#deceives #body #SMARTmania.cz
- Motorola Edge 50 Pro is currently the best flagship of the manufacturer on the Czech market
- It takes, for example, 125W charging or an excellent display from last year
- But the phone itself throws sticks under its feet with a poorly optimized camera
The American-Chinese Motorola slipped into 2024 quite gracefully, presenting a trio of new Edge 50 phones. They all have fast (including wireless) charging, a nice display, refined camera, stylish design and increased durability. However, the rather high price and also a slight disappointment when compared to last year’s model have a somewhat negative effect on all of this.
We can get away with that right away. While last year’s Motorola Edge 40 Pro represented “the best”, this year Prochko is only an average model. It is evident in the equipment, which definitely does not reach the highest flagship floors. In short, the manufacturer needed to change the nomenclature (from “Pro” to “Ultra”) and it could confuse customers, so it’s not a good idea to clarify it from the beginning.
Why can you trust SMARTmania? We test every product or service we test in real operation for at least one to two weeks. We pay maximum attention to the preparation of the review and always try to objectively evaluate all the pros and cons of the given product.
Edge 50 Pro is available in the Czech Republic in the best-equipped variant, so there is practically no choice. The phone goes out on CZK 17,599 including VAT and we are talking about a 12/512 GB configuration. There are at least a few color versions: black or purple vegan leather will be available as standard, with some sellers also patterned white from matte plastic. The choice of color can also play a big role in the overall result, as we will see in a moment.
Package contents
Motorola, as one of the last manufacturers, offers a full sales package this year as well. This means that with the purchase of the phone you also get a cable, 125W charging adapter, SIM clip and a matte case in the color of the phone. Otherwise, the box is visibly made of recycled paper and there is also the obligatory perfume, which Motorola has become popular in recent years.
Metal body, rubber skin
At first glance, the new Motorola impresses again. It is a device produced in impressive colors and with a pleasant design idea. The sides are tapered to highlight the slim design. A sympathetic element is definitely the slightly protruding photo module connected as it were to the side panel, while Motorola already used a very similar style for the cheaper G24 and G04 models.
And now for a slight warning about the color variant. In black, purple and silver, the body is made of hardened aluminum and has a nice matte finish. In addition, the construction is very strong, perfectly aligned and does not spring anywhere. It is also worth mentioning the IP68 certification for increased resistance to water and dust.
The back of the first two colors offers a soft vegan leather surface. I personally wouldn’t treat it like this, it rather reminds me of rubber. Although it is pleasant to the touch, it does not seem even a bit premium, it rubs when you put it in your pocket and it likes to stick dirt on itself (literally) from practically anywhere. For example, the “leatherette” surface of the back Edge 40 Neo he looked a lot better.
Imitation leather is not very successful, it is more like rubber
Otherwise, the design of the phone is due to the Edge series, so it relies on a very thin (this time only 8.19 millimeters) and light (186 grams) construction. You won’t even find any surprises on the body: at the bottom there is a speaker, USB-C and a slot for one nanoSIM (it also supports eSIM), on the right there is a sensor for locking and a separate button for volume control.
Display with vivid colors
The screen of all this year’s Motorola Edge has undergone a slight innovation. First, from the most important: the diagonal remained more or less the same, namely 6.7″ with a 92% ratio to the body of the phone. The fact that the resolution has been increased to a hybrid 1.2K, i.e. 1,220 × 2,712 pixels at a 20:9 ratio, is also quite important. Fineness is thus 446 ppi.
This resolution is active from the very beginning, it does not require anything to be turned on manually anywhere. You can recognize it relatively surely, because everything is very soft and the jagged edges of the letters do not sting the eyes. In addition, I would like to mention the high brightness of up to 2,000 nits when staying in direct sunlight (more like 1,300 nits by default) and the refresh rate of up to 144 Hz. You can manually switch between 60, 120 and 144 Hz, or let automatic regulation be selected.
The color profile of the display deserves a short stop. We are talking about a P-OLED panel with HDR10+ support. However, you may be surprised by the extremely strong color saturation after turning it on for the first time. Red, green or orange shine directly out of the display. By default, vivid color mode is active – for a more natural experience, I recommend switching to natural color mode in the screen settings.
Performance and equipment
In my opinion, performance is a bit of a problem for the Motorola Edge 50 Pro. The phone is profiled as a higher class, most of the equipment corresponds to this. However, the chipset used is not quite the sharpest pencil in the pencil case, sorry, in the portfolio of the American Qualcomm. And the whole thing kind of depends on that.
Motorola Edge 50 Pro hardware parameters
System, chipset and build
Operating system: Android 14,
chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3, octa-core,
GPU: Adreno 720,
RAM: 12 GB,
internal memory: 512 GB,
pam. card:
Dimensions: 161,23 × 72,4 × 8,19 mm,
mass: 186 g,
increased resistance: IP68
Display, connectivity and battery
6,7″,
P-OLED,
distinction: Full HD+, 1220 × 2712 px
5G: ,
NFC: ,
Bluetooth: 5.4,
Wi-Fi: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax,
GPS: ,
connector: USB-C
Battery: 4500 mAh,
fast charging: ,
wireless charging:
Cameras
Main: 50 Mpx, f/1.4, 25mm, 1/1.55″, 1.0µm, PDAF, laser AF, OIS,
second: 13 Mpx, wide-angle, f/2.2, 1.12µm, AF,
third: 10 Mpx, telephoto lens, f/2.0, 67mm, 1.0µm, PDAF, OIS, 3x optical zoom,
selfie camera: 50 Mpx, f/1.9, 21mm, 0.64µm, AF, HDR, 4K video
The manufacturer chose a relatively new Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 with 4nm architecture and an 8-core processor that provides a maximum clock speed of 2.63 GHz. That’s not much, you might think. However, the Adreno 720 graphics chip is not shameful, and I can confirm that you can play most current titles, including Fortnite or Genshin Impact, with the new Motorola flagship. And without overheating problems.
It’s just that somehow it all doesn’t work together. From time to time, the phone has a problem rendering system animations as smoothly as possible, it also takes a long time to launch applications – this is the responsibility of the 12GB operating memory. The biggest problems with lack of performance are probably the photo application, which takes a long time to fully activate and to understand what and how you want to take photos. A fleeting moment flies by like a thump.
Motorola does not deliver equally dazzling results even in popular benchmarks such as AnTuTu or Geekbench. He was able to climb just above the points Samsung Galaxy A55 whether Redmi Note 13 Pro+which considering the price tag is not a great success.
Otherwise, when it comes to storage, 512 GB is a generous portion of space that will certainly not be filled by everyone. The Android system takes about 18 GB right after the first power on, the rest is for your free use. At the same time, the very popular virtual RAM expansion of 4, 6, 8 or even an additional 12 GB is not missing.
Other equipment worth mentioning are Wi-Fi 6e, Bluetooth 5.4, GPS, Glonass and Galileo, NFC for contactless payment and, of course, USB-C 3.1 with On The Go (OTG) function. All Edge 50 models also support the Ready For desktop interface, which allows you to turn your phone into a small computer when connected to a monitor and keyboard with a mouse.
Endurance and flash charging
However, the inconsistent performance is countered by the endurance and charging with absolutely dazzling performance. The novelty has a 4500mAh battery. That’s 100mAh less than last year’s flagship model and plus or minus 500mAh more than today’s standard. Considering the very compact dimensions, I am willing to forgive some of the milliampere hours.
A large and powerful charger is included in the package
The fact is that it doesn’t make much of a difference in the total sum. Even so, I was just fine with the phone for two days without a charger, and even that didn’t require much sacrifice. It was enough to de facto not use the Wi-Fi hotspot, not play games and not take a lot of photos. Durability is thus more or less standard – perhaps even slightly above average when looking at the dimensions of the phone.
Measured charging speed with 125W adapter
Level
30 %
50 %
80 %
100 %
Time
7 minutes 12 minutes 19 minutes 25 minutes
But what definitely stands out is the charging speed. With the included 125W charger, 25 minutes will be enough. Yes, exactly that short time is enough for you to charge from 1 to 100%. There is also 50W wireless charging using a special pad and 10W reverse charging, which Motorola (like many other manufacturers) calls “energy sharing”.
The operating system has undergone a change
For years, customers have been used to the fact that the Android operating system in Motorola phones is not burdened with any graphics superstructure. For many, this was an ideal situation, because the phones had completely pure Android, only somewhere in the background was the Moto Mods application unlocking some special functions of this manufacturer’s phones.
Now the situation is a little different. Motorola is brand new with the Hello UI superstructure, which throws its own pitchforks into Android, which has already changed a lot over the years. But don’t worry, it’s nothing drastic. The most obvious change compared to pure Android is probably the different font across the system (it can be changed), the systematically divided settings (definitely a thumbs up for that) and the differently processed upper download bar.
In addition, Motorola brings several of its own applications, of which you will use the camera most often. However, Motorola has been using its own application with this layout for years, but this year it probably has a different icon. It is definitely more clear than the native photo application on Pixels.
The biggest benefit – why choose a Motorola and not a Pixel or another pure Android phone – are the Moto features and gestures. The manufacturer offers 9 of them, while some of them are already original from Android, others are based on popularity among fans. So you can still enjoy your favorite gestures like turning on the flashlight with a shake or turning the phone twice to activate the camera.
From Android 14, which is present here with the March security patch, Motorola adopted, for example, wider options for editing themes, fonts, colors in the system, the lock screen, or wallpapers. Thanks to artificial intelligence, you can also create your own abstract wallpaper. All you have to do is take a picture of a subject – for example, the logo of your favorite sports club – and the AI on the device will take care of everything.
However, the feature is not very well debugged yet, so it only works half way. As a gimmick great, as a sales argument rather not. You can see the result in the attached gallery. In terms of software support, Motorola plans to offer customers 4 years of security updates and 3 major Android updates.
Camera – good hardware, lame software
The cameras on the back of the Edge 50 Pro look very interesting on paper: the main sensor has sufficient resolution, there is a decent wide-angle sensor and also a telephoto lens with optical zoom. The selfie camera also looks decent, and even supports 4K video at 30 fps. What are the specifications of each camera?
- Main – OmniVision OV50E, resolution 50.3 Mpx, 1/1.55″ chip size, aperture f/1.4, focal length 25 millimeters, optical image stabilization (OIS), laser focus (Laser AF)
- Telephoto lens – Samsung S5K3K1, resolution 10 Mpx, chip size 1/3.94″, aperture f/2.0, focal length 67 millimeters, 3x optical zoom, up to 30x digital zoom, OIS
- Wide angle – SK Hynix HI1336, resolution 13.1 Mpx, chip size 1/3.0″, aperture f/2.2, focal length 16 millimeters, angle of view 120°, electronic image stabilization, phase focus (PDAF)
- Front – Samsung JNS/JN1, resolution 49.9 Mpx, aperture f/1.9, focal length 21 millimeters, phase focus (PDAF)
Judging by the tabular parameters, the hardware looks very good, the main camera is of course the most interesting. It takes compressed 12.6 Mpx photos by default, but there is no shortage of quality. The images have sufficient depth of field, the quality of detail and color fidelity are pleasing. In this respect, Motorola clearly follows up on its predecessor.
I would also like to mention portrait shots, for which the main camera is also responsible. In addition to the basic portrait mode (24 mm), it is possible to switch to 35 mm and 50 mm mode, or even 85 mm mode, which already uses the services of a telephoto lens with optical zoom.
Tip: all test images in full resolution can be found here.
The other two rear sensors are not embarrassing either. The telephoto lens works with 3x zoom without loss of quality, the details are decent and are rendered naturally. Praise also goes to the work of the wide-angle camera, which gives directly above-average results in sufficient lighting and certainly does not spoil the overall impression of the Motorola Edge 50 Pro’s photo capabilities. Selfie camera with the possibility of taking photos in full resolution 49.9 Mpx like a joke!
Still, I have to criticize. Performance, proper optimization and balanced deployment of AI photo-functions probably did not come together for Motorola this year. The photo application works completely inadequately, it is very slow and everything from turning on the application to taking the corresponding photo takes an incredibly long time.
Sometimes one has to press the shutter button several times and still nothing happens. At other times, you are troubled by the fact that the lenses do not switch when the 3x zoom is activated, so you take pictures with a cutout from the main sensor. Automatic activation of night mode also does not work as expected. The manufacturer promised us that a corrective update should arrive at the end of May. At the moment, however, a definite thumbs down for the overall optimization of the camera.
The video function will delight canned goods, even enthusiastic toys. I personally liked, for example, the ability to shoot with the front and rear cameras simultaneously (in different layouts). Otherwise, only 4K at 30 FPS is available, or Full HD at 30 and 60 fps, but always with sufficiently strong optical stabilization. However, you can only shoot HDR10+ video in Full HD resolution at 30 fps. However, the quality is very decent, and the price tag fits perfectly.
Final assessment
The Motorola Edge 50 Pro is definitely a nice mobile phone that offers several really great functions and generally excellent equipment, especially fast charging, a great display and water resistance. But even in paradise there are problems, even at Motorola there are certain flies. For me, the biggest one is the shoddy optimization of the camera, or rather its software, which makes taking pictures very unpleasant in places.
In my opinion, the big effort to impress AI and post-processing is to blame, but the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset probably disagrees with that in some places. If the manufacturer manages to solve these problems with one or two fix packs, all will be forgiven. Finally, as I mention in the camera chapter, the cameras are excellent in terms of hardware and it shows in the results.
But the price is a bit of a surprise. She does almost 18 thousand crowns, which is definitely a higher class, not to mention a lower segment of flagships. Here, the new Moto has to reckon with very aggressive competition, for example last year’s phones Xiaomi 13T Pro whether Samsung Galaxy S23 in the basic 128GB variant.
The smiling competitor is the one already mentioned several times today Motorola Edge 40 Pro, which costs only 500 crowns less. It’s going to be an uphill battle – and frankly, there’s not much reason to recommend the Edge 50 Pro over the Edge 40 Pro at this point.
Motorola Edge 50 Pro
Design and processing
8.5/10
Performance and optimization
6.0/10
Hardware equipment
8.2/10
Photo and video quality
8.5/10
Pros
- full package
- increased IP68 resistance
- great display with high brightness
- systém, Hello UI a Ready For
- super fast charging
- quality camera (hardware)
Cons
- cheap back surface (vegan leather)
- performance could be higher
- poorly optimized camera (software)
- uninteresting features à la AI
- the price is a little higher
Jakub Fischer
Journalist, fan of modern technology, summer months and Asian food. I like Lynch films, Pollock paintings, french house and Arsenal football club. In my spare time, I play PlayStation and go jogging.
