Motorola Razr 70 Ultra: the UK flip that lands before Samsung’s Unpacked

News · 19 Jun 2026 · Daniel Reid

The Motorola Razr 70 Ultra is the flip phone Samsung has to answer at next month’s Unpacked, and Motorola has already set its terms: £1,199.99, on sale now through Currys and Three, and announced on 29 April 2026 (Motorola, via GSMArena and Tech Advisor). I have read the spec sheet and the early UK reviews, and the short version is that Motorola has built the more interesting flip while leaving one door wide open for Samsung to walk through.

What the Motorola Razr 70 Ultra actually costs in the UK

Start with the number that matters, because it frames everything else. At £1,199.99 the Razr 70 Ultra is not a budget flip and Motorola is not pretending otherwise. That is roughly £100 dearer than last year’s Razr 60 Ultra at launch, and it puts the phone squarely in flagship territory rather than the impulse-buy tier flips once occupied. Currys lists the 512GB model in its Wood finish, and Three is running it on contract, so this is a phone you can walk out of a UK high-street shop holding today rather than import-and-hope.

The pricing is deliberate. Motorola has spent two generations dragging the Razr upmarket, and the 70 Ultra leans into materials that justify the spend: an Alcantara back on the Orient Blue model and a wood-effect finish elsewhere, both of which feel like a direct shot at the slightly anonymous glass slabs that dominate this price band. Whether £1,199.99 is the right number depends entirely on what Samsung does in July, and I will come back to that.

The specs that earn the flagship label

On paper the hardware is hard to argue with. GSMArena’s full listing confirms a Snapdragon 8 Elite, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, which is genuine flagship silicon rather than the mid-tier chips flips used to settle for. The 7in main display is a 165Hz LTPO AMOLED panel, and the 4in cover screen runs at the same refresh rate, so the part of the phone you use most when it is shut no longer feels like an afterthought.

The bigger story is the battery. Motorola has fitted a 5,000mAh cell, up from 4,700mAh on the 60 Ultra, with 68W wired and 30W wireless charging. That matters in a flip, where small frames have historically meant compromised endurance. If you have been put off foldables by the stamina questions that dog the book-style Folds, the Razr’s numbers read more reassuringly. The cameras are a trio of 50MP sensors, a main and an ultrawide on the cover plus a 50MP selfie inside, which on specification at least closes the gap that flips usually concede to conventional flagships.

Motorola has built the more characterful flip. The question Samsung will answer in July is whether character is enough to outweigh seven years of updates.

None of this happens in a vacuum. The whole foldable category has spent the past year arguing it is finally ready for ordinary buyers, a case I have watched Samsung make with the Z Fold7’s push for the mainstream. The Razr 70 Ultra is the flip-shaped version of that argument, and Motorola’s official launch film for the phone leans hard on the premium materials angle rather than the gadgetry.

It is a telling pitch. Motorola is not trying to out-spec Samsung on software smarts; it is trying to make the more desirable object. For a phone you snap shut and put on a table dozens of times a day, that is a more defensible strategy than it sounds.

How it stacks up against Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip

This is the comparison that decides it. Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip7 is the incumbent UK flip, and the Z Flip8 is widely expected at the London Unpacked that reports have pencilled in for late July. So a UK buyer eyeing the Razr 70 Ultra right now faces a real timing question: buy the characterful Motorola today, or wait a few weeks to see what Samsung counters with.

On the hardware sheet, Motorola has the edge in two places that buyers feel daily: the larger 5,000mAh battery and the more usable cover display. Where Samsung wins, and it is not close, is support. Expert Reviews’ UK review singled out Motorola’s three OS updates as the phone’s “one nagging flaw” against Samsung’s seven-year commitment, calling the shorter window “beyond cheeky” at this price. For a £1,199.99 phone you might keep for four or five years, that is not a footnote. It is the deciding factor for anyone who plans to hold rather than upgrade.

That trade-off mirrors the wider Android picture I keep coming back to when readers ask which premium handset to commit to. If your shortlist is Samsung-shaped, my pick of the best Galaxy phones in the UK lays out where the Flip sits in that range, and the Z Fold8 rumour picture hints at how aggressive Samsung intends to be this cycle. There is also the small matter of cost direction: with memory prices squeezing flagship pricing across the board, a £1,199.99 flip is unlikely to get cheaper quickly.

Where this leaves a UK buyer right now

My read is straightforward. The Razr 70 Ultra is the most desirable flip you can buy in the UK today, and on the specs that govern day-to-day use, battery, cover screen and raw chip, it is ahead of the flip Samsung currently sells. If you want a flip this summer and you change phones every couple of years anyway, Motorola has earned the sale at £1,199.99. The materials, the battery and the cover display add up to a phone with genuine personality, which is rarer than it should be at this money.

But I would not rush. Two things are worth watching before you tap your card. The first is Unpacked: if Samsung’s London show lands in late July as reported, a Z Flip8 with Samsung’s seven-year support promise reframes the whole decision, and it is only weeks away. The second is that update gap, which is the single weakest part of Motorola’s pitch and the one thing no firmware patch can fix. If you keep phones for the long haul, that asymmetry should give you pause. So: the better object is already here, but the better long-term bet may not arrive until July. I would hold my nerve until Samsung shows its hand, then choose with both flips on the table.