Motorola's $1,500 Razr Ultra Looks Swanky in Alcantara

Motorola Razr Ultra 2026

The 2026 Motorola Razr Ultra is the best-looking phone I've seen this year. My review loaner was in Pantone orient blue, which looks purple a lot of the time. 

The new Ultra keeps that amazing 4-inch cover display, which is still outstanding to use and offers the best experience on any 2026 flip phone. There are now video wallpapers for it, too.

The 7-inch internal display reaches 5,000 nits of peak brightness (up from 4,500 nits on the Ultra 2025). It's not always an obvious difference, but under the California sunshine, I'll take every extra bit of brightness I can get.

The new Razr Ultra (right) and last year's model (left) have identical screens, cover displays, dimensions, weight, Snapdragon 8 Elite processors, cameras and build. The 2026 Razr Ultra has new colors, has a new type of battery, a cutting-edge main camera sensor, more AI tools and comes out of the box running Android 16.

The phone has a silicon-carbon battery, a new type of lithium-ion battery in which the negative electrode is made of silicon and carbon. This chemical combo gives the battery more capacity: 5,000 mAh compared to 4,700 mAh on last year's model.

The flip phone supports a max 68-watt speed and in CNET's 30-minute charging test, it went from empty to 52%, which is good. I should note that to get that top 68-watt speed, your wall plug needs to support TurboCharge power delivery. I ran my tests with a $60 plug that Motorola lent me -- the Razr Ultra doesn't come with it. 

TheRazr Ultra supports 30-watt wireless charging, but good luck finding a charger that supports it. Motorola doesn't sell one. There aren't third-party accessories that do either. It's like having a car that can go 300mph but lacks a transmission to put the car in drive. Sigh.

The main wide-angle camera now has a LOFIC sensor: Lateral Overflow Integration Capacitor. The camera can better protect the highlights in your photos, so that the brightest parts of your image don't blow out to solid white. Instead, photos retain more detail and shading.

The main display does have a crease where it folds in half. But in use, I don't notice it unless my finger slides across it.

The inner screen is tuned and color validated by Pantone.

Whether is was games, quickly reading notifications or just using Google Pay, the Razr Ultra's cover display is a shortcut gem.

Look, $1,500 is a lot for anything in an economy where daily essentials cost more. It's hard to recommend a $1,500 phone, no matter how good I think it is. And I do think the Motorola Razr Ultra 2026, even with its shortcomings, is good. Asking $1,500 for small improvements (and, in some cases, poorer photos) compared to 2025's model is a tough sell. Just wait for it to go on sale before you buy one