Motorola Edge 60 Pro review: the phone to beat under Rs 30,000

The Motorola Edge 50 Pro (review) from last year was one of the most popular entries in its price bracket and dominated our camera phones list for quite some time. Apart from its camera performance, it also introduced a much more refined version of Moto Connect for seamless connectivity with your Windows PC. There were, however, a fair few aspects where the phone fell behind its competition, like the battery size and performance capabilities, which the new Motorola Edge 60 Pro seems to have resolved. 

This year, you’re getting various meaningful upgrades, including the new MediaTek Dimensity 8350 Extreme chipset, an improved 50MP ultra-wide camera, IP69 rating, a beefier 6,000mAh battery, and faster RAM and storage. Motorola appears to have cooked up a near-perfect formula for a segment leader. But the real question is; does it live up to that potential? Or even go beyond what its predecessor achieved? Let’s find out.

Verdict

The Motorola Edge 60 Pro is an impressive upgrade over its predecessor, with better performance, a sleek design, and good cameras. Its impressive battery life and IP69 rating make it a reliable option, especially under Rs 30K. While the lack of expandable storage and a few pre-installed apps are minor drawbacks, it is still one of the best choices in this price range.

Design and display

The Motorola Edge 60 Pro’s design has remained largely unchanged compared to its predecessor, the Edge 50 Pro. You still get a curved screen design with a nylon-like material at the back, at least in my Pantone Dazzling Blue variant. The added fragrance makes a return as well, something Motorola seems to be leaning into with their Edge series phones. 

Personally, I’m not a big fan of the fragrance, but surely the brand deserves credit for its thoughtful unboxing approach.

Apart from the nylon-like rear panel, the Edge 60 Pro features a plastic frame, unlike the aluminium sides from last year, to keep the weight in check. While it may affect durability, it is still MIL-STD-810H certified and has even better elemental protection with the IP68 and IP69. Moto continues to skip the additional protection case with its latest Edge 60 series.

As I mentioned, the design is largely unchanged, though the back now includes four circles for the triple camera setup and the flash unit. The rest remains unchanged with the power and volume rockers at the right, the USB-C port, speaker grille and SIM tray at the bottom. A new addition is the AI key, a button for quick access to the new AI tools. It is handy, but the placement is more suitable for left-handers.

Up front, the Motorola Edge 60 Pro sports a 10-bit, 6.7-inch pOLED 3D curved display with a resolution of 2712 x 1220p (1.5K), a 120Hz refresh rate, full DCI-P3 coverage, and a peak brightness claim of 4,500 nits. Like most curved panels, you’ll occasionally run into accidental touches, but overall, the display is a joy to use. You’ll need to switch the display profile to Natural from the default Vivid in the settings to see the colour accuracy of the Pantone-certified display.

The colours look really punchy and bright, with deep blacks, both indoors and outdoors. HDR10+ support and the high brightness mode help when viewing content in direct sunlight, though it’s worth noting that HDR isn’t available on Netflix yet, which was a bit of a letdown. In our lab tests, the screen peaked at 652 nits, noticeably lower than the segment average of 892 nits, but I had no trouble using it outdoors in real-world conditions.

Speaker output is decent, reaching about 83 decibels in our test, slightly above the average of 82. The in-display fingerprint scanner works reliably as well, though I do wish it were positioned a bit higher for easier access.

Cameras

In terms of camera hardware, there’s a noticeable upgrade this year. The ultra-wide camera now uses a 50MP sensor, up from the 13MP unit on the previous model. It supports autofocus and continues to double up as a macro shooter. The main camera is the same 50MP Sony LYTIA 700C sensor with OIS, but the aperture size is down to f/1.8 from f/1.4. There’s also a 10MP 3x telephoto lens, which now supports up to 50x digital zoom. Motorola has also added a 3-in-1 light sensor for better exposure control, white balance adjustment, and flicker reduction. The 50MP selfie camera carries over from the previous generation.

As for image quality, shots from the Edge 60 Pro come out crisp and detailed. The Pantone colour validation is helpful, colours are less saturated compared to last year’s model. Although I wouldn’t call them entirely true to life, the main camera handles colour more accurately than the other two lenses. Low-light performance is also pretty impressive, with good colours, detail level and little to no noise. 

The ultra-wide lens handles HDR scenes well, and the higher resolution really comes into play when it comes to preserving finer details,  something you’ll notice in the comparison below. The 3x telephoto lens also delivers sharp results with more consistent colour tones than the ultrawide. The selfie camera captures realistic skin tones for the most part, although it does oversharpen at times.

There’s 4K 30fps video support on both the front and rear cameras, and they turn out mostly fine. I sometimes had a colour shift when changing from the primary lens to the ultrawide, and due toa  lack of OIS, the stabilisation does suffer. I compared the phone’s cameras against the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro (review) and the Realme 14 Pro+ (review), check it out below: 

Daylight

In regular daylight shots, the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro’s colours turn out warm, and so does the Motorola Edge 60 Pro. The latter tunes up the contrast a bit more, which makes the shot appear punchier and have better highlights. In terms of detail level, both phones are on par with each other, although the Motorola Edge 60 Pro has slightly better sharpness. When it comes to dynamic range, the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro does a slightly better job. 

The Realme 14 Pro+’s daylight shot has very punchy colours, with rich reds, greens and yellows throughout the frame. In comparison, the Motorola Edge 60 Pro enhances shadows and has higher contrast, which makes the image pop. When it comes to detail level, the Realme 14 Pro+ does a much better job, especially when it comes to the sky, where you can clearly perceive it, while the Motorola Edge 60 Pro isn’t able to distinguish between clouds as much. 

Ultra-wide

For ultra-wide shots, the Motorola Edge 60 Pro delivers great results compared to the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro, primarily due to its high-resolution 50MP lens. The former’s detail level is substantially better, and the image is a lot sharper, although the image does appear a little underexposed. 

The Motorola Edge 60 Pro also takes better ultra-wide images compared to the Realme 14 Pro+. The latter takes saturation a step too far, and the objects appear fuzzy when looked at closely, which gives the Edge 60 Pro a clear advantage. 

Portrait

In our portrait tests, we used the 3x zoom mode so each phone’s telephoto lens would kick in. The Nothing Phone (3a) Pro stood out for its colour reproduction, which looked the most true to life. However, when it came to facial detail, hair texture, and edge detection, the Motorola Edge 60 Pro is ahead with more refined results.

The Realme 14 Pro+ managed the best edge detection of the three, but it fell short on detail. Facial features appeared soft, hair texture lacked clarity, and skin tones were brightened. Overall, the Edge 60 Pro struck the best balance across all areas, making it the most reliable portrait shooter in this comparison.

Selfie

The Nothing Phone (3a) Pro edges out the Motorola Edge 60 Pro in selfies for a few key reasons. It offers the best detail among the three, and it captures skin tones accurately. Although its HDR performance trails slightly behind the Edge 60 Pro, it’s still very good overall.

The Realme 14 Pro+, on the other hand, struggles in a few areas. While it has the best colour balance of the trio, it falls short on facial detail, which appears overly smooth. Its HDR optimisation also doesn’t match up to the other two, making it the weakest of the lot for selfie performance.

Low-light 

When it comes to low-light shots, we tested the performance of all three phones with their respective night modes enabled. 

The contest between the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro and the Motorola Edge 60 Pro was a close one. The Nothing Phone (3a) Pro delivers impressive detail, but its colours appear slightly off and it struggles to manage ambient light effectively. The Motorola Edge 60 Pro, while not as strong in fine detail, offers better colour balance and handles ambient lighting much more capably, resulting in a sharper and more visually appealing shot overall.

As for the Realme 14 Pro+, the night shots come out highly vibrant, but that comes at the cost of detail. It delivers the softest image of the three and suffers from noticeable noise when viewed up close. That said, it handles ambient lighting the best. Even so, the Motorola Edge 60 Pro edges it out with its better balance of detail, colour accuracy, and lighting control.

Performance

The Motorola Edge 50 Pro featured a modest yet reliable Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 SoC, though it wasn’t a powerhouse, especially against the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3-powered POCO F6.

With the Edge 60 Pro, Motorola has stepped things up by switching to the new MediaTek Dimensity 8350 Extreme. It also gets upgraded hardware across the board, including up to 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 storage, a big leap from the UFS 2.2 we saw last year. You can’t expand the storage, however, so keep that in mind. The USB port is also 2.0 now, down from USB 3.1 on its predecessors, and it makes transfer rates much slower. 

Performance has improved significantly, and the Edge 60 Pro is now easily among the top performers in its segment. It posts excellent benchmark scores and handles everyday tasks without breaking a sweat. There’s no lag, no stutter, just smooth multitasking all around.

Gaming is another area where the phone holds its own. It can comfortably run titles like BGMI and COD: Mobile at a steady 60fps, using medium and high graphics settings, respectively. Thermal performance is well-managed too, with only around a 6.6 degrees Celsius rise after 30 minutes of gameplay, which is quite reasonable.

Software and AI

The Motorola Edge 60 Fusion runs Hello UI, based on Android 15, straight out of the box. Motorola’s software is typically close to stock Android, meaning there are no unnecessary pre-installed apps. However, it was somewhat surprising to find a couple of third-party games included this time. While they weren’t intrusive and could be easily uninstalled, their presence was a little jarring.

Apart from that, the interface feels clean and snappy. There are tonnes of customisation options on top, thanks to Android 15. However, I did face some issues. The camera app occasionally felt a bit laggy, and there were times when the volume bar didn’t disappear until I put the phone to sleep and woke it again. Nothing major or deal-breaking, but a few minor quirks worth pointing out.

Motorola has also introduced a handful of AI-powered features on the Edge 60 Pro, and what’s refreshing is that most of them are genuinely useful. If you want a detailed look, I’ve covered these in more detail in my Motorola Edge 60 Fusion review. But here’s a quick rundown of what they offer:

There’s Catch Me Up, which gives you a summary of missed notifications, and Pay Attention, which can transcribe and summarise conversations in real time. Next Move offers contextual suggestions based on your usage habits, while Remember This lets you save and tag useful bits of information using voice prompts. I didn’t get to see the full potential of Next Move in my limited time, but long-term users will see the benefits. All of these are tied to the dedicated AI key, though unfortunately, the key can’t be remapped, which would’ve been a nice touch.

A new feature here is AI Signature Style, which lets you pick photo styles you like and apply that look to your own shots. I genuinely enjoyed using this one, and I can definitely see myself continuing to use it in the future. I believe it could be especially helpful for content creators who want a consistent aesthetic without spending too much time on colour grading. 

In terms of software support, you’re still getting three years of OS updates and four years of security patches, which is commendable. However, with brands like OnePlus and Nothing stepping up their software game, it would be great to see Motorola raise the bar as well. With the Edge 50 series, the brand delivered on its promise of timely updates, and I hope that trend continues with the Edge 60 series

Battery and charging

One notable upgrade this year is the 6,000mAh silicon carbide battery, up from the 4,500mAh cell in the previous model. Battery life was a clear shortcoming on the earlier version, but that’s been addressed here. While the benchmark score isn’t particularly high, I consistently managed an average screen-on time of around 7 hours, even with 5G enabled throughout the day.

With Wi-Fi, you can easily expect more than a full day’s battery. The total battery drop for 2 hours of heavy use in our lab tests was just 19 percent, better than the segment average of 23 percent. 

The charging speed is now 90W, down from the 125W support from last year (only on the top variant), but charging time does not suffer too significantly. The battery still tops up in roughly 35 minutes, which is quite excellent. You also get 15W wireless charging support, which is a handy addition. 

Final Verdict

The Motorola Edge 60 Pro starts at Rs 29,999 for the 8GB + 256GB variant, while the higher 12GB + 256GB option is priced at Rs 33,999. At this price, it competes with phones like the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro (review), Realme 14 Pro+ (review), and iQOO Neo 10R (review).

The Phone (3a) Pro has an advantage when it comes to software experience, long-term support, and that signature design, and it offers similar AI features. However, its camera performance and battery life don’t quite match up. The Realme 14 Pro+ falls short of the Edge 60 Pro in most key areas. The iQOO Neo 10R offers better battery life and similar raw performance, but compromises on camera quality, software polish, and durability.

Based on everything above, the Motorola Edge 60 Pro is easily one of the most well-rounded options you can get under Rs 30,000. It is a great all-rounder that does a lot of things really well and avoids any major pitfalls. Aside from a few software quirks and the lack of expandable storage, there’s very little to complain about here. If your needs align with what it offers, the Edge 60 Pro is an easy recommendation. 

Editor’s Rating: 8.3/10

Reasons to buy:

• The Motorola Edge 60 Pro offers a sleek design with excellent durability, thanks to IP69 rating. 
• The phone delivers great day-to-day and gaming performance. 
• The phone’s cameras deliver reliable results in all lighting conditions. 
• With the new 6,000mAh battery, battery life is great, easily lasting more than a full day.

Reasons not to buy: 

• There’s no option for expandable storage, which might be a limitation for some users.
• The USB port has been downgraded to 2.0, which means slower transfer speeds.