Motorola Edge 50 Ultra review

Introduction

The Motorola Edge 50 Ultra is a peculiar smartphone - you can have it in a vegan leather or wooden version. Yes, we are talking about actual wood! The rest is flagship-grade across the board - display, performance, speakers, cameras, battery and charging.

The Edge 50 series has currently three members - Fusion (the affordable one), Pro (the balanced one), and Ultra (the most beefed up one). We have already met with the Pro and found it a reasonable offer, but now the Ultra has really grabbed our attention with its unique design. Both versions look attractive, but the Nordic Wood is something one of a kind right now.

The exterior aside, the Edge 50 Ultra features a 6.7-inch P-OLED screen of 1220p resolution with a curved Gorilla Glass Victus shield. The panel supports 10-bit color depth, up to 144Hz refresh rate and HDR10+ streaming.

The phone utilizes the flagship Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, which is not the fastest SoC on the market, but should be in the ballpark. The smartphone comes with 12GB or 16GB LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB or 1TB UFS 4.0 storage.

All cameras are quite impressive - there is a large 50MP sensor for the primary camera with OIS lens, then comes a 64MP telephoto with a periscope lens for 3x optical zoom and support for up to 6x lossless magnification. The third and final camera on the back is the 50MP AF ultrawide with support for macro photography, while there is another 50MP AF camera over at the front for amazing selfies.

Motorola is also advertising the powerful stereo speakers, there is support for Ultra Wideband connectivity, Wi-Fi 7, and everyone will be impressed by the 125W fast wired and 50W fast wireless charging for the 4,500mAh cell. Oh, and there is even reverse 10W wireless charging.

Clean Android 14 sweetens the whole deal, of course.

Motorola Edge 50 Ultra specs at a glance:

• Body: 161.1x72.4x8.6mm, 197g; Glass front (Gorilla Glass Victus), wooden back or silicone polymer back (eco leather), aluminum frame; IP68 dust/water resistant (up to 1.5m for 30 min).
• Display: 6.70" P-OLED, 1B colors, 144Hz, HDR10+, 2500 nits (peak), 1220x2712px resolution, 20.01:9 aspect ratio, 446ppi.
• Chipset: Qualcomm SM8635 Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 (4 nm): Octa-core (1x3.0 GHz Cortex-X4 & 4x2.8 GHz Cortex-A720 & 3x2.0 GHz Cortex-A520); Adreno 735.
• Memory: 512GB 12GB RAM, 512GB 16GB RAM, 1TB 16GB RAM; UFS 4.0.
• OS/Software: Android 14.
• Rear camera: Wide (main): 50 MP, f/1.6, 1/1.3", 1.2µm, multi-directional PDAF, Laser AF, OIS; Telephoto: 64 MP, f/2.4, 72mm, 0.7µm, PDAF, OIS, 3x optical zoom; Ultra wide angle: 50 MP, f/2.0, 12mm, 122˚, 0.64µm, AF.
• Front camera: 50 MP, f/1.9, (wide), 0.64µm, AF.
• Video capture: Rear camera: 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60/120/240/960fps, 10-bit HDR10+, gyro-EIS; Front camera: 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60/120fps, HDR.
• Battery: 4500mAh; 125W wired, 50W wireless, 10W reverse wireless.
• Connectivity: 5G; eSIM; Wi-Fi 7; BT 5.4; NFC.
• Misc: Fingerprint reader (under display, optical); stereo speakers; Ready For support, Ultra Wideband (UWB) support.

It seems like the Motorola Edge 50 Ultra has it all figured out. Well, maybe except for the somewhat smaller battery capacity, but capacity is not everything, so let's not jump to conclusions just yet.

Unboxing the Motorola Edge 50 Ultra

The Edge 50 Ultra ships in a rather thick black box, and that is because it contains a lot. The bundle includes the phone in a color of your choosing, the 125W power adapter with USB-C port, and a USB-C cable.

Motorola also gives you a hard semi-transparent case with a matte finish for extra protection.