Motorola Mobility Japan will release the motorola razr fold, its first book-style foldable smartphone, on August 4. The price through the official online store is 299,800 yen. Motorola has built the razr line around clamshell designs for years, so a phone that opens sideways is new territory for the company. It packs an 8.1-inch 2K main display, a 6,000mAh battery and a triple 50-megapixel camera system, targeting the weak points that have long dogged foldables.

A book-style model joins the clamshell razr line

The razr name has been tied to clamshell phones that fold down into the palm. The razr fold takes a different route, opening into a tablet-like panel. It was shown globally at MWC Barcelona 2026 in February, and the Japanese model arrives with local touches such as Osaifu-Keitai support.

Motorola also reorganized its lineup around this launch. The previous razr and razr ultra are merged into one model, leaving a two-phone structure: the clamshell razr and the book-style razr fold. With the foldable market expanding, the company settled on one device per form factor.

Motorola is a latecomer to the book-style segment, where rivals arrived first. The company points to three complaints it says existing foldable owners have raised, covering camera quality, battery life and durability, and positions the razr fold as its answer to all three. Those areas are, in effect, where the phone asks to be judged.

An 8.1-inch 2K panel with 6,200 nits peak brightness

Opened up, the main display measures 8.1 inches at 2K resolution with a 120Hz refresh rate. Peak brightness reaches 6,200 nits, high enough to stay readable in direct sunlight. The outer display used while the phone is closed is a generous 6.6 inches and runs at up to 165Hz.

The outer display uses Corning Gorilla Glass Ceramic 3. Adding a ceramic component makes the glass harder to break and keeps scratches from spreading. Motorola says the razr fold is the first smartphone in the world to use it, and the phone passed a drop test onto concrete from a height of 2 meters. The hinge is titanium and cleared 800,000 open-and-close cycles. Water and dust resistance is rated IP48/IP49.

Structural fragility is the usual worry with foldables, and the razr fold addresses it from three directions at once: glass, hinge and ingress protection. It measures about 4.55mm thick when open and about 9.89mm when folded, and weighs roughly 243g.

A 6,000mAh battery and triple 50-megapixel cameras

The battery holds 6,000mAh, which Motorola calls the largest ever in a foldable. Silicon-carbon technology made it possible to fit that capacity into a slim body. Charging runs at 80W TurboPower, with wireless charging up to 15W. On a phone built around a large display used for long stretches, that capacity should matter.

The camera system uses three 50-megapixel sensors: a main camera, a telephoto with 3x optical zoom, and an ultra-wide that doubles as a macro lens. The main sensor is Sony Semiconductor Solutions' LYT-828. DxOMark, which evaluates smartphone cameras, ranked it first among foldables. A super zoom mode reaching 100x uses AI to reconstruct fine detail, and the phone shoots 8K Dolby Vision video.

There are two front cameras: roughly 20 megapixels for use while closed and roughly 32 megapixels when opened. Selfies can also be taken with the rear cameras, so resolution alone need not drive the choice.

AI features, a stylus and PC integration

On the software side, the phone carries Google Gemini alongside Motorola's own moto ai. Real-time translation aimed at conversations while traveling abroad is among the features. An upgrade to Android 17 is planned for this autumn, at which point the phone gains support for the Motorola Qira AI agent and smoother integration with a PC.

Both the main and outer displays work with the optional moto pen ultra stylus, priced at 12,000 yen. Beyond drawing, pulling out the pen brings up a menu offering a magnifier, OCR and on-screen annotation. Paired with the 8.1-inch panel, note-taking becomes a rather different experience.

The chipset is Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, with 12GB of memory and 256GB of storage, running Android 16. It supports DSDV across nanoSIM and eSIM, plus Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0. Osaifu-Keitai is supported, and biometrics cover both fingerprint and face.

Colors and where to buy

Two PANTONE finishes are offered. PANTONE Blackened Blue has a woven texture reminiscent of a suit, while PANTONE Lily White is finished like leather on a bag. The contrast in materials shows attention to how the phone looks sitting closed, rather than defaulting to metal or glossy glass.

Sales run through the official online store as well as Amazon.co.jp and IIJmio. At 299,800 yen the phone sits high among smartphones, but the figure lands within a reasonable range for a book-style foldable flagship.

Summary

The motorola razr fold is the first book-style foldable from a company that had built the razr line entirely on clamshells. An 8.1-inch 2K display, a 6,000mAh battery, a camera system ranked first among foldables by DxOMark and the world's first use of Gorilla Glass Ceramic 3 make up a package aimed squarely at the complaints of existing foldable owners. It launches August 4 at 299,800 yen.