Android Core Labs
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When Samsung introduced the Galaxy S26 series At the end of February, one of the most surprising moments of the program was Horizontal Lock, a new video recording feature that keeps your videos stable and straight, no matter how much you bounce or rotate the phone.
In other words, Samsung users who buy an expensive Galaxy S26 phone could get an awesome new video recording feature, but people can save a lot of money by choosing Motorola and not miss out. That means $500 phones like the Motorola Edge 2025 and the more expensive Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 They all support the same feature, but can the quality match Samsung’s best? Let’s find out.
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Find the horizon line
Horizon Lock on Motorola phones and Horizontal Lock on the Samsung Galaxy S26 series appear to work identically from a descriptive standpoint. Both features use the main and ultrawide sensors on the back of your phone to create a merged video. As such, these features reduce video quality somewhat, typically capped at 1080p resolution at 30 FPS, although the Galaxy S26 Ultra upgrades it to QHD resolution.
While these cameras record video, a sophisticated AI-based algorithm uses scene understanding to determine the horizon line. Despite what it sounds like, you No You must be outside or have a clear horizon line or landscape in your video. I even recorded it in a room with a blank wall, and the Motorola Edge 2025 kept the video oriented straight, even while I rotated it.
In addition to using main and ultra-wide cameras on the back, Motorola and Samsung phones use the phone’s gyroscope and accelerometers to determine how the phone moves. This data is then translated in real time, helping keep the video in portrait or landscape orientation no matter how much the phone is rotated.
Most demos, like mine above from 2023, focus on rotating the phone 360 degrees. In most real-world situations, there’s no chance you’d do this with a phone while recording video. That’s fine, since Horizon or Horizontal Lock are designed to adapt to any movement and keep the video locked in place.
You may be riding as a passenger in a car, shooting video out the window, or maybe you’re taking a summer vacation on a boat, filming the lake while a family member drives the boat. These features smooth out the normal bumps and twists of vehicle motion and work even better than the electronic stability features on older phones.
Samsung vs. Motorola
In the video below, you can see the difference between Samsung’s horizontal lock and Super Steady mode on the Galaxy S26 Ultra compared to a normal (non-stabilized) recording using the same movements. The Motorola Edge 2025 demo in the second half uses both available modes, Horizon Lock and standard video, as Motorola doesn’t offer the middle option on this phone.
My colleague, Derrek Lee, also used his Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 to test the feature and discovered that Motorola has an orientation button on that phone that isn’t found on Motorola’s cheaper phones (or the Galaxy S26 series) to change the orientation to portrait or landscape mode. This allows you to record in any orientation without physically rotating the phone (although you’ll probably want to), which can be useful, especially when recording one-handed.
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As you might expect when comparing a $549 phone to a $1,299 phone, the video recording quality of the cheaper model is significantly lower. There’s a substantial drop in quality on the Motorola Edge 2025 when Horizon Lock is enabled, so it’s not a feature you’ll want to use on that model if you’re looking for top-notch quality.
Meanwhile, the Galaxy S26 Ultra does a surprisingly good job of maintaining consistent video quality while using landscape lock mode, despite a drop in resolution from my normal 4k60 settings. More capable Motorola phones, like the Motorola Razr Ultra 2025, will get higher quality videos thanks to the Horizon Lock feature.
You’ll also notice that videos recorded with Horizon Lock or Horizontal Lock are slightly wider than videos recorded from the main camera lens. This is because these stabilization features rely heavily on the ultra-wide camera and as such use it as the primary video source.
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I also noticed that the Galaxy S26 Ultra did a better job of keeping video clear, even when I rotated the phone. There is a limit to this, as lower lighting conditions or faster (or more jerky) spinning will produce lower quality videos, but the edges on the left and right sides of the Motorola video are almost non-existent in the Galaxy S26 Ultra video.
It’s impressive to see that Motorola offers such an advanced feature even on its cheapest phones, while Samsung only offers it on some of its most expensive phones. This is especially prominent given the recent Samsung price increases. I also like that Motorola scales features based on the phone’s capabilities, so you’ll get more options on a more powerful phone like the Razr Ultra 2025 than on the Edge 2025, which is half the price.
If you want to try Horizon Lock on a Motorola phone this year, the key is to make sure it has an ultra-wide-angle camera built in. The Galaxy S26 Ultra may give you the best video quality in this situation, but there’s something to be said about democratizing such a cool feature that Motorola deserves to get real credit for.
Samsung may be late to the Horizon Lock party, but the company offers higher quality ultra-stabilized video on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, and it’s simply amazing to experience.
