Motorola is doing well in the budget and mid-range segments, producing some of the best smartphones in terms of price/performance ratio. However, the flagship models, with the exception of the flexible Razr series, have been out of focus for the last few years, so users have cooled off to them. But the company plans to gradually change this by releasing more models with top features. One of the first solutions in this direction was the Motorola Edge 50 Ultra smartphone, which immediately offers 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage. I used this model for more than three weeks, including traveling with it to the IFA exhibition in Berlin, so I have something to say about it.
Motorola Edge 50 Ultra specifications
| Dimensions, weight and protection | 161.1 x 72.4 x 8.59 mm, 197 grams, IP68 |
| Кольори | Forest Gray - Vegan Leather, Nordic Wood, Peach Fuzz - Vegan Leather |
| RAM and storage | 16 GB/1 TB |
| Processor | Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 (4 nm) |
| Graphics processor | Adreno 735 |
| Wireless modules | Wi-Fi 7 2.4 + 5 GHzBluetooth 5.4, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive, aptX LosslessNFCnanoSIM + eSIM |
| Display | 6.7-inch LTPS P-OLED, 2712 x 1220 pixels, 20:9 aspect ratio, 144 Hz, 100% DCI-P3, HDR10+, 2800 nits peak brightness, DC Dimming |
| Main cameras | 50 megapixels wide-angle, f/1.6, 1/1.3", 1.2 μm, PDAF, laser autofocus, optical stabilization;64 megapixel periscopic telephoto, 3x zoom, f/2.4, optical stabilization, phase detection autofocus;50 megapixel ultra-wide-angle, f/2.0, 122˚, autofocus, electronic stabilization. |
| Selfie camera | 50 megapixel wide-angle, f/1.9, 0.64 μm, autofocus |
| Audio | stereo speakersDolby Atmos |
| Battery | 4500 mA⋅ year |
| Зарядка | 125 W Turbo Power dart, 50 W dartless, 10 W reversible |
| Connector | USB Type-C 3.1 Gen2, OTG, DisplayPort 1.4 |
| ОС | Android 14 |
| Recommended price | 16 GB/1 TB - 43 999 UAH |
Package contents
Despite the trend towards smaller boxes of flagship smartphones and, accordingly, their content, Motorola Edge 50 Ultra will delight the user with a fairly good set of accessories.
The device comes with a 125W fast charger and a translucent plastic case. This will be more than enough to start using your smartphone right out of the box.
Design and materials
Motorola has built the Edge brand around the idea that all models in this series should use screens that are rounded on the sides. Accordingly, at a time when other manufacturers are mostly abandoning this design, the company continues to use it. The Motorola Edge 50 Ultra is no exception in this regard, with the display and front protective glass of the smartphone smoothly transitioning into the side edge, which visually makes the side bezels smaller.
This design has both advantages and disadvantages. If you use gesture navigation in Android, it's more comfortable for your fingers to swipe from the right and left edges of the screen. Again, purely aesthetically, this is a nice design. However, not everyone likes the fact that the curved display reduces the usable display area and creates additional glare on it.
The frame of Motorola Edge 50 Ultra is made of aluminum alloy, which can already be called a classic, but the back of the smartphone is quite interesting. And I'm not even talking about the camera protrusion, which gently lifts the block of three modules, but about the materials. Depending on the color you choose, the back cover of Motorola Edge 50 Ultra can be made of either vegan leather or wood.
It was this last variant, called Nordic Wood, that I tested. Motorola writes about it as follows: "a real wood body, inspired by nature, with a subtle woody scent."
As for the scent, it is indeed there, but the wood itself seems to have a protective polymer coating that ensures the material's durability and protection from water. That's why the back feels more like a laminate than natural wood. But this approach is certainly more practical. You can use the smartphone without a case without worrying that the lid will be scratched or water will get into the case, because it has IP68 protection.
By modern standards, the Motorola Edge 50 Ultra is not a very large smartphone, with dimensions of 161.09 x 72.38 x 8.59 mm and a weight of 197 grams.
Display
The 6.7-inch screen of the smartphone has an LTPS P-OLED matrix with a resolution of 2712 x 1220 dots, an aspect ratio of 20:9, a refresh rate of 144 Hz, support for 100% DCI-P3 color space, HDR10+, and a peak brightness of 2800 nits. For users who are worried about PWM, this model has support for DC Dimming backlight control, but it should be borne in mind that this display mode can distort colors.
Overall, this is a very high-quality screen with excellent viewing angles, high-quality color reproduction, and a brightness level that is sufficient even in very bright sunlight.
Platform, performance and software
The Motorola Edge 50 Ultra is built on the Qualcomm platform with a Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 processor and Adreno 735 graphics.
The name may be somewhat misleading, because this chip was created as a simpler version of the flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, so its performance is approximately at the level of the previous Gen 2 generation. But even so, it's more than enough for any Android task.
In addition, Motorola has actually taken the concept of a "flagship smartphone" quite seriously, so in most markets, including Ukraine, there is only one modification with 16 GB of LPDDR5X RAM and fast UFS 4.0 storage of 1 TB. That is, if a user chooses the Ultra model, he or she can be sure to get the most. Other features of the platform include a standard set of Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, NFC wireless modules, as well as support for GPS, GALILEO, BDS, and NavIC global navigation systems.
During active use, especially in games, the smartphone body can get warm, but at a comfortable level. The cooling system does a good job of dissipating heat; in the 3DMark stress test, the device demonstrates stability at 66.3%, which is a good result given the relatively small thickness of the model.
For all the time I've been using Motorola Edge 50 Ultra, I've had no problems with the speed of the smartphone, it's at a very good level. If you don't know that the model uses a slightly weaker processor, it would be difficult to guess. The only place where I felt a little lacking in speed was when saving photos, it took a little longer than on other flagships. However, it is possible that the problem is not in the processor speed, but in the software, which Motorola will fix in the future.
The smartphone itself runs on the Android 14 operating system with a virtually "clean" interface that favors Google apps. This makes the device feel almost like a Pixel, but with a number of additional options. Motorola provides users with more personalization options, additional control gestures, and security features.
The question remains whether the Motorola Edge 50 Ultra will support future updates, the company does not have a clear policy on new versions of Android, some of its models received one update to the next version of the operating system, others two or three. For the Edge 50 Neo model in Europe, Motorola first promised 5 years of Android updates and 5 years of security patches. It is not yet clear whether this rule will be applied to all Edge 50 smartphones, as Motorola is not very fond of providing information about future updates. I hope that the company will take a clearer position on this issue, as Google and Samsung offer 7 years of updates for their flagship models.
Cameras
As it should be in a flagship smartphone, the camera unit in Motorola Edge 50 Ultra consists of three main modules:
- 50-megapixel wide-angle, f/1.6 aperture, 1/1.3" sensor, 1.2 μm pixel size, phase detection autofocus, laser autofocus, optical stabilization;
- 64-megapixel periscopic telephoto camera with 3x zoom, f/2.4 aperture, optical stabilization, phase detection autofocus;
- 50-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera, f/2.0 aperture, 122˚ viewing angle, autofocus, electronic stabilization.
As you can see, all the cameras have a fairly high resolution and a good set of characteristics, but how do they perform in practice? Let's take a look at the images from each of the modules.
The main 50-megapixel wide-angle camera produces high-quality photos with a high level of detail and wide dynamic range during the day, not least thanks to pixel blending, which produces 12-megapixel images in standard mode. This camera can occasionally falter with white balance, especially in complex dynamic lighting conditions, but this is the exception rather than the rule.
As the lighting deteriorates, the quality of the images decreases, more noise appears when you get closer, but in general, the camera allows you to capture quite a lot of detail and processes light sources correctly. As I wrote above, sometimes the Motorola Edge 50 Ultra takes a little longer to process and save images, so you also need to keep in mind that in low light it can be difficult to capture a moving object. As a rule, such moving cars or people on the street come out more blurry in night shots.
The 64-megapixel periscopic telephoto camera in Motorola Edge 50 Ultra significantly diversifies the shooting possibilities thanks to various zoom options, from 3x to 50x. In this case, you can get a high-quality photo during the day and from an angle that would otherwise be impossible.
When shooting telephoto at night, the module begins to rely more on post-processing algorithms, and the presence of optical stabilization does not compensate for the smaller aperture. Therefore, the quality of the images depends on the scene. If it's a street flooded with streetlamps or an illuminated building, the photo will have better detail, but the noise level will still be quite high.
The 50-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera allows you to capture more of the scene, which is useful when shooting landscapes or a large group of people. During the day, this module provides a good level of detail and a fairly wide dynamic range.
At night, as with other Motorola Edge 50 Ultra cameras, the level of detail drops, but the photos are generally better than you would expect from a module without optical stabilization. However, a lot depends on the scene itself, if the objects in the frame are not illuminated, then post-processing will not help much.
Overall, we have fairly "mature" shooting capabilities, and Motorola is making good progress in developing cameras in its smartphones.
The front camera in the smartphone also has a solid resolution of 50 megapixels, which are "folded" into 12-megapixel photos with good detail.
However, even with the same resolution, this module is inferior to the main camera in terms of both dynamic range and the ability to correctly determine white balance.
Battery life
The Motorola Edge 50 Ultra has a 4500 mAh battery, which may cause concerns about the model's autonomy, but I'll hasten to reassure you that the energy-saving platform allows the smartphone to hold a charge quite well. Even during intensive use, which includes more than 100 photos per day, the device survived until the end of the day without any problems, having another 18-20% of charge left. This is also confirmed by the synthetic battery life test in PCMark, which creates a prolonged load on the system with the screen active.
In it, the Motorola Edge 50 Ultra lasted almost 14 hours and 40 minutes. Thus, in normal use, the user can expect 1.5 days of operation on a single charge, which is standard for modern flagships. Or more than 10 hours of video viewing and more than 5 hours of gaming in a Call of Duty Mobile app.
But even if the use of the Motorola Edge 50 Ultra turns out to be too intense during the day, then the extremely fast charging will come to the user's aid. Motorola bundles its smartphone with a 125W power supply and the charging speed is fantastic. It takes only 28 minutes to charge the battery from 0 to 100%, and since charging is more common at 20-30%, it takes less than 20 minutes.
In addition, Motorola Edge 50 Ultra supports fast wireless charging up to 50W and reverse induction charging up to 10W.