This one thing might be the reason to buy a Galaxy Z Flip 6 over the Moto Razr+

Motorola and Samsung both recently unveiled their new flip-style foldables, and they’re pretty competitive. You’ll want to go with Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 6 if you care about prolonged software support and better camera quality, but if you care most about having a large and useful cover display, you’ll want the Motorola Razr+ (2024). However, there’s another thing to consider that many buyers forget about until it’s too late.

See, the best Samsung phones hold their value better than any other kind of Android phone. You can buy a Samsung phone and trade it in for hundreds of dollars a year or two down the road when you’re in the market for an upgrade. By comparison, you’ll be lucky if anyone takes a Motorola phone. I know, because I bought last year’s Motorola Razr+, and I can’t get rid of it.

The Motorola Razr+ is the better phone today

It has a bigger screen, better cover screen app support, and a sleek design

Samsung has decidedly lost its lead in the foldable race, with competitors like Motorola and OnePlus starting to make Galaxy foldables look paltry by comparison. That’s true of the clamshell foldable market, too, because the Motorola Razr+ (2024) is arguably the better phone.

Motorola’s cover screen is larger, and you can do more with it. Essentially, it’s just a smaller Android phone, with no functionality lost. The story isn’t the same with the Galaxy Z Flip 6’s cover screen. Apps sometimes work, though you have to hop through some hoops to achieve that. The best example of the finicky experience is Gemini, which doesn’t play nice with the cover screen on the Galaxy Z Flip 6, while it works fine on the Razr+.

I think the design of the Motorola Razr+ is sleeker and sexier than the Galaxy Z Flip 6, for what it’s worth, and the bezels on the latter phone’s cover screen make it look dated. The Razr+ also has improved cameras, even if the Galaxy Z Flip 6 is still the kind of flip-style foldable camera quality. Oh, and Motorola’s foldable is $100 cheaper, retaining that $1,000 sweet spot Samsung couldn’t hold onto.

To me, the Razr+ is the phone you buy if you want the best clamshell foldable today. However, it’s hard to imagine the Razr+ being the best clamshell foldable as far as longevity is concerned.

There’s Motorola’s questionable software support, too — it took a full year for the Razr+ (2023) to get Android 14, right as Android 15 is right around the corner — but that isn’t the biggest factor you should consider. Instead, it’s how little the Motorola Razr+ will be worth in a few years if/when you want to sell it or trade it in.

The problem with investing in a Razr+

No one wants secondhand Motorola phones

The best smartphones today are an investment, and you shouldn’t expect to pay $1,000 or more only for the phone to be worthless after a few years. Whether you like holding onto your old phones, giving them to a friend or family member, trading them in, or selling them, you want them to be worth something. Motorola phones simply aren’t worth that much on the secondary market, and you might have a hard time getting rid of them.

That’s been my experience with my Motorola Razr+ (2023), which is barely worth anything now. I can buy the exact same phone for under $200 on eBay, and that’s for a device in great condition. Going a bit higher in price, there have been over 200 Razr+ phones sold for under $300 on the site — it’s important to remember that the Razr+ costs $1,000, so it has less than a fifth of its value after just one year of ownership.

Somehow, the trade-in situation is worse. Best Buy, Samsung, and Amazon won’t take this phone at all — it isn’t even an option on their trade-in lists. Maybe I could trade it in as an “other” phone, but that means giving up a flagship phone for essentially nothing. From what I could find, the only places that would accept my Razr+ were Motorola and OnePlus.

I’ve only had the Razr+ for a year, and I’m stuck with it. I’m not willing to give away a perfectly-working smartphone for $200, but that’s what these are worth on the secondhand market. My hands are tied.

Samsung phones hold value impeccably

I’d buy a Galaxy Z Flip 6 for this reason alone, hands-down

It’s hard to justify wasting an investment on a Motorola Razr+ (2024) when I could buy a Galaxy Z Flip 6 instead. Samsung phones hold their value a lot better than Motorola phones, especially when you factor in the company’s enhanced trade-in deals.

For example, you could’ve traded in a Galaxy Z Flip 5 for $650, which could go toward a new Galaxy Z Flip 6 during the preorder period. That means the Galaxy Z Flip 5 held more than half its value after a year of use. The resale sites tell the same story, with Galaxy Z Flip 5 devices regularly selling for around $500. Compared to the Razr+ (2023), it isn’t even a competition.

But most people don’t upgrade their phones every year, so how will older Galaxy models fare? Just as well, evidently. You could’ve traded in a Galaxy Z Flip 3 from 2021 for a whopping $500 when going for a new Galaxy Z Flip 6. Yes, a Galaxy foldable from three years ago is worth more than double the value of a Motorola Razr+ (2023) that’s only a year old.

Whether we want to consider it or not, trade-in values and resale values should factor into purchasing decisions. Being smart about how and when you buy and trade-in phones can significantly reduce the amount of money you spend on them over time.

A $1,000 flagship smartphone shouldn’t lose nearly all of its value after a single year of ownership. It’s unacceptable, and I can’t recommend Motorola phones until the situation improves. Samsung foldables hold their value too well for me to justify choosing a Razr foldable again, even if Motorola phones might impress on the spec sheet.

• 

  Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6

  The Galaxy Z Flip 6 is Samsung’s most evolved take yet on the flip-style foldable form factor. Its 3.4-inch AMOLED cover screen supports Galaxy AI features without opening the device, along with upgraded widgets and suggested replies, but its gorgeous 6.7-inch FHD+ AMOLED folding display will still have you flipping the phone open quite a bit.

• 

  Motorola Razr+ (2024)

  $900 $1000 Save $100

  The Motorola Razr+ (2024) is an impressive flip foldable, featuring high-end internals. With the 2024 variant, Motorola has made one of our favorite flip phones from last year even better, bumping the cover screen size even further, fitting a beefier battery, and improving the cameras.