Motorola has carved out a chunk of the market for their edge series mobile phones. The latest, the motorola edge 50 and edge 50 Neo landed back in September, but we’re getting a look at them now, with the edge 50 the first on the review bench. 

The edge 50 series comes with a RRP of $799 and includes a durable design in three colour choices with vegan leather options. The phone includes both IP68 and MIL-STD-810H ratings along with Corning Gorilla Glass protection on the 6.7” pOLED display.

Powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 Mobile chipset, with 256GB of storage and up to 12GB of RAM, the edge 50 has the chops for running your day to day life smoothly.

There’s a 50 MP Sony LYTIA 700C sensor headlining the rear camera array, which also includes a 13 MP Ultrawide sensor which offers macro capabilities, and a 10 MP sensor with 3x Optical Zoom – and a 32 MP selfie camera on the front. 

I’ve been using the moto edge 50 for a couple of weeks now and here’s how it went. 

Hardware

Design

There’s an elegant, almost slender design language to the motorola edge series phones, and it’s continued in the edge 50. 

The Endless Edge display which curves down at the side to seemingly melt into the frame, makes for a comfortable phone to hold and it feels thin and light in the hand – which at just 7.79mm and 180g, it is. It is a tall phone though, thanks to the 20:9 aspect ratio 6.7” display, which can make using it one-handed a bit of a challenge on occasion. 

Motorola have doubled, nay tripled down on durability for the edge 50, offering Corning Gorilla Glass on the display, Mil-Spec (MIL-810H) certification and IP68 dust/water resistance on the body – it’s not a ‘tough’ phone per se, but it’s as prepared as it can be for everyday life.

While it’s durable, it doesn’t feel like a ‘tough’ phone, and it comes in three colour choices, Jungle Green (which Motorola sent over for review), Peach Fuzz and Koala Grey, with the first two coming in their Vegan Leather finish. 

Not every one is a fan of the vegan leather finish, and frankly I haven’t held it long enough to make too much of an opinion – because there’s a free  protective shell included in the box as well!

The Vegan Leather does mean it’s fingerprint free on the back, and it’s soft touch, so it feels quite good, but it’s a personal choice – and that Koala Grey plastic rear looks pretty good if you prefer that finish.

The rear is where you get the Motorola batwing logo, with the camera island melding into the rear of the phone which looks good, and leaves gentle slopes that don’t tend to catch on things like pockets and bags. 

The phone has the usual motorola button placement with the volume rocker above the power button on the left. There’s a centre-aligned USB-C port on the base – a meagre USB 2.0, with a SIM tray is located on the left and a downward firing speaker on the right.

It’s a comfortable and light phone to hold, and with the durability inclusions it makes it even more attractive.

Performance and Connectivity

Powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 ‘Accelerated Edition’, the motorola edge 50 comes with 256GB of on-board storage, with 12GB of DDR4 RAM. 

The processor is quite capable, with few niggles or issues. The phone generally handles quite well, taking just a simple beat longer than a higher end device to load or switch apps. 

The only place I found myself waiting an extended period was opening the camera using the gestures – either the twist of the wrist, or even the double power button press. It sat on a black screen for a couple of seconds before launching the viewfinder..

The 12 GB of on-board RAM can be boosted with Motorola’s RAM Boost, which effectively uses local storage as a RAM swap file when needed. You can simply leave this on the AI assisted setting, or force it to take up to an additional 12 GB of memory for a total of 24 GB – but I didn’t see huge gains in performance. 

I ran the phone through Geekbench 6 and 3D Mark Steel Nomad and WildLife benchmarks, and here’s how they went.

On the connectivity front, the motorola edge 50 comes with 5G (sub-6) and LTE connectivity, with strong connections and download speeds for me on the Telstra network. 

You also get tri-band Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 support and of course NFC for contactless payments. 

Display and Audio

It’s hard to miss the big 6.7” pOLED Endless Edge Display on the front of the phone. It’s big, bright and the curved edges are always a pleasant look. Audio wise, there’s stereo sound with Atmos for spatial effects. 

I’m still not a huge fan of curved displays, though thankfully Motorola appears to have nailed the phantom touch issue. 

The display is bright, though maxes out at a max 1200 nits – however it’s still bright enough to be easily read during the day. Of course it can be quite bright at night if you blast it, but the automatic adjustments work quite well to keep it at the right level.

As usual Motorola have included a great quality display with 1220p resolution, and 120Hz refresh rate so everything looks crisp and scrolls smoothly no matter which app or game you’re in.

There’s an under-display fingerprint scanner included and it’s decently fast, but you can also use the face recognition option if you want another option.

The display covers all the right areas, it has HDR10+ certification, and it covers 100% of the DCI P3 gamut, so colours look good too. You can of course tune the colour palette in settings between Natural, Radiant and Vivid, with an interesting colour wheel adjustment for colour temperature as well.

On the audio front, you Dolby Atmos certified audio from the stereo speakers. As usual, you pair the earpiece with the bottom firing speaker. It’s an ok sound, but you’ll probably want to pair some bluetooth headphones (no audio jack) to get the most out of your audio experience. 

The phone does come with a Dolby Atmos app, which lets you set the phone to use Spatial Audio, or choose from a range of audio profiles including Smart Audio to automatically adjust the EQ to the music, or set it to a specific profile. 

Camera

The motorola edge 50 includes a 50MP main sensor, 13MP Ultrawide sensor with 120˚ field of view and a 10MP sensor with a 3x Optical zoom – and a 32 MP selfie camera on the front. 

There’s  Optical Image Stabilsation (OIS) on the main and telephoto sensors, but not on the ultrawide, but it feels fairly stable when cycling through the sensors. 

The main sensor takes a pretty great shot in almost any lighting conditions except super low-light, though can get a little blown out on the HDR when in superbright sunlight and presented with bright colours.

Overall though, it’s a great camera that will do well when you need it.

Battery and Charging

Like most of the phones in the Motorola range, there’s a 5,000mAh battery with support for the Motorola ‘TurboPower’ fast charging. The box includes a 68W ‘TurboPower’ charging brick (and USB cable) in the box, and it also supports 15W Wireless charging. 

The phone easily lasts a full day, and by full day I mean a full 24 hours. I was often halfway through the next day before needing a charge. 

The 68W TurboPower charger is, as usual, quite impressive giving you a full charge in just over an hour, while the wireless charging is slower, but very handy for a top up – or for charging overnight. 

Software

Android

The phone runs Android 14 out of the box with the August 1st security patch. Motorola have promised two years of OS updates, and three years bi monthly Security updates. This is a little lax in a world where Samsung, OPPO and Google regularly offer 7 years of updates – but it is a guarantee of updates.

While it’s a little early to expect an OS update to Android 15, Motorola is delivering security patches. Out of the box, the phone has the August 2024 update, with the November 1st security patch for the Edge 50 in early December – so it appears to be quarterly releases.

The Android interface for Motorola phones is so vanilla you’d think it’s stock Android. Motorola does inject their touch of customisation to Android with MyUX. It’s not a heavy skin, rather some customisation and addition to base Android. You get features like their chop-chop gesture to launch the flashlight, or a twist to launch the camera. 

As far as default apps goes, there’s a few motorola apps including the Motor Secure app including a private folder, security settings, checkup and more,. You also get Family Space, a neat way to set up a kid-friendly environment if you need to hand your phone over to your child. Moto Unplugged – a digital detox experience, Smart Connect to connect your phone to other displays and more, and a Games mode for distraction free gaming.

There’s also easy personalisation options and more in the moto app, letting you personalise the fonts, icons, wallpaper and more easily from their app.  

There’s also a few ‘extras’ along for the ride which are installed when you set the phone up incdluing Adobe Scan, TikTok, Booking.com and Linkedin. These apps install as part of setup alongside a smattering of Google apps including Fitbit and Find my Device. It is what it is and you can uninstall them if you want.

Should you buy it?

The motorola edge 50 brings a dependable camera with a good display, fast charging, wireless charging, and a very comfortable and premium design. 

The on-board speakers are average but Bluetooth pairing is great and while the performance can also be a little slower, it gets you there and performs well once the app is going..

A big kicker for the motorola edge 50 though is the price, which is normally $799 – but has seen some decent discounts around which makes it an extremely compelling buy – offering a decent discount over the edge 50 Pro which although it offers more hardware, it also comes with the larger price tag.

There’s a few rough edges on the phone, but overall the moto edge 50 makes for a stylish phone choice with a great display, a camera you can rely on and some great battery and charging options. 

You can find the Moto Edge 50 only on-sale at JB Hi-Fi, or check it out on the motorola website.