Motorola Edge 50 Neo camera review: a reliable camera phone

Pros:

• Good daylight performance
• Sharp photos with night mode
• Ultra-wide camera supports macro mode

Cons:

• Hazy shots with 30x zoom
• Inconsistent lowlight shots without night mode

If cameras matter to you, the new Motorola Edge 50 Neo is surely among the most reliable smartphones in the sub-Rs 25,000 segment. The camera performs impressively in various lighting conditions, including daylight and low light. Like most Motorola smartphones, the Edge 50 Neo plays around with high contrast and vibrant colours for a dramatic appeal in its photos. This quality makes the camera particularly suitable for creating punchy visuals, which may be ideal for social media platforms.

Motorola Edge 50 Neo camera review at a glance:

Introduction and process

The Motorola Edge 50 Neo brings telephoto camera in the sub-Rs 25,000 segment. Similar to existing Edge 50 series smartphones, its ultra-wide camera offers macro mode, adding versatility to the overall camera system. As mentioned, it offered a respectable camera performance in various lightning conditions. 

We derived this result after pitting the Edge Neo 50 against popular customer options from the segment, including the OnePlus Nord CE4 (review) and Realme P2 Pro (review). Both smartphones include dual cameras on the back for wide and ultra-wide shots. On the other hand, the Edge 50 Neo offers an additional telephoto camera for improved portrait shots. We are also analysing images captured by the Edge 50 Fusion (review), which is relatively more affordable than the Edge 50 Neo but surely will interest many potential customers.

Daylight

Winner: Motorola Edge 50 Neo

All four smartphones capture more or less similar details in daylight. Even the images appear smooth and less grainy, which is good for your social media game. However, I noticed a strange oil painting effect once I zoomed into each photo. It also means if you want to crop a specific area for your Instagram story or post, the texture may not be as sharp as you’d prefer.

The colours are pleasing, though you may notice a similar colour science between the two Motorola smartphones. The Realme P2 Pro captured the brightest image – in a good way. However, the smartphone also over-brightened certain areas and struggled to balance the sky. 

On the other hand, the Motorola Edge 50 Neo mostly captured the scene as it was. There is a fair bit of high contrast, which is slightly more prominent in the image taken with the Edge 50 Fusion. That’s also typical Motorola colour science, which I’m certain its long-term users find appealing.

The Nord CE4 also detects colours well, especially of the plants and the trees. However, if you look closely at red and orange spots, they may appear slightly boosted, giving an unnatural look.

Ultra-wide

Winner: Motorola Edge 50 Neo

If we look at the same scene through an ultra-wide lens, colours will appear more or less similar, but details become slightly sketchier. All four smartphones struggled to balance the overexposed colours of the sky – maybe not so in Edge 50 Neo’s case.

The Realme P2 Pro’s image appears brighter than its rivals, with a bit of saturation. As a result, the red and orange spots in its image appear punchy. The image captured by Nord CE4 may appear similar to Realme’s based on colours, though the latter offers better details.

Images captured by the Edge 50 Neo and Edge 50 Fusion share similar colours and details. I prefer the Edge 50 Neo for its slightly boosted output (leaves on the trees), offering a more social-media-ready result by default.

The Edge 50 Neo offers an additional advantage by providing a macro mode with the ultra-wide lens. In fact, it outperforms the dedicated macro lens found in other devices in this range.

Portrait

Winner: OnePlus Nord CE4

The Edge 50 Fusion, Realme P2 Pro, and OnePlus Nord CE4 rely on the primary camera sensor for portrait shots. The Edge 50 Neo carries a dedicated telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom support. However, the telephoto camera only activates when taking photos with a focal length of 85mm in portrait mode or at 3x zoom and beyond in regular camera mode. We are only looking at portrait images via the primary camera for comparison. I’ve provided details about the telephoto camera at the end of this section.

Similar to its daylight shots, the Edge 50 Neo does a fantastic job of handling light and balancing colours. Even the bokeh looks rich and I am sure users will appreciate this social media-ready appeal. The image captured by the Edge 50 Fusion comes close if not better. Between the two, the Edge 50 Neo also accurately detected the colour of the subject’s t-shirt and controlled the frizzly textures.

Realme’s image continues to be extra bright and includes a blush effect for anti-blemishing. I found the Nord CE4’s image to be the most balanced in terms of colours, details, and bokeh. The skin tone detection was accurate, although the image included a slight blue tint, which turned the T-shirt light grey instead of off-white.

If we switch to Edge 50 Neo’s dedicated telephoto camera for portrait shots, the results are drastically different. Under good lighting conditions, the phone captures rich details, and even skin tone detection is mostly accurate, but some colour-tweaking might still be required. I took multiple shots in a well-lit environment and was impressed by the photos, especially considering the price.

The only drawback might be that shots with 30x zoom are average at best. However, if you stick to 3x shots with humans, the results won’t disappoint.

Selfies

Winner: Motorola Edge 50 Neo

The Motorola Edge 50 Neo easily stands out against its rivals in my selfie test with portrait mode enabled. Its image boasts high contrast and boosted colours, which easily catch your attention. I am also pleased with its 32MP selfie camera’s skin tone detection. The Nord CE4 comes closest to Edge 50 Neo in terms of details, but I do not like its orange-ish tint on my face. The Realme P2 Pro also applies a similar colour science as the Nord CE4, but less prominent.

In all fairness, the Edge 50 Fusion was the most accurate in terms of colours, though I am not particularly pleased by the milky layer over the image. I can assure you this wasn’t due to a dirty lens. The milky layer is easily fixable with the native editing tools, the Edge 50 Neo does a better job from the get-go.

Low-light

Winner: OnePlus Nord CE4

In low-light conditions, both Motorola Edge smartphones struggle to remove the lens flare. The two smartphones along with Realme P2 Pro also struggle to balance excess light coming from the window in the background. The OnePlus Nord C4, which by default increases exposure to capture more light in dim conditions, does a decent job. As a result, its output is also the brightest and punchiest compared to its rivals.

The Nord CE4 also offers the sharpest readability compared to the Edge 50 Neo, Realme P2 Pro, and Edge 50 Fusion. In terms of colour science, you will notice slight saturation in the images captured by the Motorola devices, more prominently in Edge 50 Fusion’s output. Realme P2’s Pro is relatively more balanced, though it’s unable to balance shadows on the car. 

Low-light (night mode enabled)

Winner: Motorola Edge 50 Neo

When we look at the same scene with night mode enabled on all four smartphones, there are some improvements, at least in a few cases.

The image taken with the Edge 50 Neo now looks more polished with zero lens flare and balanced colours. Even the signboard in the background has much better readability. The images from the Realme P2 Pro and Nord CE4 look more or less similar. In fact, there are barely any differences in the Nord CE4’s image with and without night mode.

The Edge 50 Fusion has controlled the excess light from the window, but the lens flare still looks odd.

Final verdict

Based on our tests, the Motorola Edge 50 Neo won in most conditions. The phone is also capable of capturing sharp videos, and the dedicated telephoto camera easily adds versatility to the overall smartphone.

Another highlight of the two Motorola smartphones is that users by default utilise the Photos app by Google, which offers some useful AI-backed editing tools (object remover and enhancer). You can use the same tools on the Nord CE4 and Realme P2 Pro, though the proprietary Photos app may confuse customers, and the Google app may get neglected.