Rounding things out is a 50-megapixel front-facing camera that is solid for selfies. It’s an impressive camera system for a midrange phone. But what came close to ruining the camera for me was the sluggish performance. The post-shot processing sometimes takes a second or so, preventing you from capturing several shots in quick succession.
Photograph: Simon Hill
Motorola Edge 50 Pro, main camera. The main camera captures lots of detail and has a decent depth of field.
The Motorola Edge 50 Pro has a 4,500-mAh battery, and it’s enough to see you through an average day. I once had to charge before bedtime after shooting several photos and videos. Charging is another surprising highlight, because you can use the 125-watt charger in the box to fill the battery in less than 20 minutes, though it does get warm. The Edge 50 Pro also supports wireless charging (up to 50 watts with the right charger).
While the Edge 50 Pro feels close to stock Android 14, there is a little bloatware (Facebook, TikTok, Bingo Blitz are all preinstalled). But I like Motorola’s added features, such as karate chopping the phone to turn on the flashlight or twisting it to launch the camera. It’s also easy to connect the phone to your Windows PC or laptop to wirelessly share files or double up as a webcam. Family Space is a handy option for parents with young kids, enabling you to lock down part of your phone before you pass it off to them.
Competition Crunch
Ultimately, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro is a good phone, and with a better processor and a longer commitment to software support it might have been great. With Google offering seven years of software support and Samsung matching, Motorola’s three years of Android updates and four years of security updates feel stingy. I’d love to see seven years become the standard.
The Edge 50 Pro’s most obvious competition comes from Google. The Pixel 8A is £100 less, and you can pick up the regular Pixel 8 for around £600 now. Both are better than the Edge 50 Pro. If you’re not a Google fan, you can find other options, like the OnePlus 12R, in our Best Android Phones guide. Even last year’s compact Samsung Galaxy S23 is not much more than the Edge 50 Pro now, and it has a surprisingly similar spec sheet but more processing power.
