Motorola Edge 50 Neo review

Hello UI on top of Android 14

The Motorola Edge 50 Neo runs Android 14 with Moto's Hello UI on top. This particular Android overlay isn't too crazy and it's quite close to the stock Android experience. It has been the case for a while, but Motorola gave its UI a name of its own only recently.

In any case, the 50 Neo is promised to get 5 major OS updates and 5 years of security updates.

We've already covered the UI specifics in our Edge 50 Pro review, so go check that out. It's worth noting that the Edge 50 Neo has Always On Display support, unlike some other phones in the series.

Hello UI + Android 14

We are also happy to report that almost all features found on the Pro are available on the Neo as well, including the Motorola desktop-like experience called Ready For. This is a big win in our books as Motorola is one of the few manufacturers to offer such a feature, and it has found its way into more budget-friendly Motorola devices like the Neo. Moreover, the Neo supports wireless and wired connections to an external screen.

Hello UI + Android 14

The software runs rather smoothly without major slowdowns or hiccups. It can sometimes feel sluggish, but that's mostly in the camera app, which we will discuss in the next section.

Benchmark performance

The MediaTek Dimensity 7300 chip may be a relatively new chipset with a 4nm manufacturing process, but it's largely based on the older Dimensity 7050.

The CPU department operates with 4x 2.5 GHz Cortex-A78 cores and 4x 2.0 GHz Cortex-A55 cores, while the GPU is the Mali-G615. The new chip promises a 25% improvement in efficiency compared to its 6nm predecessor.

Another difference between the older 7050 and the current 7300 is the ISP. Now, the Imagiq 950 12-bit HDR is capable of dual video capture using two cameras simultaneously.

Memory options are somewhat limited. You only have the 8GB/256GB and 12GB/512GB options to choose from. You will get a rather dated UFS 2.0 storage standard in both cases. Motorola doesn't disclose the UFS standard but according to the read/write speeds we measured, it's likely UFS 2.0.

The benchmark results show how far the Edge 50 Neo is behind its competitors. Even though there's nothing inherently wrong with the Dimensity 7300 SoC, it's just not the right chipset for the price bracket. There are a handful of alternatives running on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 or the Snapdragon 7 series. Higher-end chipsets with more powerful CPUs and GPUs.

Sustained performance

On a more positive note, the fact that the Dimensity 7300 SoC isn't very powerful means that it handles itself thermally quite well. Even in the prolonged CPU stress tests, the system maintained relatively high and stable clock speeds.

CPU and GPU throttle tests

The same goes for the GPU, which showed 99% stability in the 3DMark Wild Life Stress Test.