Motorola Edge 70 Pro review: sensible choice for most

• By Ashish Kumar
Published On: 27 April 2026 | 09:59 IST Last Updated On: 4 May 2026 | 12:14 IST

Motorola has introduced a new member to its Edge 70 lineup in India: the Edge 70 Pro. Positioned above the Edge 70 Fusion and Edge 70, it stands as the most powerful model in the series, with a starting price of Rs 38,999. That marks a noticeable jump over its predecessor, the Edge 60 Pro, though it reflects a broader industry trend, as rising RAM and storage costs continue to push smartphone prices upward.

Every other contemporary smartphone has also received a similar price hike, including the OnePlus Nord 6 (review), Nothing Phone (4a) Pro (review), and Redmi Note 15 Pro+ (review), which remain the Edge 70 Pro’s closest rivals. So, where does Motorola’s latest offering stand in this space? What are its strengths, and where does it fall short? We attempt to find out in this Motorola Edge 70 Pro review. Read on.

Verdict

The Motorola Edge 70 Pro shapes up as a well-rounded mid-premium smartphone. Its slim, durable design, gorgeous high-brightness AMOLED display, and reliable low-light cameras make it easy to like. The Dimensity 8500 Extreme SoC and a large 6,500mAh battery hold up well for everyday use. However, inconsistent thermal management and slightly inaccurate skin tones hold it back from being truly class-leading. Aside from power and photography enthusiasts, the Edge 70 Pro is a solid pick for most users.

Design: slim & durable

As noted in the Motorola Edge 70 Pro’s first impressions, the handset impresses with its sleek, lightweight build. In fact, it is the slimmest smartphone in the segment. Despite the large 6,500mAh battery, the handset measures 6.99mm in thickness. The Edge 70 Pro is also one of the lightest smartphones out there, weighing in at 190 grams. These, along with the device’s curved edges, make it comfortable to wield and hold during prolonged use.

The Edge 70 Pro also boasts a premium in-hand feel. This could be attributed to the new satin finish on the Pantone tea colour variant, which we received for review. The handset is also available in familiar marble and fabric finishes, with Pantone Lily White, Pantone Tea (Green), and Pantone Titan (Blue) colourways. The frame, however, is plastic, but solid enough to withstand minor drops and falls with MIL-STD-810H certification. The Edge 70 Pro is also certified against dust and water resistance with IP68 and IP69 ratings.

There is no case included in the box, so you’ll need to purchase one separately if you want to keep your phone looking brand new. Other highlights of the Edge 70 Pro include a raised camera deco, reminiscent of other Edge 70 series. The deco matches the phone’s colour but has a slightly flashy appearance, similar to the edges, adding a subtle contrast to the overall look. Furthermore, the deco’s edges slope into the back panel, ensuring a seamless finish.

Other notables

• Fingerprint scanner – The Edge 70 Pro features an optical fingerprint scanner, which is fairly standard for the segment. While it’s accurate and quick, its placement feels slightly awkward, as it sits too low on the display. This was a similar issue to the one with the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro. On large phones like these, reaching the bottom edge for authentication doesn’t feel natural and often requires some finger gymnastics.
• Audio – The Motorola Edge 70 Pro features a dual stereo speaker setup with Dolby Atmos support. Unlike the flagship Motorola Signature, there’s no visible grille for the secondary speaker; it’s discreetly tucked behind the earpiece. The setup gets reasonably loud, but it sounds best at around 50–60 percent volume, as clarity drops at higher levels. The tuning works well for podcasts and movies, though it’s less impressive for music playback.
• Buttons – The handset houses a volume rocker and power button on the right spine. They’re sleekly designed, typical of Motorola, and offer good tactile feedback. While the power button is easily within reach, the volume keys require a slight shift in grip when the phone is held vertically.
• I/O – The Motorola smartphone sports a USB Type-C port for charging and data transfer at the bottom edge, sandwiched in between the speaker grille and a SIM-ejector tray.

Stunning display, but 144Hz comes with limits

The Motorola Edge 70 Pro rocks a 6.8-inch 10-bit ‘Extreme’ AMOLED display with Super HD resolution, up to 144Hz refresh rate, HDR10+ support, and 5,200 nits peak brightness. A Corning Gorilla Glass 7i guards the display. There is no pre-installed temporary glass atop the screen, so you might want to get one installed right away to prevent scratches. While I was able to keep the Edge 70 Pro’s display safe from scratches during the review, the same couldn’t be said for the Motorola Signature, which boasts superior Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protection.

The viewing experience is as immersive as it gets, thanks to evenly slim bezels and a tiny centred punch-hole for the selfie camera. The handset shares much of its display hardware with Motorola’s flagship Signature model, barring the dynamic refresh rate and higher peak brightness. Even so, the Edge 70 Pro is rated at an impressive 5,200 nits of peak brightness, higher than most rivals in the segment, ensuring excellent visibility under direct sunlight.

As for the refresh rate, the display typically operates at up to 120Hz during regular use and across the system UI. The higher 144Hz mode is only limited to select games via Gametime. I couldn’t find the list of titles that support 144Hz on the smartphone, and in our testing, popular games like BGMI and COD: Mobile topped out at 120Hz and 90Hz, respectively. That said, both still looked smooth and visually pleasing at those refresh rates.

Moreover, the HDR playback on the smartphone is available out of the box with YouTube and other streaming platforms, ensuring a vibrant and dynamic viewing experience. The colours also appear punchy and sharp on the display. Users can change the colour profile within the settings menu from the default vivid to a natural or radiant one.

Snappy performance, but not for heavy usage

Under the hood, the Motorola Edge 70 Pro features a 4nm MediaTek Dimensity 8500 Extreme SoC, paired with up to 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB of UFS 4.1 storage. The Dimensity 8500 Extreme is the latest mid-range SoC from MediaTek. A variant of the same chipset with the Ultra tag debuted on the gaming-focused smartphone, POCO X8 Pro, in February.

AnTuTu score

OnePlus Nord 6

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 4

2,366,913

Motorola Edge 70 Pro 5G

MediaTek Dimensity 8500 Extreme

2,194,258

Nothing Phone 4a Pro

Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 4

1,411,440

Xiaomi Redmi Note 15 Pro Plus

Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 4

1,055,895

AnTuTu assesses a smartphone's CPU, GPU, memory, and overall user experience (higher is better)

In synthetic benchmarks, the Motorola Edge 70 Pro posts an AnTuTu score that’s slightly ahead of the POCO offering and nearly on par with the OnePlus Nord 6, which is powered by the flagship-grade Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 SoC. On Geekbench’s multi-core test, however, the Edge 70 Pro outperforms the OnePlus by approximately 300 points, indicating it will be a better multitasking performer.

Geekbench single-core score

OnePlus Nord 6

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 4

2,040

Motorola Edge 70 Pro 5G

MediaTek Dimensity 8500 Extreme

1,749

Nothing Phone 4a Pro

Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 4

1,385

Xiaomi Redmi Note 15 Pro Plus

Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 4

1,261

Geekbench assesses the efficiency of the CPU's single and multiple cores (higher is better)

Geekbench multi-core score

Motorola Edge 70 Pro 5G

MediaTek Dimensity 8500 Extreme

6,864

OnePlus Nord 6

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 4

6,520

Nothing Phone 4a Pro

Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 4

4,314

Xiaomi Redmi Note 15 Pro Plus

Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 4

3,272

Geekbench assesses the efficiency of the CPU's single and multiple cores (higher is better)

The Motorola smartphone packs a 4,600mm2 vapour chamber for heat dissipation, but it’s smaller than the one you get on most rivals in this segment. As a result, the Edge 70 Pro struggles to keep thermals in check under sustained load. In our Burnout CPU throttle test, performance dropped noticeably, while temperatures climbed by an average of 11 degrees Celsius after an hour of gaming. That makes it a less compelling choice for power users. By comparison, the POCO X8 Pro fared better under identical conditions, registering a lower temperature rise of 8 degrees Celsius.

Burnout Score

Xiaomi Redmi Note 15 Pro Plus

65.5%

Nothing Phone 4a Pro

64.0%

POCO X8 Pro

57.3%

Motorola Edge 70 Pro 5G

43.6%

OnePlus Nord 6

41.0%

Burnout assesses CPU throttling and sustained performance under heavy load (higher is better)

If you aren’t a heavy user, the Motorola Edge 70 Pro will hold up just fine. In everyday use, the handset remained snappy with a marginal increase in thermals only when multitasking and navigation are done simultaneously.

Cameras

The Motorola Edge 70 Pro boasts a triple-camera setup on the back, but unlike its predecessor, the tertiary sensor is not a telephoto lens for portraits and zoom shots. Instead, it is a 3-in-1 light sensor, which is expected to help the upgraded primary 50MP Sony LYT710 main sensor in low light.

The phone’s secondary camera is an unchanged 50MP f/2.0, 122-degree FoV ultrawide lens that can also double as a macro lens. The front camera is also a 50MP snapper, which, along with the rear cameras, is capable of recording 4K 60 fps videos.

To gauge the Motorola Edge 70 Pro’s camera performance, we compared it against the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro, which offers a very capable setup for its price.

Daylight

The Motorola Edge 70 Pro image looks much more pleasing, thanks to its contrast, than the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro’s image, which appears slightly washed out. The Motorola smartphone also delivers superior detail and better exposure in shadowy areas.

Ultrawide

Both smartphones maintain their colour consistency when switched to the ultrawide camera. As a result, the Motorola Edge 70 Pro pulls ahead, with results that look much more dynamic than the flat tone of the Phone (4a) Pro’s ultrawide shot. The Motorola smartphone also offers a wider field of view and better detail retention.

Portraits

Those punchy, contrast-rich tones that make the Motorola Edge 70 Pro appealing in daylight and on the ultrawide don’t quite translate to its portrait shots. Without a dedicated telephoto lens, the phone leans on its primary sensor and computational tricks to simulate different focal lengths.

The results can feel a bit overprocessed. Skin tones often appear artificial, with colours pushed beyond what looks natural. In the samples above, there’s a noticeable reddish cast that throws off both the subject’s complexion and the t-shirt colour. In comparison, the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro keeps things far more grounded, delivering more accurate skin tones, cleaner edge detection, and finer detail retention.

Selfies

The Motorola Edge 70 Pro and Nothing Phone (4a) Pro produce similar results with their front cameras. The Motorola smartphone overprocessed the look and softened the details, whereas the Phone (4a) Pro delivers sharper results with tones closer to reality.

Low light

You can see Motorola’s 3-in-1 light sensor come into play in low light, and it genuinely works in the phone’s favour. In the comparison shots, the Edge 70 Pro produces images that look noticeably sharper and cleaner, with less visible grain than the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro.

In terms of overall realism, both phones are fairly close. That said, the Nothing device still edges ahead slightly, delivering colours that feel a touch more natural thanks to its more restrained, less saturated tuning.

To sum up, the Edge 70 Pro, despite lacking a dedicated telephoto lens, excels at capturing eye-catching, punchy images for its price. Not just in daylight, the handset can produce relatively sharp, clean images with good noise control in low light, which the company also touts, thanks to the light sensor.

That said, the handset isn’t the most consistent when it comes to natural colour reproduction and realism, which is especially evident in portraits and selfies that tend to look overprocessed. If you can overlook these shortcomings, the Edge 70 Pro’s camera still comes across as promising. There’s room to experiment with different filters, and the consistent video output across lenses is the cherry on top.

Large 6,500mAh battery

Many will find it surprising that a smartphone under 7mm thick packs a large 6,500mAh battery, but that’s exactly the case with the Edge 70 Pro. The handset uses silicon-carbon battery technology, which offers higher energy density than traditional lithium-ion cells. While not the biggest in its class, the battery still delivers excellent endurance, clocking over 14 hours in the PCMark test, on par with the Redmi Note 15 Pro+ and slightly ahead of the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro, which features a 5,400mAh battery.

The OnePlus Nord 6, which houses a massive 9,000mAh battery, remains the segment leader in terms of battery life. However, it is relatively bulky and may not be appreciated by lifestyle users. For them, the Motorola Edge 70 Pro might be a better fit. The handsets can easily last a full day on regular usage. This involves streaming, browsing, social media scrolling, and a little bit of multitasking and navigation.

PCMark Battery score (in hours)

OnePlus Nord 6

9000 mAh

20.8

Xiaomi Redmi Note 15 Pro Plus

6500 mAh

14.2

Motorola Edge 70 Pro 5G

6500 mAh

14.0

Nothing Phone 4a Pro

5400 mAh

13.8

PCMark battery test measures phone battery life from 100% to 20% (higher is better)

I was getting roughly five and a half hours of screen time with the above usage. Our internal testing further reveals the battery optimisation of the Motorola Edge 70 Pro, draining 4 percent battery after an hour of video streaming on YouTube. However, heavy users might have to charge the device by the end of the day. We noted a 15 percent battery drop after a 30-minute session of BGMI and COD: Mobile, with both remaining on the higher side.

Charging the Edge 70 Pro isn’t an issue. While wireless charging has been omitted, the phone supports 90W TurboCharge, with a compatible charger included in the box. It can go from near empty to 100 percent in under 45 minutes.

Near-stock Android software, but not the cleanest

The Motorola Edge 70 Pro runs Android 16-based Hello UI out of the box. The company promises three years of software updates and six years of security patches. This is an upgrade from the Edge 60 Pro, but support still lags behind competitors, which now offer up to 4 years of major updates and 6 years of security updates. Additionally, with alternatives like Nothing OS, it no longer stands out as the cleanest Android experience.

But, despite shipping with 47 pre-installed apps, including some third-party suggestions that can be disabled, the Edge 70 Pro still offers a near-stock Android experience. The Hello UI avoids heavy customisation, keeping icons and animations close to stock while incorporating elements of Google’s Material 3 Expressive design, such as themed quick settings and more dynamic lock screen options.

That said, Motorola no longer offers one of the cleanest Android experiences. The presence of app recommendations (though they can be turned off) and the pre-installed Indus Appstore, which cannot be uninstalled and may send notifications if signed into, adds clutter. It essentially acts as an additional app marketplace alongside the Google Play Store, diluting the otherwise near-stock feel. Furthermore, there are ads on the proprietary applications, such as the weather app and the Games folder, which neatly cluster all the downloaded games and also include recommendations.

While these recommendations and ads are fairly subtle and may be useful to some users, they can feel distracting for those who prefer a clean, no-frills experience. Moving on, similar to other recently launched Motorola smartphones, the Edge 70 Pro also comes with a handful of Moto AI features to enhance the experience. You can read all about them in our Motorola Signature review.

Final verdict

Unlike its predecessor, the Motorola Edge 70 Pro no longer tries to do everything, and that shift comes with a few noticeable trade-offs, likely influenced by rising RAM costs. The most prominent omissions are wireless charging and a dedicated telephoto camera. The absence of wireless charging is easier to overlook; none of its direct rivals offers it either. However, the recently-launched Nothing Phone (4a) Pro offers a reliable telephoto camera, making its setup more versatile. The handset pulls ahead in areas like selfies and portrait photography, where its processing feels more refined and consistent.

Furthermore, software support is another area where the Edge 70 Pro falls behind. The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro, along with its competitors, promises up to six years of updates, making it a more future-proof choice in the long run. So if longevity is what you are after, competitors, including performance-oriented OnePlus Nord 6 and POCO X8 Pro, could be worth considering.

But the Motorola Edge 70 Pro outshines its rivals with its ultra-slim design, a dependable large 6,500mAh battery, a bright, colour-rich AMOLED display, and a powerful mid-range MediaTek Dimensity 8500 Extreme SoC for smooth everyday performance. Add to that capable low-light photography and fast charging, and you have a device that covers most essentials with confidence.

While the smartphone falls short in its thermal management, aggressive skin tone processing, and relatively cluttered software, the Edge 70 Pro impressed me for the most part. Whether it remains a long-term value, only time will tell. But, for now, the Motorola Edge 70 Pro is a sensible choice for users who value design, battery life, and a smooth daily experience. However, those chasing peak performance or more natural imaging may find stronger alternatives in the same price bracket.

Editor’s rating: 8.2/10

Reasons to buy

• The Edge 70 Pro impresses with its ultra-slim, lightweight design.
• The viewing experience is as immersive as it gets, despite the limited 144Hz refresh rate.
• The Dimensity 8500 Extreme SoC and a large 6,500mAh battery hold up well for everyday use.
• Not just in daylight, the handset is capable of producing relatively sharp and clean images when the sun goes down.

Reasons not to buy

• The handset’s underwhelming thermal management holds it back under sustained load.
• Portraits and selfies have overprocessed tones.