phones ofer the kind of features you'd expect from foldables, such a Flex mode that turns the top half of the screen into a viewing area and the bottom half into one with controls. As noted, the cover display on the Galaxy Z Flip 5 can run some apps, while the Motorola Razr is limited to notifications.

The most significant addition to the Razr has little to do with its foldable design. Motorola is introducing a new Unplugged feature that lets you designate times where only selected apps and notifications appear. The idea is to block out potential distractions like social media that might keep you glued to your phone screen. It's a worthy addition, but it sounds a lot like the Digital Wellbeing features already built into the Android OS.

Speaking of Android, both phone currently run Android 13, though an upgrade to Android 14 is imminent. That's the first of three years of Android OS updates for the Razr, which also gets a fourth year of security support. Samsung provides its phones with four years of software updates and a fifth year of security patches.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5

Motorola Razr (2023) vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5: Verdict

You'd expect a premium foldable to outmuscle a more budget-minded device that strips away some of the high-end features in exchange for a lower price tag. And while that happens to some extent — the Galaxy Z Flip 5 is clearly a better phone than the standard Motorola Razr — the difference between these two devices isn't as cut-and-dried as you might think.

The Galaxy Z Flip 5's more powerful processor and larger exterior display make it the better choice if you can swing the $999 starting price. But if you're unable or unwilling to spend that much on a phone, the Motorola Razr emerges as a compelling alternative. It lasts longer on a charge, its crease is less notable and its cameras — while not quite as good as the Flip's — produce some pretty good shots on average.

Samsung may have won this Motorola Razr (2023) vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 face-off. But Motorola proves that there's plenty of room for a lower cost foldable phone that doesn't sacrifice too much.

More from Tom's Guide

• Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 vs Motorola Razr+: Premium foldable face-off
• The $699 Motorola Razr heralds a new era of affordable foldable phones
• I spent a month with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 — what I love (and hate)