Motorola Edge 50 Pro review

There’s always been something that makes a Motorola smartphone stand out, be it the sharp and slim styling of the Razr phones or the adventurous approach to colours. The Edge series comes across as mainstay and looks ordinary in images, but the Edge 50 Pro somehow looks a lot nicer and more flashy in the flesh. You might typically choose a sober colour - and there is a black option to pick if you want this - but we’d recommend going all out and getting the lavender or pearl variants.

The black and lavender (our review unit) variants have a vegan leather finish which is rather nice to touch, looks nice even from a distance, doesn’t easily reveal any dust or grime on it, and is a breeze to keep clean. The metal frame of the phone matches the back panel colour, and the display gets curved edges which make the phone feel a bit slimmer than it actually is. The Edge 50 Pro is therefore a lot more impressive looking than most smartphones priced at around Rs. 30,000 or so.

The camera module, while a distinct and visible bump, looks a lot nicer than most other devices thanks to the leather-like texture which gives the impression of a wrap on top. Despite being a large smartphone with a 6.7-inch display, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro somehow still feels smaller and easier to handle than most other devices in this price segment. Usefully, the phone is IP68 rated for dust and water resistance, and can thus handle a fair amount of exposure to water including being fully submerged in shallow water for a few minutes.

Flagship-grade displays are commonly seen on even mid-range devices now with a few limitations, but the Motorola Edge 50 Pro manages to push the expectations a bit and offers a slightly ‘turbocharged’ display that goes beyond what you’d typically see on a mid-range smartphone. 

Another key difference is the use of an LG-made pOLED display - common for Motorola - instead of the Samsung-made AMOLED displays typically seen on Android smartphones. The 6.7-inch, 1.5K resolution (2712x1220-pixel) display is sharper than the full-HD+ displays that are typically seen on smartphones today, and also supports HDR10+ high dynamic range content. Impressively, it has a refresh rate of 144Hz, and a peak brightness of 2000 nits (under specific conditions). 

All of this is also Pantone-validated for colour accuracy. In practice, the screen is all it claims to be in terms of sharpness, detail and brightness, and is capable of a fairly decent peak brightness level even through the user-accessible 100 percent brightness mark. The default tone of the display appears a bit warm even at the default central colour temperature setting. Apart from that, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro offers a display experience that is largely on par with what most smartphones priced at around Rs. 30,000 deliver.

Motorola’s smartphone range is India is a lot smaller than other brands that it competes with, but that’s not to say it’s without logic. While others pay attention to devices across the price range, Motorola has thrown its weight behind the Edge range and turned it into a value-for-money driven mid-range product line.

The most obvious indication of the Edge 50 Pro’s mid-range credentials is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 processor powering the device. It’s a rather sensible pick given its newness and ability to come close to what the once-flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 delivers in terms of performance. 

There’s also a standard 256GB of UFS 2.2 storage (somewhat disappointing despite the adequate capacity), along with the choice of either 8GB or 12GB of LPDDR4X RAM. The dual-SIM Motorola Edge 50 Pro supports 5G connectivity on both SIM slots, along with Bluetooth 5.4 and Wi-Fi 6 for wireless connectivity with other devices. 

The phone has a 4500mAh battery, but which charging adapter you get in the box depends on the variant you buy. The more affordable variant with 8GB RAM has a 68W charger included, while more expensive 12GB RAM variant comes with a much faster 125W charger. Usefully, there’s also support for fast wireless charging at up to 50W, with Motorola claiming that the Edge 50 Pro is the first smartphone with both fast wireless charging and an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance.

In typical fashion, Motorola also delivers an impressive software experience, along with software update promises that are much bolder than what the competition promises. The Motorola Edge 50 Pro runs on Android 14, with Motorola’s near-stock Android experience on top. It’s rather light on pre-installed apps, with only the default Google suite and a handful of Motorola’s own apps. Some of these are quite useful and serve functions on the device, while others aren’t and can be safely ignored.

What stands out is how straightforward the UI and software experience is as a result. The general appearance, the fonts, the widgets, and the way the notification and quick settings shades appear are a bit different from what you might see on devices from OnePlus or Vivo, but nothing feels out of place or changed for the sake of change.

Smartphones priced at around or under Rs. 30,000 typically come with a dual-camera setup - key competition such as the OnePlus Nord CE4 and Nothing Phone 2a, for example - but you might come across a decent triple-camera setup once in a while. The Motorola Edge 50 Pro is one of these exceptions, sporting a camera setup that is quite impressive on paper.

There is a 50-megapixel primary sensor, a 13-megapixel ultra-wide + macro combination sensor, and a 10-megapixel telephoto sensor with 3X optical zoom at the back, while the front has a 50-megapixel camera. The laser autofocus system and flash occupy the fourth component in the camera module at the back, and there’s also a time-of-flight sensor in between. All of this also comes with Pantone validation, and Motorola also claims some AI-based enhancements in play which are meant to make photos look better.

There are a handful of other features as well, including adaptive image stabilisation (with AI help), auto focus tracking, long exposure, and tilt-shift mode, among others. On the software front, the camera app comes with useful modes and customisations, including being able to shoot specifically in macro mode using the correct sensor, a detailed ‘pro’ mode for custom settings, and Instagram-friendly modes such as dual-capture and photo booth. It’s a detailed and comprehensive camera experience, as such.

In practice, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro is, after all, a mid-range smartphone, and the camera does rely heavily on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset for its image processing needs. Hence, don’t expect flagship-grade camera performance or anything that matches up to camera-focused mid-range devices such as the Vivo V30 Pro, but it’s definitely among the better camera phones in the Rs. 30,000 (or so) price segment.

Standard images taken in good light are about as good as you can make them with a bit of effort, but even standard point-and-shoot methods will give you decent results with minimal effort. The telephoto lens delivers very good results with 3x optical zoom, but we did need to put a bit of effort into focus and light metering to ensure photos came out well. 

Macro photography and portrait mode were a hit-or-miss type of thing; standard or shallow depth-of-field and no zoom yielded decent results on the Motorola Edge 50 Pro, but complex capture attempts were met with either unfavourable results or pictures that looked a bit over-processed. 

Light metering was also often a challenge, and not paying enough attention and framing the shot properly in low-light situations sometimes led to unfavourable results. The Motorola Edge 50 Pro usually gets it right, except when it doesn’t; it’s a good camera that only seems to suffer from problems related to consistency and ease of use, rather than issues with the camera itself. The AI tweaks also work reasonably well most of the time.

As impressive as the Motorola Edge 50 Pro is with some of its headline features, it’s still a mid-range smartphone at its core. Under the hood is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3, which despite its capabilities, is still a little bit below even the previous-generation Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 - seen on the OnePlus 12R. That said, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro is a lot more affordable than the 12R, and manages to edge ahead with a couple of features that you wouldn’t typically see on a mid-range device.

While you do get up to 12GB of LPDDR4X RAM, storage is capped at 256GB, and that too of the older UFS 2.2 standard; this is a bit disappointing given that the OnePlus Nord CE4 offers UFS 3.1 storage. The rest is fairly straightforward for a smartphone in this price segment, helped along by the excellent software experience. We did experience a bit of stutter when using the camera heavily, but for most other tasks, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro can keep up with performance expectations and even somewhat heavy multi-tasking.

Battery life on the Motorola Edge 50 Pro is decent enough, running for up to two days with light usage and a little over a day even with heavy use. Charging is rapid thanks to the included 125W charger, which tops the phone up in about 30 minutes or so. 

The faster charger is only available with the more expensive variant, and the option with 8GB of RAM includes a 68W charger in the box, which while not quite as quick as the 125W charger, is still plenty fast on its own. Usefully, there’s also fast wireless charging of up to 50W, but you’ll need to buy the wireless charger separately.

The lines between mid-range and ‘starter’ premium devices might be blurring a bit, thanks to devices such as the Motorola Edge 50 Pro pushing the boundaries of what you can expect in a smartphone priced at around Rs. 30,000-35,000. While firmly a mid-tier offering, Motorola has pushed further with features and hardware, including fast charging, wireless charging, a triple-camera setup, and a design that feels high-end.

As such, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro is easily the nicest mid-range smartphone you can buy right now, and everything nicer than this will involve a step up in how much you need to spend. It’s got plenty in it to justify the spend, assuming your budget fits in this very specific bracket.