Wood or Leather

Review: Motorola Edge 50 Ultra - Evokes Emotions

Extreme zoom, a slim format, and unique material choices. It also feels fast despite the price tag not having skyrocketed too much.

Erik Mörner

Published 5 May 2024 - 00:00 Modified 24 January 2025 - 16:02

At first glance, it is mostly the design and materials that make the Edge 50 Ultra unique. Motorola focuses a lot on lifestyle and experience rather than the technology itself. We notice this here, as my test unit has a back made of wood fiber, and previously when I have tested Motorola's phones, I have become accustomed to the scent they add to their packages, the first time you open the phone's box after purchase. Previously, I have appreciated it. Here, however, it clashes, because when I pick up the Edge 50 Ultra, I expect the scent of wood, not for the wooden back to smell strongly of sweet perfume. Once the strongest perfume scent has dissipated, I at least get a more genuine sense of wood. However, no wood scent ever emerges. The structure and stripes in the material are unique to each phone, so none are exactly alike, and the surface feels matte and slightly rubber-like. There are real wood fibers in the material, but it is also protected with several layers of other material so that the wood will last and be both moisture-resistant and durable in the long run.

Camera, performance, design

Motorola Edge 50 Ultra is the flagship in the manufacturer's Edge family, and this is particularly noticeable in the cameras, performance, and perhaps somewhat in design and choice of materials. The phone is powered by Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, which is a slightly simpler version of the very best system chip available. Motorola justifies this by saying it is the chip that provides the most performance for the money, and when we test it, we can't help but agree. Edge 50 Ultra is clearly cheaper than many other flagship phones while the performance reaches almost the same level. With today's powerful system chips, there are probably few who even notice if the phone delivers 10 percent slower than the very fastest, which is roughly what the Edge 50 Ultra does.

Then the screen's fast refresh rate, the generous amount of RAM, and Motorola's snappy user interface, which is well adapted, make the phone feel fast and respond immediately.

When the screen lights up, it maintains a good standard. The rounded edges may cause some color changes there, but on the flat part of the surface, the screen is first-class. It is bright, has good color reproduction, and also a fast refresh rate, faster than most flagship phones. Charging is also fast. When the battery capacity starts to run out, you can fast charge with 120 W, which means you don't need more than about a quarter of an hour for the phone to have power for a whole day's use again.

Not always active

Motorola does not have an active lock screen so that, like in many other phones, you can always see the clock and, for example, notifications and the music playing even when the phone is locked in standby mode. Instead, the screen lights up and shows this information either when I tap it, when I lift it, or when, for example, someone bumps the table it's on a little. When it's on the desk, it often lights up just when I type on the computer's keyboard. It's simply an Always on display with a screen that is not always on, but rather limited in terms of that function.

Motorola's interface is fundamentally quite similar to what basic Android offers and aims to refine it. However, during installation, an unnecessary number of bloatware apps are added, so it's wise to delete them immediately. The system includes, as is common today with several manufacturers, tools that allow you to easily work with multiple devices and exchange information and share screens with computers and tablets. Additionally, Motorola adds its gesture control, a child mode, and a gaming mode, but not much more. They keep the interface at a streamlined basic level and offer limited extra features. Instead, you are referred to what Google offers as standard, such as photo editing in Google Photos, payments with Google Wallet, and so on. There is at least a proprietary notes app where you can both write and draw, and it syncs to Google Drive. Overall, it feels like Motorola has reduced its ambitions in this area in recent years.

Good but with some bugs

Looking at the cameras, finally, they should be one of the phone's real highlights. When I start taking pictures, I notice that the sky, in what seems to be a random manner, appears completely washed out, overexposed, and with lost details in about every third or fourth picture I take. Despite repeated tests, the problem consistently repeats itself, and it is just as noticeable when I receive a new test unit on that phone as well. It seems to be a weakness of the phone, but something that should be easy for Motorola to fix in the future with an upcoming software update. Otherwise, the cameras perform well. You have generous zoom that manages good images at magnifications up to 30x, making it a clear challenger to more expensive phones like the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. The Edge 50 Ultra is thus a phone that has fine color and detail reproduction, but in, for example, darkness, it is outpaced by the iPhone 15 Pro and provides more blur and inadequate details precisely in those challenging situations when the light is limited.

Motorola positions itself slightly below the price of the main competitors and doesn't fully deliver functionality in all situations, but they break new ground with expression and feel.

Questions and Answers:

Does a wooden back really hold up?

The phone is IP68-rated, and the wood fibers in the back are combined with several layers of other materials, so the phone is designed to last over time.

How does this differ from the Pro model in the same Edge series?

We mainly notice that the cameras are better for zoom and low-light photos.

How many updates?

Motorola promises three years of Android updates, so they are significantly behind both Samsung and Google as well as Apple.