Hello, photo: My favorite pictures taken with Motorola phones

I’ve spent a lot of time with Motorola phones in my pocket over the last few years. From the rock-bottom budget Moto G Play and Moto G 5G to the top-end Razr that I pick up again and again, I’ve tried them all. Along the way, I’ve taken my Motorola devices to neat places and captured scenes I’ll probably never forget. I’ve used a Razr Plus to take a photo of the original Razr queen, Paris Hilton, and I’ve used a Moto G Power to document Bark in the Park at Camden Yards during the dog days of summer, and I wouldn’t have wanted a different phone in either scenario.

Well, maybe I would have — but only if I were swapping a smartphone for my trusty Fujifilm X100V, which doesn’t seem like a fair trade. Either way, I hope you’ll indulge me for a moment and look at what I’ve achieved with Motorola devices at several different price points. And, if you really want to be floored by a mobile photographer, check out my colleague Rita’s gallery of Pixel photos from 2024 — just don’t ask me for her secrets.

At first, I wasn’t sure how to pick out the best photos I’d taken with Motorola phones. I’ve used so many different devices at wildly different price points, and I didn’t know if it would be fair to weigh each image equally — especially when Motorola isn’t a regular entry on our list of the best camera phones at the moment. So, instead, I loaded up Google Photos, entered “Motorola” into the search bar, and scrolled through to see which photos jumped out at me. Then, I could flag pictures without knowing exactly which device they came from, giving me a somewhat random selection from my many Motorola adventures.

Next, I had to figure out exactly how I wanted to organize my gallery — a task nearly as difficult as finding the right shots. Or, at least, it wasn’t easy at first until I realized that I could simply go for a walk through time. See, when I started to review Motorola phones, their cameras didn’t do much for me. Back then, Motorola seemed to reserve all of its megapixels for the primary camera on its flagship Edge, leaving peripheral cameras out to dry with low resolutions across all price points.

Then, the Motorola Edge Plus (2023) arrived, and I finally had a reason to be excited about a Motorola flagship again. Sure, it did some important things like bring the curved display back to the Edge lineup, massively upgrade its charging options, and ditch plastic in favor of glass again, but more importantly, it finally offered a true flagship trio of cameras. Gone were the 2MP depth sensor and 13MP ultrawide sensor, with new 12MP telephoto and 50MP ultrawide cameras in their place. So, it’s there that we’ll start our trip down Motorola’s memory lane.

Admittedly, my shots with the Edge Plus (2023) might be the least adventurous of the bunch, but I also went into the review with the lowest expectations of recent Motorola devices. Sure, I knew the hardware had received a sizable upgrade, but I wasn’t sure how it would translate to daily usage. As it turns out, it worked pretty well.

Not only was I immediately impressed by the detail that the Edge Plus pulled out of areas like the wooden railroad ties, but I was also relieved to watch it hold onto shadows during a walk around my hometown. It didn’t wash out the defunct train station, nor did it brighten the area under the record store awning.

The changes felt more like Motorola raising its floor to the level of many of its closest rivals, even if the Edge Plus still had a hiccup here and there. I would have liked slightly punchier colors once or twice, and motion still threw the primary camera for a loop, but I suddenly felt okay going out with a Motorola device as my primary camera.

The long-awaited return of the Razr series (after skipping a launch in 2021 and reserving its 2022 model for China) only further solidified my love for Motorola’s new camera direction. I had a chance to take the Razr Plus (2023) on a trip out west to Colorado, and I was determined to get the most out of its expansive new cover screen. Occasionally, that enthusiasm turned into a photo with a strange aspect ratio, but usually, I was able to flip the phone halfway open on a morning run to capture the boulders that surround, well, Boulder.

Perhaps more impressively, the Razr Plus (2023) reminded me that more megapixels aren’t always the way forward. It packs just a 12MP primary shooter, yet the photo in the middle is among my favorites from the year and probably my favorites from all time. I’m simply blown away by the amount of detail throughout the entire face of the boulder, as well as the spot-on colors from the mountains in the background down to the plants and shrubs much closer to the foreground.

Of course, I had to attach a shot of an airplane wing because I’ve taken so many of them, but something about the gradient of the blue sky makes this one stand out among my favorites.

Although I’ve used mostly flagship-equivalent cameras for my favorite Motorola photos so far, I’ve also had good experiences outside of the Razr and Edge ranges. Last summer, I spent a fair few weeks with the Moto G 5G (2024) and the Moto G Power 5G (2024) in my pocket, going through everything from Baltimore’s spring bloom to a 100-mile bike ride from one Washington Monument to another to a baseball game where every other seat was reserved for a dog. Above are three of my favorite shots to come out of that stretch, each unedited.

To this day, I’m not exactly sure how I managed to get the lighting behind the trees along the National Mall just so, but I’m not about to complain, either. I like that Motorola shifted slightly away from its perfectly true-to-life color recreation for the shot, and I’d say the cherry tree to the right is just as punchy. It’s still not quite as saturated as Samsung’s shots tend to be, so I think it falls in a comfortable middle ground of color.

The shot of my friend’s dog, Alma, is another favorite simply because I didn’t use portrait mode for it. It relies entirely on the natural bokeh out of the Moto G Power 5G’s 50MP primary sensor and wide ƒ/1.8 maximum aperture, and the result shows just how tough it is to resist giving her human food — I mean, look at that face.

And now, here we are — close to the present. Motorola once again changed up its cameras for the launch of the Razr series in 2024, and it once again gave me one of my absolute favorite shots of the year (the one looking toward home plate at Camden Yards). There’s something nearly perfect about every piece, from the cloudless sky to the slightly warm color profile to the just barely soft focus of my friend’s head in the foreground.

The main change that Motorola made for the cameras on its Razr Plus (2024) is that it ditched the ultrawide sensor in favor of a telephoto, which is what made a shot like the one of the original Razr Queen, Paris Hilton, possible. Is it the best shot? No, it’s a little fuzzy, and I would love not to have other Razrs in front of me, but it’s one of the better ways to commemorate one of the more fitting special guests I’ve ever seen at a smartphone launch. The loss of an ultrawide camera made grabbing a shot of the Manhattan Bridge a little more challenging, as I had to back up much further on my morning run to fit the entire pier into the frame.

These last two shots are also from the Motorola Razr Plus (2024), and I added them to show a little more of what the 50MP primary camera can do. I don’t often hop into portrait mode, only because it frequently looks too artificial, but I think the Razr Plus nailed every last detail of my friend Andrew, from his hair to the lighting to the edges of his backpack. If I didn’t know better, I wouldn’t have guessed that the image came from a flip phone.

Perhaps the most exciting part about my walkthrough of many of my recent Motorola reviews is that I’m convinced that the best is yet to come. I expect Motorola to largely stick with the same camera hardware when its next Razr Plus (2025) eventually breaks cover, but I anticipate it will come with an upgrade in photo editing ability. It’s about time for Motorola to lean a bit heavier into its on-device AI features, which might mean its own version of Magic Editor and the ability to erase people and objects from your photos.

We’ve also seen just about every company decide to lean heavily into camera filters this year, with Samsung upgrading its set and Apple rolling out completely revamped Photographic Styles — on its flagship iPhone 16 lineup, at least. I wouldn’t mind seeing Motorola do the same if only to offer me a little better control over its typically natural color profile. I don’t think we’ll see it partner up with a famed camera brand like Hasselblad or Leica, but the next real leap probably lies in Motorola’s image processing.

Until that day comes, though, I’ll keep reaching for my Razr Plus (2024) to see if I can add to my gallery of favorites.