Motorola Edge 50 Ultra review

6 June 2024


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Looking for a phone, 08 Jun 2024What a fail: - worse than SD8gen3 - worse battery life th... morefind me an 8 gen 3 phone, available globally, at 1 TB that costs less than 1000 euros.

You're just stuck up about the price, which admittedly is high and the phone should've come with 512 GB at 800 euros or less. That'd put it a notch below the Oneplus 12, and that's the correct pricing. I'd say.

You're stuck up about the battery?? HOW? Look. This phone has 4500 mah battery, look at the weight of this phone, it's so light! The S24 Ultra has 500 mah more battery, the 8 gen 3 and still only has 20 more mins of gaming and actually has less video streaming time. Yeah the web browsing is far higher on the S24 U but it's 2 massive wins for Motorola and 1 win for Samsung, especially considering the gap in battery. Agreed Motorola has an FHD+ display but the Oneplus 12 and Vivo X100 Pro's battery tests show the display res isn't THAT detrimental to battery life.

Bad cam quality? Have you even looked at the samples? The video is straight up 200-300 dollar phone level, I'll admit. But the photos are on par or better than the S24 Ultra in the native zoom ranges. What are you on about?

Oh wow the phone fails in heat dissipation? Well what do you want, more performance or better thermals? This phone and the Poco F6 are extremely close in terms of scores, just lower stability on the Moto but the scores are close. What that means is Motorola mostly gets the job done, the heat dissipation from the FRAME is not good enough. The chip remains hot on both, look at the temperature results.

"mediocre mid-level performance for top level price."

Yeah right man, the S24 Ultra costs 400-600 euros more for the 1 TB, you get a slightly better screen, a better chip and one more camera. How's this Edge 50 Ultra bad in any way whatsoever? It's not perfect but it's not horrible, if Sony can sell the 5 V for around the same price with 128 GB of storage then this phone is revolutionary. Band for band this phone spanks the S24+ apart from performance. If you want performance get a top tier flagship OR a flagship killer. What would you do with the performance though? Seriously, the amount of people complaining about performance for the most part miss the point, the performance is there to DO stuff like encode videos and stuff, what do you even do? For 95% of tasks people do including video editing, this phone is fast enough. If anyone wants faster stuff then they can certainly go for top tier flagships but remember, this phone's performance was considered top tier flagship level a year ago, so I ask you this, what will you do next year if you had let's say a Vivo X100 Ultra? Would it be a worthless mid-level performer?

    YUKI93, 08 Jun 2024"The phone's chassis gets hot after 10-15 mins of... morewell when you're targetting an SDR look with not much post processing, ofc the processing is going to make it easy on the chip, ESPECIALLY when it's an extremely efficient chip like the 8 Gen 2. Look at the 1 IV or 1 III to see if Sony was still able to do it.

    I'm not saying Motorola is doing Apple levels of videos, it's just that Sony's aims are different from Motorola. Motorola wants an extremely processed video, and processing is heavy on the CPU. The difference between Motorola and Apple is that Apple cracked the code with even the iPhone 7, meaning with very small processing power they can do really good video processing. That's why algorithm tweaking is necessary, so as to not waste resources. Motorola might have more power but they're putting it to wrong use. A minimally processed slightly HDR-ified video would look infinitely better than whatever they have now.

      Aierlan, 08 Jun 2024Yeah, the Vivo x100s pro is more expensive if you import bo... morei had many phones over the years from samsung to sony than motorola and xiaomi.......now i wanna test the vivo
      the worst to best experience was samsung ,xiaomi ,motorola ,sony
      at first i wanted to stick to motorola but because of the fact that they could not optimize 8sgen3 im gonna either buy last years x40 pro or completely change to vivo x100s series......welp gotta save up money till next month when i buy either of them

        • ?
        • Anonymous
        • sXH
        • 08 Jun 2024

        The review doesn't really mention the fact that because of the curved screen glass (even if the oled itself is flat), there's always a distortion or reflection along the edges, as shown in the illustrations here. It looks annoying, though perhaps not so much in real life. Would be useful if the reviewer gave an opinion.

          • S
          • SquashGod
          • 3a8
          • 08 Jun 2024

          Moto offered 15% off so picked one up for £722! Very good deal at that price...

            Everything about this phone is great....except the Software updates and cycles.
            They say they will offer 4 years of OS updates, but how many updates will we get?
            I have 3 of their Edge 40 phones of various price, and none of them are even on Android 14 yet!

              • ?
              • Anonymous
              • 0p}
              • 08 Jun 2024

              YUKI93, 08 Jun 2024"The phone's chassis gets hot after 10-15 mins of... morehttps://sony.scene7.com/is/image/sonyglobalsolutions/747_Performance_04_gSheet_Medium%20static_M?$mediumstaticimagehotspot$&fmt=png-alpha

              Look at it. The blue thing is heat system of mark 5.
              Also imx888 uses much less power (less heat generated) than sensors of similar size.

                "The phone's chassis gets hot after 10-15 mins of benchmarking, almost unbearably hot, which is not good." This is interesting since the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 has the same core configuration as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. I can only assume that the newer Cortex-X4/A720 CPU uses more battery power than the predecessor. Sony didn't put a vapour chamber or active cooling in the Xperia 1/5 Mk5, yet they can remain cool despite endless 4K/120fps video recording.

                As for the camera, the Auto Enhance mode is not for me. It looks too much for social media. That's not something I'd upload inside Flickr. Nevertheless, the photo quality in normal Auto mode is impressive. I struggled to find any oversharpening or noise reduction effect from the photos.

                  • L
                  • Looking for a phone
                  • S63
                  • 08 Jun 2024

                  What a fail:
                  - worse than SD8gen3
                  - worse battery life than best SD8gen3 phones
                  - bad cam quality (some samples are just baaaad)
                  - Bad Motorola updates (years and reliability)
                  - gets unbearably hot (fails in heat dissipation)

                  A mediocre mid-level performance for top level price.

                  What is there to like?

                    RaviSS, 08 Jun 2024Well, Apple and also Google/Samsung to some extent charge m... moreyeah but Chinese companies tend to not release phones with a lot of storage options globally, they cut the options in half or even down to only 1.

                    The pricing is created according to the demand, the product is super high tier, 1 TB storage, and it is highly desirable so they make huge shifts in storage options. Agreed, Chinese manufacturers might not have the same HUGE jumps like Samsung and Apple but I'd say they'd still have a big jump nonetheless. There's far more customers in China for these phones I'd say than a dozen countries combined. So they can charge less in China but they have to make up profits somehow so they charge super high prices for the top tier flagship and trickle down the rest of the cost savings to the people in China/the ones who bought 256 GB storage for example.

                    I think Ultra flagships (not counting Motorola) nowadays should come in 512 GB storage as a minimum and the 1 TB version should cost the same as the 512 GB version does now. If these manufacturers aren't gonna give us Micro SD card slots, at least give a valid reason for not doing so. They tout 8K and 4K120 fps recording yet their phones are capped at 256-512 GB for 95% of people. Not very Ultra.

                    The S4/S5 had 16 GB as their base, S6 had 32 GB as its base, S8 had 64 as its base S10 had 128 GB as its base. They continued that till the S22 Ultra, 3 generations, the problem is that S21 onwards there was no expandable storage and only on the S23 Ultra was the base storage 256. I'm talking about Samsung here because till the S21 Ultra they were the ones setting the standard. And they fell off so Chinese manufacturers seem to think that they don't need to push stuff THAT far ahead.

                    I commend Motorola for what they've tried, but 1 TB is far too much for a person buying a mid tier flagship. 512 GB with 200 euros less would've been far more convincing.

                      jiyen235, 08 Jun 2024not 800, far cheaper. Usually the jump from 256 to 512 is 1... moreWell, Apple and also Google/Samsung to some extent charge much higher premium for storage upgrade than is actually warranted, because the incremental cost to the manufacturers is much lower.

                      I am basing my number based on the premium other chinese companies charge for their storage. The premium for 16GB/1TB over 12GB/256GB is typically 1000 Yuan, which would translate to about 200 euros in Europe after accounting for different cost/duty structures.

                      Btw Edge 50 Pro costs 700 euros for the 12GB/512GB version, but given the better hardware Edge 50 ultra has, I am sure it would have cost higher even with 256GB storage.

                        • ?
                        • Anonymous
                        • s89
                        • 08 Jun 2024

                        Anonymous, 07 Jun 2024Its a fast SOC no doubt, that Snapdragon 8s, but not really... moreYES! Why is no one calling out the software update policy! Even budget phones have better software update policies than what motorola has been promising here. A deal breaker for me honestly.

                          • U
                          • Uh
                          • CbI
                          • 08 Jun 2024

                          Anonymous, 07 Jun 2024But that only keeps in mind CPU performance. GPU performanc... moreGpu is even worse. Only 10-12% at 4-6w.

                            • ?
                            • Anonymous
                            • XS6
                            • 08 Jun 2024

                            Motorolla mobiles are good and have good reviews. What is the use if we cannot buy it. It is available online but whenever I check, it is either out of stock or un deliverable even in densely populated towns in kerala where all other phones are delivered online.

                              RaviSS, 08 Jun 2024Well, to be fair, the 999 euros price is for the 16GB/1TB v... morenot 800, far cheaper. Usually the jump from 256 to 512 is 100-200 euros. But the jump from 512 to 1 tb is 200-400 euros. I'm guessing the base price is somewhere around 600-750 euros. Motorola made a mistake by going for the 1 tb version. No one wants a mid tier flagship with 1 tb storage. They should've released the 512 gb version for everyone, like Xiaomi did with the 14 Ultra.

                                Anonymous, 07 Jun 2024The issue isn't using the 8s gen 3, it's using it... moreWell, to be fair, the 999 euros price is for the 16GB/1TB variant, and if there was a starting variant of, let's say 12GB/256GB, it would have been priced around 800 euros or so. Now why Moto chose to launch only the 16GB/1TB variant in European markets is beyond me, but at 800 euros starting price, maybe 8sG3 would have been more acceptable to many.

                                I think the other relevant way to look at it would be that every phone at the design stage has an approximate budget, which then gets allocated to different components depending on several Marketing factors. Many Chinese companies seem to allocate half the manufacturing budget to the processor, and all other specs are pretty average. In this case, Motorola has decided to save a bit on processor, and spend it on other components (camera, build quality etc). Maybe that is the brand positioning they want to create, not a performance champ, but a sleek stylish cameraphone.

                                  Wow, what a fine specimen of a phone.

                                  Fine specs, VERY fine design 👌, and for someone who prefers stock Android, this phone is right up my alleyway.

                                  The cameras aren't THE best compared to some Chinese flagship competitors, but I think it's more than enough for a flagship.

                                    I need new phone, 07 Jun 2024i love this phone but if i wanna get a throttling SoC than ... moreYeah, the Vivo x100s pro is more expensive if you import both but you get much better camera optimisations for the rear cameras (but the front camera on the Moto will be better). You can save some money if you import the Moto but the extra cash might be worth it for the Vivo x100s pro if cameras are the priority

                                      Anonymous, 07 Jun 2024The issue isn't using the 8s gen 3, it's using it... moreI agree it's a little expensive but still cheaper in many European countries than the launch price of the Xiaomi 14 and Oneplus 12 for example given the storage. Both those models for example in France launched for €1099 for 512gb (12gb+512gb for Xiaomi 14 and 16gb+512gb for Oneplus 12). Both were €100 more expensive for half the storage. Actually, Motorola also has overall the best camera hardware of these 3 but I'd personally still take either of the other 2 for cameras given the video quality on the edge 50 ultra is relatively poor. The Edge 50 ultra also comes with the new Moto buds + which retail for €150. Taking that into consideration the price isn't that bad really

                                        • G
                                        • GenTechX
                                        • 4%P
                                        • 08 Jun 2024

                                        I’m getting it regardless. The Edge+ 2023 was my favorite phone last year and I would love to see Motorola step up with a stylus on the 2025 flagship. It’s the minimal software support that’s killing the consumer interest on these phones. 5 year support would be on target. A camera kit for $199 would be an awesome addition.

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