The Motorola Edge 50 Pro is the middle model of the three. Do you get an average device? Yes, but also no.

Motorola knows how to stand out. When announcing the devices, the colors and finishes couldn’t be ignored. Striking is the least you can say about options like vegan leather or even wood. We received the most boring option in the editorial office: black vegan leather.

The Motorola Edge 50 Pro (699 euros including VAT) is the middle model between the Ultra and Fusion variants. Motorola has done its best to make compromises in the right places. What is disappointing for one may be great for another. It’s up to you to decide if this is the case for you.

Finish and review

Vegan leather, it has a very nice texture for a smartphone. We would think it a shame to put the Motorola Edge 50 Pro in a case. It’s hard to estimate how the leather will look after a year. After two months, it still looks good. The aluminum frame gives the phone stability. It also feels light.

One trend that we think is rightly disappearing is the slanted glass on the front. Motorola hasn’t gotten this memo and likes to tout “boundless beauty” in its promotional materials. It must be said that we had a few false contacts when picking up the phone, but that didn’t bother us. We prefer a “straight” screen so you can save money on something else when improving it.

The 6.7-inch OLED screen is big, but thanks to the rounded glass, the phone is a little less wide. The whole thing feels more manageable than you’d think for such a screen size. We measured a peak brightness of 1,135 nits across the entire screen, which is more than enough to see everything clearly in sunlight. The 144Hz refresh rate makes everything feel smooth.

Performance

With the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3, Motorola has not opted for the fastest chip from Qualcomm, but for one that walks the intelligent line between battery and pure performance. In raw benchmarks, you can see that the OnePlus 12 and the Samsung Galaxy S24 stand out with their Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chips.

Do you need that much horsepower? There’s a very good chance you don’t. Depending on whether you play graphics-intensive mobile games, GPU performance might be more important. That’s where the biggest difference lies. Here you can see that the Motorola Edge 50 Pro had to make a compromise to offer a more competitive price.

Camera quality

Did Motorola also skimp on the camera? In theory, you wouldn’t believe it with a 50 MP (f/1.4) main camera, 10 MP (f/2.0) x3 optical zoom and 13 MP (f/2.2) wide-angle camera. There is room for a 50 MP (f/1.9) camera on the front.

During the day, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro’s photos contain a lot of detail, but we see that the colors are extremely saturated. Too extreme, because, for example, the grass and the green of the trees look almost radioactive. This is a surprise, because Motorola presents the Pantone Validated certificate to highlight the color fastness of the camera.

Check out the images below. Click on the image for full resolution. On the left you can see the Motorola Edge 50 Pro, on the right the Google Pixel 8, which is identically priced.

When it gets dark, the color difference disappears, but the Motorola Edge 50 Pro loses sharpness. Again, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro on the left, Google Pixel 8 on the right.

What bothers us most is the lack of consistency between the three cameras. Below you can see two situations where we switch between the three lenses.

The macro function with many details deserves praise.

We expect more from a camera in this price range. The result looks very pleasing until you realize that it doesn’t correspond to reality. We prefer to see filters as optional rather than standard.

Hello UI

The days of Motorola almost literally taking over the Android shell are behind us. Hello UI is now a thing. The changes are subtle, like a different font, and are found mostly in Motorola’s own apps.

What we don’t like is the amount of bloatware on this device. We count five (very bad) games, five advertising apps (Facebook, Opera, TikTok, Booking and Adobe Scan) and ten Motorola apps, in addition to the standard Android apps that come with every device. It looks chaotic, especially for a device in this price range.

The update policy is another disappointment: three years of OS updates and four years of security updates is substandard. Samsung and Google provide OS updates for seven years, Fairphone even eight years. This needs to be improved to give this device a longer lifespan.

Lightning-fast sprinter

Even though this device doesn’t have a very large battery – 4,500 mAh is tight for a 6.7-inch device – the results aren’t that bad. In light use (video test), the Motorola Edge 50 Pro dangles at the lower end, but that doesn’t make much of a difference. Under load, you can see that the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 is very efficient and pushes this phone into the middle of the graph.

With daily use, we never run out of power at the end of the day. Two days are possible, but then you have to be careful with your phone. This is possible with the OnePlus 12, for example.

Where Motorola flexes its muscles is in charging speed. The box includes a robust 125-watt fast charger that charges this phone to 50 percent in 10 minutes. A sprint to 80 percent takes just 18 minutes. That’s almost unparalleled in this price range.

An ideal device to charge every day in the morning while having coffee or in the shower and then easily last the whole day. This is much better for the battery than charging at night and reaching 100 percent every time. And so suddenly it doesn’t matter so much whether your device lasts a day or two.

Diploma

Motorola had to make a decision to sell this phone at this price. The Motorola Edge 50 Pro (699 euros incl. VAT) has a decent battery, with a phenomenal fast charger. The vegan leather finish is nice, as is the aluminum body, which gives it a premium look. The slanted screen looks luxurious for enthusiasts. The Qualcomm chip is a bit slower, but this will be especially noticeable to the fans of realistic 3D games among us.

The big weak point is the camera. In this price range, the Google Pixel 8 is the undisputed leader and with the Google Pixel 8a, which takes similar photos, it is even 150 euros cheaper. Even though the marketing claims that the camera is “Pantone Verified”, it does not convince us.

If you value a good, neutral camera, you should look elsewhere. Do you think the photo results in this test are OK? Then the Motorola Edge 50 Pro is worth considering because of its many other advantages.

The Motorola Edge 50 Pro is available in three colors: lavender, black and “mother of pearl”. Only one configuration is available with 12 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage. The recommended retail price on launch day is 699 euros including VAT.

Android update policy: Motorola guarantees that the Edge 50 Pro will receive security updates for at least four years and operating system updates for three years. This period begins with the launch of Android 14 on April 16, 2024. The statutory warranty period is two years.