I shot over 200 photos with the Razr Ultra 2025 vs Razr Plus 2024 — here's the winner
There's a big shakeup with Motorola's lineup this year with the addition of the Razr Ultra 2025, a new model that packs bigger upgrades that has already proven to me that it's the best foldable phone around.
It also has a compelling triple 50MP camera setup that makes it much more appealing than the other 2025 Razr models.
However, I need to see what improvements, if any, it has made over last year's flagship model — the Razr Plus 2024. That's why I shot over 200 photos with the Razr Ultra 2025 and Razr Plus 2024, just to see if the new model can convince me to switch back to a flip-style phone.
I will say that I prefer the Ultra's setup, a 50MP main sensor paired with a 50MP ultrawide, mainly due to how this combo makes it more ideal for vlogging. I couldn't really do that with the Razr Plus 2024's 50MP main camera and 50MP telephoto, seeing that it doesn't have the wider field of view needed to get more of me in the frame
This is one big advantage for the Razr Ultra 2025 in my opinion, especially when it can still deliver 'optical like' zooming with its main camera.
Similar to all my other 200 photo shootouts, I take both phones with me to capture the same set of photos. Later on, I preview them on the same monitor to see side-by-side to inspect all of their minor differences.
After looking through all the daytime shots I captured, it's evident that the Razr Plus 2024 tends to boost the exposure — resulting in a brighter picture, but at the expense of blowing out the highlights. I can see it from the sky and buildings in the background.
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In contrast, I would argue that the Razr Ultra 2025 has the more accurate look because of how it has a much more neutral exposure across the scene. Detail capture is identical on both, so it basically boils down to preference.
I personally like the Razr Ultra 2025 more, since it gives me wiggle room to make edits to it later on.
Winner: Razr Ultra 2025
These shots I captured of the setting sun is a good example of how their dynamic range performance compares to one another, as the Razr Plus 2024 does a better job mostly because of its exposure boost.
While it suffers again from highlight clipping around the sun's position in the sky, I do like how the shadows are exposed in a way to reveal more detail — like the trees on the left and wooden fence on the right.
I think the Razr Ultra 2025 pulls in a nice shot too, but it can't match the Razr Plus 2024's brighter picture. Those same shadowed areas have less detail because they're not as exposed.
Winner: Razr Plus 2024
For judging how they handle colors, I snapped the photos above at the produce section of Whole Foods to illustrate how they handle the broad set of colors. At first glance, it's hard for me to judge because they look similar.
However, that same exposure boost that the Razr Plus 2024 exhibits makes some of the colors slightly overblown — particularly the green peppers on the bottom shelf.
I prefer the way the Razr Ultra 2025 reproduces colors because they're more relaxed with the color saturation. The red appears more natural looking compared to the shiny tones of the Razr Plus 2024.
Winner: Razr Ultra 2025
This next category has a definitive winner because the Razr Ultra 2025 can get much closer to subjects for macro photography. That's because the Razr Plus 2024 doesn't have a dedicated macro mode, but I still think it handles closeups very nicely.
The leafy plant that's been rained on recently has a nice subject-background separation, plus I like the amount of detail it captures. But take a look at the Razr Ultra 2025's shot, which is unbelievably closer and a better representation of what macro photography is all about. There's so much fine detail in its shot that it picks up the veins all across the leaf.
Winner: Razr Ultra 2025
I complained a lot about how I took several selfies with the Razr Ultra's 50MP front camera, because they kept on coming out soft. After taking almost a dozen selfies, I'm disappointed that it performs worse than the 32MP selfie camera in the Razr Plus 2024.
Initially, I thought lens smudges were impacting the results — but after making sure they were clean, the issue persists. Many of my facial features come out softer than the Razr Plus 2024, along with the fabric of my shirt in the side-by-side shot above.
Winner: Razr Plus 2024
Unfortunately, I can't say I like how portrait photos come out on either phone, but it could be the indoor conditions that's throwing things off in these portrait shots I took of my colleague. I captured them at the same zoom levels.
I will say that the Razr Plus 2024 is a bit more aggressive with the background blur, even though I made sure to set their aperture to the same values before shooting — and as a result, the Plus' shots appear too overprocessed and unrealistic. The Razr Ultra 2025 tones it down a little bit, but it sometimes washes out his skin tone.
Winner: Tie
One thing I'll say about capturing panoramas with both foldables is that you really need a steady hand and slow movement. That's because moving too quickly results in a lot of motion blur. Thankfully, I was able to get sharp panoramas on a sunnier day down by the beach close to me.
Even with the contrast in light, both flip phones manage to cast an even exposure through the entire scene. However, it's absolutely clear that there's better detail with the Razr Ultra 2025 — particularly when I zoom into the fence and sand dunes near the middle of the photos.
Winner: Razr Ultra 2025
Since it lacks a dedicated telephoto camera with optical zoom, the Razr Ultra 2025 relies on its main camera to effectively act as the telephoto camera — whereas the Razr Plus 2024 has a dedicated 50MP telephoto with 2x optical zoom. Now, this is where it gets interesting because I captured all the shots at 1x, 2x, 4x, and 30x zoom to show you how they compare.
Honestly, the performance is very close at 1x and 2x zoom, but it gets interesting at 4x zoom because this is where I can see how effectively Motorola is using its image processing algorithms. I'm impressed by how well zooming is handled by the Razr Ultra 2025, as it matches the optically backed Razr Plus 2024. I can see the same amount of detail all throughout the buildings with both phones.
At 30x zoom, the Razr Plus 2024 pulls slightly ahead when I focus on the same corner of one of the buildings. There's better definition in the bricks, but I would refrain from using this zoom level unless you absolutely need to. Even though it's a win for the Razr Plus 2024, it's only by a thin margin.
Winner: Razr Plus 2024
If you look at the camera specs of both phones, they both have 50MP main cameras — but the Razr Plus 2024 has an f/1.7 aperture. This small detail is easy to overlook, especially when the Razr Ultra 2025 packs an f/1.8 aperture.
This small difference actually explains why the Razr Ultra 2025 underperforms in low light, as it consistently comes up slightly less exposed than the comparable Razr Plus 2024 shots. The tree in my backyard is my go-to for comparing their low light performances, so you can see how every part of it comes out a little brighter and detailed with the Plus.
Winner: Razr Plus 2024
Tallying up the categories reveals closer face-off than I thought with this 200-photo shootout between the Razr Ultra 2025 vs Razr Plus 2024. This is one of those unusual situations because you'd think that the newer phone would inherently cruise to the finish line.
In the areas won by the Razr Plus 2025, I would vouch that the differences were minor at best — whereas the Ultra shows substantial gains around its macro and panoramic performances.
Overall, I still think that the Razr Ultra is the better camera phone as a whole because it has that ultrawide camera and support for up to 8K video recording. These are extra features that I want and matter more to me.
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