Motorola’s new phone, like so many others, comes in three different flavors. The brand not only has an ‘Edge 50 Fusion’ coming for 399 euros, but also an Ultra model that will cost 999 euros. The middle class, a flagship smartphone costing 699 euros, is already available. We spent a few weeks working with the device, which Motorola confidently named the ‘Edge 50 Pro’.
Striking design
To start with what really struck us: opinions about the design of the Edge 50 Pro are divided, to say the least. Motorola does something different than usual by not just giving the Edge 50 Pro a color, but a look that you won’t see anywhere else. We tested – without knowing this in advance – the phone with mother-of-pearl back and that was a bit of a shock. We are not really fans of the design, but it is impressive how the camera island is easily concealed thanks to the mother of pearl. In photos from the phone in ‘Luxe Lavender’ or as ‘Black Beauty’, both in vegan leather, the island stands out much more.
Another notable design choice is in the screen. This is rounded on the side edge, which makes the device fit very well in the hand. For a phone measuring 161.23 x 72.4 x 8.19mm, this is quite an achievement in our opinion. Does that curved screen have any other advantages? We’re not exactly convinced of that. On the contrary: it makes it much more difficult to apply a decent screen protector, so that the screen is not covered in scratches in no time. Not to mention a case that protects your phone well: along the sides, where the screen is located, the security will be very poor. “Living on the edge”, you might think. The Motorola Edge 50 Pro therefore feels like a fairly fragile device that you should not let fall out of your hands. The case that comes in the box can’t do much to change that: it’s too plastic.
Screen quality
Fortunately, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro manages to reverse the first impression as soon as you switch on the device. It is immediately noticeable that the screen of this smartphone certainly has something to offer. The display is 6.7 inches and offers a ‘Super HD’ resolution of 2712 by 1220 pixels. You can also adjust how smooth the screen looks: this phone goes up to 144 Hz, which is quite a bit. The smartphone can determine when it switches between 60, 120 and 144 Hz, or you can set this yourself.
That all looks really nice. Especially if you take into account that the smartphone can display 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. Support for HDR10+ makes everything look extra colorful and dynamic. The only downside is the peak brightness of 2000 nits: this makes the screen slightly less flashy than that of some competitors. The emphasis is on ‘something’, because you will not be bothered by that lower brightness. It mainly ensures that everything stands out a little less, but that does not alter the fact that the image simply looks great.
Photographer thanks to AI
With such a screen, it is of course only logical that Motorola focuses on photos. Motorola is at the top with the cameras on the Edge 50 Pro. The main camera and selfie camera both take photos at 50 MP. The ultrawide and macro vision lens offers 13 MP, while the zoom lens shoots at 10 MP. Of course, those megapixels don’t say everything. However, Motorola wants to distinguish itself not only with hardware, but also with software. Like many smartphone brands, it integrates AI into the devices.
These AI functions are not intended to give someone a funny nose or Hollywood star makeover. Here they simply make your photos better. With the ‘Photo Enhancement Engine’ the brand optimizes the ratio between light and dark parts of the photo. In layman’s terms: things like backlighting and overexposure are done with. With the optimization, not too much image quality is lost, but you can always continue to zoom neatly. Motorola does this by – again – doing things slightly differently than the rest. Instead of unleashing the AI system on a captured photo, it does so on the RAW files. The result is certainly impressive, although it sometimes takes a while to see results. The processing may take a while.
Video also benefits from AI: thanks to new techniques, the smartphone knows better what exactly should remain in focus. In addition, image stabilization was also improved. This means your videos never look shocking, even if you record them while walking. For enthusiasts: the long exposure effect has also been upgraded on this smartphone. Finally, you can also zoom nicely with the cameras on the Edge 50 Ultra: the main camera offers 2x digital zoom. The telephoto camera offers 3x optical zoom, but does not take equally good photos in all circumstances.
Performance
What can you expect from this Pro phone in terms of performance? According to Geekbench 6, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro scores 1137 points on the single-core test, and 3094 on the multi-core test. This makes it clear that the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3, which powers this phone, is not the strongest. The performance of this phone is approximately comparable to that of a Galaxy S21 Ultra. This Pro phone is not a powerhouse, but the performance matches a phone of this price. The performance is more than sufficient for daily use, and gaming is actually no problem at all. You may not be able to achieve the highest frame rates with all games: for that you are more likely to get a powerhouse like the ASUS Zenfone 11 Ultra. All in all, we never felt that performance got in the way of the user experience, which is of course the most important.
Battery
How long the battery of this smartphone lasts naturally depends on how you use it. Do you have an office day and don’t use the phone that often? Then, strangely enough, you can use the battery for almost two full days. That’s “crazy enough”, because the battery in this phone is not that big at all: 4500 mAh. Are you on a trip and do you take a lot of photos? Then you might want to take a power bank with you: processing your images requires a lot of computing power, and you will notice that in the battery.
That said, if you can plug in your phone on an outing or even during a short train ride, you can use it for a while. The phone supports fast charging at 125 W, with the charger included in the box. Therefore, you can count on a charging time of just under 20 minutes – Motorola itself talks about 18 minutes and that is approximately correct. Are your ears empty while on the road? If the box supports wireless charging, you can activate reverse wireless charging on the phone. The Edge 50 Pro can then serve as a charging mat for your earphones. The device itself can also charge wirelessly, at a maximum power of 50 W.
Conclusion
The Motorola Edge 50 Pro is a nice phone to use, which also takes beautiful photos. Even very nice photos for the price of 699 euros. At that price, the Motorola obviously has to compete with recent toppers such as the OnePlus 12R, which is simply much stronger. Yet the Edge 50 Pro comes out of that comparison without too many unscathed: the camera performance is much better, and for those who care about that, this is an ideal device. Even those who want to stay as close as possible to the original Android experience should stick to Motorola. There are a number of brand-specific things in the OS, but nothing that fundamentally changes the operation. That makes the Edge 50 Pro definitely worth it.
