Best battery life of any notebook-style foldable — roughly 14h31m (16h10m optimized), far ahead of the Galaxy Z Fold 7's ~10h44m
DxOMark's #1 foldable camera (≈164 points, ~8th overall), with a triple 50MP system Motorola made a genuine strength
Standout software — multitasking, laptop mode and a Pixel-meets-Samsung balance reviewers repeatedly praise
Excellent, very bright displays — an 8.1-inch ~6,200-nit inner panel and a 165Hz ~6,000-nit outer screen
Active stylus support (Moto Pen Ultra) that works even on the cover screen, a Z Fold limitation
Pros & Cons
Motorola Razr Fold
Pros
Best battery life of any notebook-style foldable — roughly 14h31m (16h10m optimized), far ahead of the Galaxy Z Fold 7's ~10h44m
DxOMark's #1 foldable camera (≈164 points, ~8th overall), with a triple 50MP system Motorola made a genuine strength
Standout software — multitasking, laptop mode and a Pixel-meets-Samsung balance reviewers repeatedly praise
Excellent, very bright displays — an 8.1-inch ~6,200-nit inner panel and a 165Hz ~6,000-nit outer screen
Active stylus support (Moto Pen Ultra) that works even on the cover screen, a Z Fold limitation
Detailed Comparison
Design & Build
Motorola Razr Fold
Motorola's first book-style foldable trades the iconic flip for a Samsung-like book form, with a Material Expressive look, a flat-folding hinge and a notably heavy body.
Motorola's first book-style folding phone is a premium option, not the budget-friendlier alternative the category could use, with a 6,000mAh battery, top-tier chipset and serious camera hardware.
At 243g it's about 28g heavier than the Galaxy Z Fold 7, largely because of the camera array, though it feels balanced and not heavy in the hand.
The design is Google Material Expressive instead of a misguided attempt to match Apple.
Motorola leveraged decades of hinge engineering to pull the screen taut, resulting in a surface that is startlingly flat and masks the crease.
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Undercuts the Galaxy Z Fold 7 by about $100 ($1,899 / £1,799) and includes a case plus a 90W charger in the box
Best book foldable you can actually buy in the US, since the Oppo Find N6 and Honor Magic V6 aren't sold there
Deal Breakers
Uses the non-Elite Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 in a $1,899 flagship — a clear cost-down some reviewers find disappointing
Heavy at 243g (≈28g more than the Galaxy Z Fold 7) and only IP48/IP49 rated, not full IP68
Motorola's poor track record for timely updates, plus a genuine source conflict over whether it gets 7 years or only 3 years of OS updates
Foldable repair costs and Motorola's screen-peeling warranty history are recurring trust concerns
Xiaomi 15
What Reviewers Agree On
The best — or one of the very best — compact flagships of 2025: full flagship hardware in a small body with no real spec sacrifices.
The Leica triple 50MP camera is one of the most capable systems available in a compact phone, especially the main and 60mm telephoto.
The display is excellent — flat AMOLED with ~3,200 nits measured peak brightness, very readable in direct sunlight.
Charging is a standout: ~90W wired refills it in roughly 45 minutes to an hour, plus 50W wireless.
It still looks and feels premium after a year of use, with solid build quality and an IP68 rating.
Deal Breakers
HyperOS ships with bloatware you can't uninstall, ads and unsolicited notifications even on a flagship.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite struggles to stay cool under prolonged synthetic or 4K-video loads.
Priced like a flagship (~€999) while a Galaxy S25 or iPhone 16 is cheaper and easier to buy in the US.
Undercuts the Galaxy Z Fold 7 by about $100 ($1,899 / £1,799) and includes a case plus a 90W charger in the box
Best book foldable you can actually buy in the US, since the Oppo Find N6 and Honor Magic V6 aren't sold there
Cons
Uses the non-Elite Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 in a $1,899 flagship — a clear cost-down some reviewers find disappointing
Heavy at 243g (≈28g more than the Galaxy Z Fold 7) and only IP48/IP49 rated, not full IP68
Motorola's poor track record for timely updates, plus a genuine source conflict over whether it gets 7 years or only 3 years of OS updates
Foldable repair costs and Motorola's screen-peeling warranty history are recurring trust concerns
Xiaomi 15
Pros
The best — or one of the very best — compact flagships of 2025: full flagship hardware in a small body with no real spec sacrifices.
The Leica triple 50MP camera is one of the most capable systems available in a compact phone, especially the main and 60mm telephoto.
The display is excellent — flat AMOLED with ~3,200 nits measured peak brightness, very readable in direct sunlight.
Charging is a standout: ~90W wired refills it in roughly 45 minutes to an hour, plus 50W wireless.
It still looks and feels premium after a year of use, with solid build quality and an IP68 rating.
Cons
HyperOS ships with bloatware you can't uninstall, ads and unsolicited notifications even on a flagship.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite struggles to stay cool under prolonged synthetic or 4K-video loads.
Priced like a flagship (~€999) while a Galaxy S25 or iPhone 16 is cheaper and easier to buy in the US.
The build feels relatively sturdy with a zero-gap hinge and flush closure, though the soft inner screen still makes dust and dirt a concern.
Xiaomi 15
A genuinely compact flagship that fits premium hardware into a small, well-built body. Reviewers consistently praise the in-hand feel and durability, with the flat Xiaomi Shield Glass back the main quibble.
Fitting so much premium hardware into such a small body is a tough job and one Xiaomi continues to excel at — the bottom line is you can't realistically do much better for a powerful, modern, compact flagship.
The frame is high-strength aluminium alloy, nicely rounded at the corners and edges, with a flat display using Xiaomi's own Shield Glass.
After a full year the phone still looks and feels premium — buttons, speaker and port all still work perfectly and the compact design still feels great in the hand.
After eight months of daily use the build quality still feels very solid and the phone carries an IP68 rating.
The sleek flat glass back uses frosty shield glass that is a fingerprint magnet's worst nightmare, and some feel Xiaomi played the design too safe.
It comes globally in black, white, green and silver — the Liquid Silver finish in particular stands out.
The fingerprint scanner performance is outstanding.
Cameras
Motorola Razr Fold
Historically the foldable Achilles heel — but Motorola invested in hardware and software here, and DxOMark ranks it the best camera in any foldable.
DxOMark rates the Razr Fold the #1 camera among foldables — roughly 8th overall across all phones — with a Gold Label.
A 50MP main (f/1.6, OIS), a 50MP ultrawide (12mm, 122° FOV, f/2.0) and a third 50MP camera — all selfies can use the best 50MP main.
This is without question the best Motorola camera I've ever used.
Comes up just short of modern flagships like the iPhone 17 Pro, Find X9 Pro and Xiaomi 17 Ultra, with a DxOMark score of 164 points.
Took it for a street-photography spin and came away genuinely impressed — the camera hardware was what caught attention.
Highest-quality camera in a folding phone in the US — better than the Pixel 10 Pro Fold and Galaxy Z Fold 7, which use older sensors.
Xiaomi 15
A Leica-tuned triple 50MP system that reviewers rate among the best you can get in a compact phone, with a large 1/1.3-inch main sensor and a versatile 60mm telephoto. Pro-grade video is strong via the main sensor.
This is one of the best and most capable camera setups you can currently get in a relatively compact phone.
Xiaomi swapped the Xiaomi 14 sensor for a new JN5 telephoto with a 60mm focal length, paired with a large 1/1.3-inch main sensor.
The telephoto offers 2x optical zoom (46mm) but you can still push to ~6x with an impressive level of detail — a strong pick for buyers who don't need extreme reach.
Portrait shots were compared directly against a Sony a6100 with a 23mm f/1.4 lens (≈35mm equivalent, ~f/2.1 depth of field) and held up well.
The main camera can shoot 8K30 from the main sensor, and that 8K footage is roughly 50% more detailed than 4K30.
Performance
Motorola Razr Fold
Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 with 16GB RAM — fast for everyday use and surprisingly good in long sessions, but the choice of the non-Elite chip in a $1,899 phone is the headline criticism.
Motorola stuck Qualcomm's excellent Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 (16GB RAM, 512GB) inside its first full-fold flagship.
With a phone this expensive it is a bit disappointing Motorola couldn't go all the way with the Elite chip.
In a 20-minute stress test the Z Fold 7's 8 Elite was ~10% better on the first loop, but the Razr Fold ran better through the 20 minutes and ended ~20% ahead on sustained performance with similar thermals.
Recording 4K120 for a long time makes the Snapdragon CPU run quite hot, though it cools down fairly fast.
The non-Elite chip, 243g weight and IP49 dust rating could be causes for concern, even if the experience is smooth.
Xiaomi 15
Snapdragon 8 Elite makes it one of the fastest small phones available, and it holds sustained performance better than larger rivals — but it still runs warm under prolonged synthetic and 4K-video loads.
It runs the Snapdragon 8 Elite — pretty much the fastest chipset available on any smartphone at launch.
In a stress test against the Galaxy S25 and Oppo Find X8, the Xiaomi 15 won on stability (~72%) versus the S25's 67% and the Find X8's 58.6%, and also had the upper hand in Geekbench.
Despite being a much smaller phone tested in hotter conditions, it sustained better performance and smoothness than an iQOO 13 in a 10-loop benchmark; an external cooler lifted the lowest-loop score 14%.
The chipset swap to the Snapdragon 8 Elite is welcome, but just like last year the Xiaomi 15 still struggles to keep it cool under prolonged loads.
A year on the flagship chipset is still very powerful and the phone's performance remains solid in 2026.
Battery & Charging
Motorola Razr Fold
The standout: the largest battery in the book-foldable space delivering class-leading endurance, plus 80W wired charging — three times faster than the Galaxy Z Fold 7.
Lasting an impressive 14 hours 31 minutes, the Razr Fold is officially the best notebook-style foldable for battery life (16h10m with refresh-rate optimized).
The Galaxy Z Fold 7 managed only 10h44m in the same test, with a 4,400mAh battery versus the Razr Fold's 6,000mAh cell.
I found the battery basically impossible to kill in a single day, even with the Fold's hotspot supplying an entire office internet connection over 12 days.
It charges at 80W wired — over three times as fast as the Galaxy Z Fold 7's 25W — plus 50W wireless and 5W reverse, with a 90W charger and a case included in the box.
The 6,000mAh cell is colossal — about 20% larger than the Pixel 10 Pro Fold's — though there's also more display to power.
If you use the camera a lot or run games, the battery does drain quite quickly and you may need an afternoon top-up.
Xiaomi 15
A ~5,240mAh cell that beats a Galaxy S25 in head-to-head rundowns and recharges very fast over both wire and wireless — though a HyperOS idle drain divides reviewers.
The Xiaomi 15 packs a larger ~5,240mAh battery versus a Galaxy S25's ~4,000mAh while only being 27g heavier, and ended a head-to-head rundown at 30% vs the S25's 13%.
It charges in around 45 minutes with the 90W adapter in the box, and the reviewer had zero issues with battery life in normal mixed use.
From a fully dead battery a measured charge test reached 66% in 45 minutes, 91% at 1h05m and a full 100% in about 1h15m.
It also supports 50W wireless charging — faster than typical flagship wired speeds — though there are no Qi magnets built in, so you need a 50W-compatible mat for top speed.
Xiaomi says battery can run roughly 25% longer than the Xiaomi 14.
Software & AI
Motorola Razr Fold
The surprise strength — Motorola's foldable software is widely called the best balance of Pixel simplicity and Samsung multitasking, undercut only by Motorola's update-timeliness history.
Motorola nailed the software — it feels like the perfect middle ground between the Pixel and Samsung approaches to book foldables, with a laptop mode that turns the bottom half into a trackpad.
The Razr Fold is winning me over with something not on the spec sheet — superb multitasking software.
Given Motorola's awful track record for timely updates, you've got to be ready to live with the little launch bugs for a while.
Motorola promises 7 years of Android version and security updates — best-in-class and a huge jump from last year's 3-year commitment.
Counterpoint: Motorola is only committing to 3 years of Android upgrades and 5 years of security patches, so versus Samsung's 7 years it's really no contest.
Xiaomi 15
HyperOS is fast and feature-rich (IR blaster, long update commitment) but the bloat, ads and unremovable apps remain the phone's most consistent complaint, and big updates have shifted benchmark behaviour.
Xiaomi committed to roughly 4 years of major Android OS updates and 5 years of security patches.
Owners dislike that certain pre-installed apps can't be uninstalled and that HyperOS surfaces ads and unsolicited notifications even on a flagship.
The HyperOS 3 (Android 16) update is described as one of the riskiest software moves Xiaomi has made; everything still feels like butter day-to-day but Geekbench scores have declined with every major HyperOS update.
After the Android 16 / HyperOS 3 update many owners report better battery life, and the IR blaster remains a favourite Xiaomi touch.
A year on the software support has kept the phone feeling fresh and reliable, with a smooth overall experience.
Value vs Competition
Motorola Razr Fold
At $1,899 it undercuts the Z Fold 7 and is the only premium book foldable many US buyers can actually purchase — value hinges on whether the non-Elite chip and update questions matter to you.
At $1,899.99 / £1,799.99 it undercuts the Galaxy Z Fold 7 by about $100/£100, and the pre-order Moto Pen Ultra bundle adds real value — the sum of its parts is the best foldable on the market.
If you're tired of Samsung-only or have no interest in the Pixel Fold, this may be the best folding phone you can get in the US right now — the Oppo Find N6 and Honor Magic V6 aren't available there.
It could be called a disappointment, especially compared to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold and Honor Magic V5 — it should have offered something more compelling to stand out.
If Motorola drops the price by even two or three hundred dollars within the first few weeks, this phone suddenly becomes a much stronger contender.
It competes fairly well with the Oppo Find N6, which is amazing to see.
Xiaomi 15
Widely called the best compact flagship of 2025, but it's priced like a flagship and only an iterative bump over the Xiaomi 14 — and in the US a Galaxy S25 or iPhone 16 is cheaper and easier to buy.
One of the best compact flagships on the market, if not the best one — reviewers were left quite impressed.
Pitched directly as 'The Best Compact Flagship of 2025?' in a benchmarks-and-blind-camera comparison against the iPhone 16 Pro Max and Galaxy S25 Ultra.
A compact flagship with excellent battery life, though it shares near-identical design, display and cameras with its predecessor — it can feel like a fairly minor update.
A new Xiaomi 15 (12GB/256GB) retails around €999 globally; used prices have dipped to €700-800 on eBay/Swappa — a solid 20-30% drop that makes the used market tempting.
Compared with a Galaxy S25 or iPhone 16 — both cheaper and easier to buy in the US — the Xiaomi 15's price feels premium for what is essentially an iterative upgrade over the Xiaomi 14.
4K30 video is consistent with great detail, tasteful colours and good contrast, but 4K60 footage can sometimes look too compressed and mushy.
Third-party apps like MotionCam Pro or MC Pro 24fps unlock truly stunning log video and show what the main sensor is really capable of.
There is good consistency between the lenses and no real issue with the Xiaomi 15's camera in everyday use.
In third-party pro apps the camera is locked to a fixed ~78mm field of view with no optical zoom range, limiting professional workflows outside Xiaomi's own camera app.
In a cross-platform speed test the Xiaomi 15 posted a higher Geekbench multi-core score than an iPhone 17 (which led single-core).
One reviewer reported a real HyperOS idle drain — 15-20 minutes of light morning use (email, WhatsApp, Slack) cost 5-6% and warmed the phone, persisting even on the dimmest setting.
After a year you still get a full-day battery for most users — heavy users may need a quick top-up — and 90W fast charging stays extremely useful.
r/Android long-term owners describe an awesome device with a fantastic camera and even better battery life.
Globally available in black, white, green and silver in 12GB/256GB and 12GB/512GB configurations.
If you don't need the latest model, a year on the Xiaomi 15 is still an excellent choice.