Motorola’s new Android phone looks amazing, but there’s a catch
Earlier today, Motorola introduced a new premium phone in the Edge series, and from the looks of it, this could be one of the most value-centric phones of 2024. The Motorola Edge 50 Pro, which flaunts a fresh design language, marked its arrival in the Indian market with a price tag of roughly $385. For a limited spell, it will be sold at approximately $335, which is nothing short of stunning.
At that asking price, you won’t find a phone in the U.S. market that can match the hardware prowess and the fine looks of Motorola’s latest phone. We are talking about sleek curved glass aesthetics, a metallic frame, and a vegan leather finish available in a beautiful lavender shade.
Save for the silicon inside, this one surpasses the likes of the iPhone SE, Google’s latest Pixel-A series phone, and even OnePlus’ Nord smartphones in terms of raw specs. And it does it all while looking absolutely eye-pleasing.
The innards of this IP68-certified phone are arguably more impressive than the looks. Motorola has even one-upped OnePlus at one of its strongest areas – fast charging. The Motorola Edge 50 Pro supports 125W fast charging, roughly five times faster than Apple’s flagships which cost nearly thrice as much. Iy is capable of filling an empty tank in just 18 minutes.
Motorola went further and enabled support for 50W wireless charging, which is nearly twice as fast as the current generation iPhones can go with a USB-C wire plugged in. The battery capacity is 4,500 mAh, which should be enough to last a full day of usage, supplying power to Qualcomm’s mid-range Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 silicon.
You also get access to a handful of other niceties, such as a desktop syncing environment, notification alerts with edge lighting, native Adobe Scan for turning paperwork into digital file formats, and more. The phone will be up for grabs in two memory configurations: 8GB RAM + 256GB storage and 12GB RAM + 256GB storage, which is again quite impressive for the price segment, especially compared to the U.S. market standards.
The 6.7-inch display (2712 x 1220 pixels) is an OLED unit that offers a refresh rate of 144Hz and an impressive peak brightness of 2,000 nits. The main camera relies on a 50-megapixel sensor, sitting alongside a 13MP ultrawide snapper that also handles macro photography duties. There’s also an optically-stabilized telephoto zoom camera that delivers 30x hybrid zoom output.
The selfie camera hardware is equally impressive, relying on an autofocus-enabled 50MP sensor. Motorola generously bundles a 68W fast charger in the box (hello, Apple) and promises three years of Android OS upgrades. It’s not the best, but fairly acceptable for the asking price alone.
Unfortunately, this all comes with a big asterisk. We are unsure if the Motorola Edge 50 Pro will make it to the U.S. market. Digital Trends has reached out to Motorola for clarity on the market expansion, but we’ve yet to hear anything back.
Although that’s initially disappointing, it’s not all bad news. Since Edge series phones have been available in the U.S. market for a while now, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro could hit the shelves in the coming weeks or months, possibly under a fresh name. For reference, last year saw the release of the Motorola Edge Plus (2023) and Motorola Edge (2023). It wouldn’t be the first time Motorola’s done this, so cross your fingers the Edge 50 Pro is one Motorola deems worthy of the U.S.