Motorola Edge 50 Pro review: stylish, feature-packed and how!

Motorola’s Edge-series smartphones launched last year managed to turn quite a few heads. the Edge 40 Neo won 91mobiles’ Indian Gadgets Awards for the year’s best phone under Rs 25,000. These Edge-series handsets set the ball rolling with a set of premium features and capabilities that were unheard of within the segment.

Continuing this trend, the company has introduced a new smartphone in the lineup in the form of the Motorola Edge 50 Pro. 125W fast wired charging, 50W wireless charging, IP68 rating, 144Hz refresh rate display, and a 3x telephoto lens are some of the key specs of the smartphone. The handset has been priced in India starting at Rs 31,999, making it compete against Vivo V30 and Redmi Note 13 Pro+, which are also promising smartphones within the segment.

Does the Motorola Edge 50 Pro have what it takes to edge past the competition in the real world? Read this review to find out.

Verdict

The Motorola Edge 50 Pro demands attention, despite a few shortcomings. The handset’s front camera and battery life are not top-tier. However, the smartphone makes up for these with its eye-catching design, fluent display, impressive camera setup, and premium features such as wireless charging support, lightning-fast wired charging speeds, and solid build quality.

Design and display

For anyone seeking stylish design and sleek form factor, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro fits the bill. The handset boasts a curved screen design with a vegan leather back, giving it a posh appearance. Interestingly, the company has added a fragrance to the device that adds to its overall appeal. While we are not sure how long the fragrance will last, its sweet smell is bound to keep you in a good mood even during intense calls.

The smartphone feels sturdy too, with its aluminium frame that has a slight matte finish, offering a solid grip over the device. The handset is lightweight (186g) and measures 8.19mm in thickness, making it quite comfortable to wield. Furthermore, the Motorola smartphone is IP68 certified against water and dust resistance, ensuring all-weather usage. The rear camera module, which houses triple sensors and an LED flash, sits flush with the body providing a seamless finish despite the slight hump. That said, the camera sensors jut out of the frame a bit and make the device wobble when it’s lying flat on a surface.

The Edge 50 Pro is available in three colour variants: Luxe Lavender, Black Beauty, and a special-edition Moon Light Pearl. The latter has an acetate finish around the back instead of vegan leather. Our review unit arrived in a Luxe Lavender colour, which, though vibrant, may not suit everyone’s taste. If you are into something more subtle, the Black Beauty might be a better alternative. Each colour variant ships with a matching snap-on case adding durability and style. 

On the front, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro sports a 10-bit 6.7-inch pOLED 3D curved display with 1.5k resolution, 144Hz refresh rate, DCI-P3 colour, and 2,000 nits brightness. Besides the few accidental touches that are usually associated with curved panels, the display is an absolute delight to use. It is Pantone-certified for accurate representation of colours. However, to experience this, the display colour profile needs to be set to Natural from the default Vivid within the settings menu. The colours look really punchy and bright, with deep blacks, both indoors and outdoors. The HDR10+ support further ensures a seamless experience viewing the content outdoors in direct sunlight.

The 144Hz refresh rate feels buttery smooth across UI and supported apps. While not as dynamic as an LTPO panel, the Edge 50 Pro’s display refresh rate can go down to as low as 60Hz depending on the content on the screen. The display also comes with several eye health features such as blue light protection, DC dimming, low motion blur, and flicker protection, among other things. The viewing experience is further supported by Dolby Atmos stereo speakers with Spatial sound and head-tracking features that make everything sound fuller and crisp even at maximum volumes.

The Motorola Edge 50 Pro is equipped with an in-display fingerprint scanner for security that can unlock the device in a jiffy. However, similar to some of the other options within the segment, the scanner is not where the thumb would normally rest while holding the smartphone. It is positioned slightly down the screen, forcing you to resort to finger gymnastics.

Cameras

For photography, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro sports a 50MP OIS primary camera with a wide aperture lens of f/1.4. This is aided by a 13MP ultrawide lens, capable of shooting macro images as well, and a 10MP 3x telephoto lens. The selfie camera on the phone is a 50MP snapper with AF capabilities. The cameras have been validated by Pantone for their ability to capture accurate skin tones.

These are a capable set of cameras, which capture images with impressive detail and sharpness in well-lit environments. The dynamic range also looks quite solid. However, when it comes to colour reproduction in default settings, it appears a bit boosted with high contrast levels. While the images still come out appealing, they miss out on those intrinsic details. Nevertheless, the Motorola smartphone seems to be doing a better job than its arch-rival, the Vivo V30, both in terms of detail and colour accuracy.

Having said that, there is a colour shift when you switch to the 3x telephoto lens on the Motorola Edge 50 Pro smartphone. The lens in daylight produces near-accurate colours; however, the details and sharpness appear a bit underwhelming in comparison to the handset’s primary and ultrawide lenses. The images from the ultrawide lens also look quite good, despite the slight distortion around the edges of the frame. The lens supports autofocus for you to shoot macro images, which does a better job than the dedicated 2MP macro sensor. However, the telephoto lens seems to be doing a better job for close-up shots than the macro regarding colour accuracy.

In low light, the primary camera with its wide aperture lens does a respectable job with decent detail levels, well-exposed shadows, and controlled highlights. The portrait mode on the smartphone offers nice edge detection. Besides, the rear camera can click portraits at different focal lengths: 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm, with near-accurate skin tones and a natural-looking bokeh effect. The front camera overexposes the selfies at times, leading to slightly blown-out colours, although there is a good balance of facial detail.

Performance and software

The Motorola Edge 50 Pro is powered by the latest Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset, which can be found on the likes of OnePlus Nord CE4 and Vivo V30 smartphones as well. The chipset boasts AI features, which have been utilised by the smartphone for a bunch of camera features such as a photo enhancement engine and video stabilisation, along with themes and wallpapers. When it comes to real-world performance, the handset excels, exhibiting no awkward freezes, jitters, or app crashes during regular usage.

Multi-tasking and gaming also remained quite seamless for the most part. While running graphically demanding games such as BGMI and COD, the handset functioned flawlessly for the initial 40-45 minutes. Thereafter, the phone did get slightly warm (not uncomfortably though), around the camera module. If you are a power user and covet sustained performance, we suggest looking elsewhere. The Edge 50 Pro’s AnTuTu, Geekbench, and CPU Throttle results also confirm this.

Software-wise, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro marks the departure of the company’s MyUX custom Android skin inb favour of the rebranded Hello UI. It runs atop Android 14 and keeps the UI and app icons closer to Google’s Pixel launcher. Apart from the Google suite of apps, the phone comes with a handful of Motorola apps pre-installed. There are no third-party apps installed, keeping the UI relatively clean.

Besides, the phone offers several customisation and personalisation options such as changing icons, wallpapers, fonts, sound, and more. Furthermore, it supports various gestures that have become a trademark of Motorola and Lenovo’s ThinkShield security and privacy features within the Moto Secure app. The company has also introduced Smart Connect Hero features, designed to enhance productivity. Here are a few things it can do:

• With the Read For app, available in the Moto folder on the home screen, you can launch apps directly on your Windows PC/laptop to check messages, receive calls, and more. You can also use the smartphone as a trackpad for your machine.
• Next up, it lets you expand your workspace by exchanging phone files directly with your PC and vice versa with a simple swipe or drag and drop.
• Read For can also mirror your phone display or create a virtual phone screen on a PC and utilise the phone’s camera for crisp video calls on your PC with effects.
• Besides this, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro also allows you to share apps such as those for food delivery across Devices without going through the setup process all over again for a limited time. The feature is expected to roll out soon with a future software update.

These features are in addition to the existing Moto Connect, which provides a DeX-like experience by mirroring the smartphone screen to an external display, as well as Moto Secure, Family Space, and more. These are all useful features, and help extend the overall functionality of the phone. On the software support front, Motorola has promised to provide three major Android updates, and security support for four years for the Edge 50 Pro. This is on par with competitors.

Battery and charging

The Motorola Edge 50 Pro is equipped with a modest 4,500mAh battery, which is slightly lower in capacity compared to its competitors. As a result, the handset achieves a relatively low score of 12 hours and 30 minutes on the PCMark battery test. However, the handset seems well-optimised to last at least a day with regular usage. Running a 30-minute 4K YouTube video with 50 percent brightness and volume levels saw a reduction of just 4 percent battery life on the smartphone. 

If you are a power user who games or uses navigation a lot, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro might require a top-up charge at least once during the day. But, fret not, the smartphone’s charging speeds are incredibly good. With its 125W charger, the handset juices up from 0-100 percent within half an hour. It’s worth mentioning that the base 8GB variant of the phone ships with a slower 68W power adaptor despite the 125W charging capabilities. The 125W power adaptor is only available with the top-end 12GB RAM variant. 

The phone supports 50W wireless charging, making it the first in its segment, as well, but the charger needs to be purchased separately.

Final verdict

The Motorola Edge 50 Pro is poised to be the smartphone to beat in the sub-Rs 35,000 segment as of now. The handset makes a compelling case for itself with its premium and flagship-grade specifications, such as a reliable telephoto camera and 50W wireless charging, typically found on smartphones priced a notch higher. The overall day-to-day performance of the device remains on par with its competitors. However, the Motorola smartphone surpasses its closest rivals, the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ (review) and Vivo V30 (review), with its vibrant 144Hz refresh rate display, 125W fast charging speeds, clean software experience, and striking IP68-certified design. Overall, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro with its competitive pricing remains a strong contender within the segment.

Editor’s rating: 8.5 / 10

Reasons to buy

• Striking design, with an IP68 rating, that catches attention even from a distance.
  
• Vibrant curved pOLED Pantone-certified display, accurate colour representation.
• The phone sports a capable rear camera setup that captures some impressive images.
• The software features on offers can be quite useful.
• 125W wired charger provides rapid battery replenishment.

Reasons not to buy

• The front camera occasionally overexposes selfies.
• The battery life is relatively underwhelming.