What to Know About motorola’s wide foldable could get an unwelcome Razr Fold downgrade

The first snippet of information is concerning Motorola’s wide foldable plans, and there’s one element that leaves me a little disappointed.

If there’s one smartphone trend emerging in 2026 – other than wince-inducing price hikes that is – it’s the arrival of the wide foldable.

Following extensive rumours concerning a stouter form factor for Apple’s foldable debut (which we’ll finally see this week), every smartphone manufacturer seems to be rushing to compete in this kind-of-new space.

Motorola sketches out its wide foldable vision

Following the lead of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, Motorola looks set to join the wide foldable race. Leaked sketches published by Android Headlines show a device with a wider aspect ratio than the surprisingly great Motorola Razr Fold (title image), as well as a width-spanning camera module for greater tabletop stability.

Given that Motorola arguably made the best flip phone on the market (at least until this year’s water-treading Motorola Razr 70 Ultra), and knocked it out of the park with its aforementioned book-style foldable debut, you can count me at least mildly intrigued.

Even at this early stage, however, I’m a little bothered by one of Motorola’s decisions.

From these initial sketches, Motorola appears to be going the Razr 70 Ultra route with its camera provision, rather than emulating the Razr Fold. I’m counting just the two major camera elements on that stretched-out camera module.

True, there are three circles present in these sketches. But one of them is much smaller than the others, potentially indicating some sort of flash or sensor array rather than a proper camera.

What all but confirms that we’re looking at a dual camera set-up here, to me at least, is the presence of sketches showing an alternative design that places the third circle outside of the camera module.

Double jeopardy

Why the fuss over a dual camera setup? After all, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 only packs two cameras in, and that’s been very warmly received. Apple looks set to do the same with the iPhone Ultra, too.

I think it’s because Motorola seems so close to achieving that Goldilocks ideal of a ‘just right’ foldable phone.

I’m a big fan of the Razr Fold offering, and one of the things I like most about it is how well-rounded its camera system is. With three good 50Mp sensors, it doesn’t feel like you were making a compromise by using a foldable.

That includes a 50Mp telephoto camera that, according to my review, produced “native 3x zoomed shots of a good standard”.

I firmly believe that this new wide foldable format has a bigger future than the preceding square one, with the wider screen proving a more natural fit for a wider range of content. It also makes for a more compact device when folded up, and even serves as a decent e-reader substitute when flipped through 90 degrees.

But until we get a proper, fully rounded camera system onboard, I don’t think this new form of foldable is going to fully convince everybody. Not while there’s the whiff of compromise around it, and not while prices remain so high.

Xiaomi seems to be readying its own wide foldable with a full-blown triple camera system in the Xiaomi 18 Fold, so this doesn’t appear to be an insurmountable engineering challenge.

Of course, the quality of the latter camera system – and the handset in general – remains to be seen, and Xiaomi’s busy software will likely continue to scare me off. But as the first potentially compromise-free wide foldable to hit the market, it looks more compelling than Motorola’s somewhat sketchy start.

But Motorola has a key upper hand, at least for now: global availability. Let’s hope it makes good on this advantage to deliver the game-changing foldable it’s capable of.