Color, shape, and experience

Review: Motorola Edge 50 Pro - With Sense and Sensibility

The first impression suggests that the phone doesn't quite live up to the Pro part of its name, but it has other advantages.

Erik Mörner

Published 9 September 2024 - 15:54 Modified 24 January 2025 - 16:24

As the name clearly describes, this is one of the few phones on the market today that has a screen with curved edges. It was trendy when the possibility came, but it is something that most manufacturers today are increasingly moving away from, in favor of completely flat screens. To a large extent, curved screen edges are a divisive feature; some like it, others do not, and in this case, it makes a thin and light phone feel even thinner. Motorola has put extra emphasis on feelings and how the phone is perceived in the hand.

My test unit is in a purple rubber-like material called vegan leather but does not feel very special. However, the phone is also released in an exclusive, handmade pearl finish. The sister model Ultra also comes with a wooden back where the feel and scent are factors when you touch or rub the back. At the same time, the wood fibers are protected by several layers of other materials so that the phone can still be durable in the long term and also water-resistant.

For a unique experience, Motorola has even gone so far as to have their own scent that you smell when you open the box with the phone for the first time. I must admit that it really contributes to the feeling, in the same way that a car has a special new car smell, but then again, I might not go so far as to say that the scent actually plays such a decisive role that it enhances the value or the actual experience of the phone itself when I have already bought it.

Not the best

Motorola Edge 50 Pro is not a phone that wants to be the best. We perhaps notice this most clearly from the price tag. 7990 kronor is cheap for a flagship, and the price shows that the Edge 50 Pro rather belongs to an upper mid-range. We see it in the system chip, which is not the fastest, but Snapdragon 7 Gen 3, fully adequate for pretty much everything you want to do, but without that real flagship performance that is reserved for more expensive phones.

Motorola has made a clear choice here, allowing the Pro model to keep a low profile in terms of performance and cameras, while many competitors aim higher, including Motorola's own Ultra model, with more true flagship features in all aspects. Edge 50 Pro is for those who are satisfied with less.

Good battery life, fast charging

In one area, the phone delivers fully. With the included 125W charger, you really get fast charging. The battery life is good, and the fact that you can also fully charge in about half an hour clearly reduces the risk of the battery running out when you least want it to.

Motorola's interface, now called Hello UX, works quickly and well. It is close to Google's usual interface for Android but adds some own features on top. You get the gesture control we recognize, like chopping in the air to start the flashlight, for example. You also get enhanced possibilities for collaboration between computer, tablet, and phone. However, the new feature to match the phone's wallpaper with the colors of your clothes for the day disappoints me. It rarely results in a particularly striking similarity in style, and above all, hardly anyone but yourself notices it. AI can be used for much more useful things.

The phone can AI-generate background images based on your outfit, but as seen here, it doesn't always match the style or get the colors quite right.

I have been focused on design, color, and form, and with the Edge 50 Pro, Motorola continues its already initiated collaboration with the color experts at Pantone. Both the camera and the screen are supposed to be Pantone-certified to display natural, correct colors, including skin tones, but in practice, I don't notice any real difference here compared to any other phone. When I start the phone, there are three different color schemes to choose from on the screen, and the one with exaggerated, saturated colors is pre-selected. I can choose a more natural tone, and then the saturation of the colors decreases, probably more than most would like. When it comes to skin tones in the camera's pictures, the camera does not stand out positively, and the skin color depends more on the exposure you have at the moment of taking the photo than on anything else.

Pantone-certified colors in the screen and camera make no noticeable difference.

In general, the cameras in the Motorola Edge 50 Pro have more of the character of simpler "point and shoot" than of a professional camera, and they suffice for a lot, but quickly find themselves defeated when it comes to poorer light, more than modest zoom, or selfies in difficult conditions. Then it easily becomes noisy, or the color reproduction or level of detail deviates.

Motorola Edge 50 Pro is primarily a thin, sleek phone with its own style. In terms of functionality, it stands out positively on few points.

Questions and Answers:

Is there Always on Display?

No, Motorola does not have that. They settle for the screen lighting up only when you touch the phone. If you don't touch it, it remains off until a notification comes and shortly after, it turns off again.

What can the macro camera do?

The macro camera is a feature in the wide-angle lens and takes good close-ups, but none that I can't take with the main lens when I zoom in a bit instead. This also avoids the problem of the phone itself casting a shadow on the subject.

How does Motorola use AI in this phone?

Generative AI is largely left to Google in the form of the Google Photos app, but they generate wallpapers with AI and in the camera, according to what they say, AI is used to stabilize images and focus.

An alternative

Motorola is stingy with system updates compared to Samsung and Google, so for that reason, for example, the Google Pixel 8 with seven years of promised system updates can be an attractive alternative.

Camera example

Motorola uses Google Photos as the gallery app in the phone and that app has no problem suggesting ways to improve the images as soon as I browse. Here, for example, to fix lighting or add an HDR effect.