Motorola Edge 50 Ultra Review
Our final verdict on Motorola's pretty new flagship
Verdict
The Motorola Edge 50 Ultra is a good-looking smartphone with a solid camera setup, decent performance and some of the fastest charging capabilities around. It’s may not a true ‘Ultra’ smartphone like the Galaxy S24 Ultra, but it’s also a lot cheaper at £849.
Pros
- Premium look and feel in a variety of materials
- Solid everyday performance from Snapdragon 8S Gen 3
- Among the fastest charging speeds around
Cons
- Some images can be overexposed
- Software promise isn’t the longest around
- No LTPO display tech
Key Features
- Interesting finishesCan choose between vegan leather or wood finishes.
- Very fast charging125w Turbo Power is supported, achieving a full charge in just 19 minutes, and there’s a charger in the box
- Four camerasThree cameras on the back – a 50MP main, 50MP ultrawide and 64MP 3x telephoto – and a 50MP selfie camera with autofocus on the front
Introduction
The Motorola Edge 50 Ultra is Motorola’s top-end flagship for 2024, sporting a combination of a fashion-focused design, gorgeous display, impressive camera tech and some of the fastest charging tech around – all for just £849.
Now that sounds impressive – and it is – but Motorola has had to cut some corners to achieve such a tempting price point. That means you’ll lose out on small, but still significant, features like LTPO tech and always-on display technology, higher levels of zoom and longer software support you’ll find from similarly priced alternatives.
The question is, then, has Motorola made the right compromises with the Edge 50 Ultra?
Design
- Available in wood, vegan leather and glass rears
- IP68 resistance
- Curvy design makes it nice to hold
In a nod to the iconic Moto X, the Edge 50 Ultra can be purchased with a wooden back – a finish rarely seen on phones these days. The light Nordic Wood finish is grippy and Moto claims it’s just as durable as the other finishes.
If wood isn’t your thing, the Edge 50 Ultra also comes in a duo of vegan leather finishes that both look great. The Peach Fuzz finish is the most vibrant, no surprise given that it’s Pantone’s ‘Colour of the Year’ for 2024, sporting a light hue that is a little bit orange with a pinky finish.
There’s also the understated Forest Grey finish, that we were incidentally provided with for review. It’s much more drab than the fun Peach Fuzz and Nordic Wood finishes, lacking the personality of those rather unique finishes.
While the wood is grippy, the vegan leather finish is really soft and comfortable to hold. With many phones, Samsung’s Galaxy S24 range for example, going for that industrial metal-focussed build, the Edge 50 Ultra is quite the opposite.
It’s also curvy in all the right places, helping the 6.67-inch smartphone sit more comfortably in the hand. It’s not quite as thin and light as the Edge 50 Fusion, measuring in at 8.6mm thick and 197g, but that’s still a damn sight lighter than similarly sized phones like the Pixel 8 Pro, and it’s notable in everyday use.
Compared to my daily driver, the Galaxy S24 Ultra, the Motorola Edge 50 Ultra certainly feels more like a one-handed phone, with a narrower aspect ratio that makes it easier to hold and reach both sides.
Elsewhere, you’ll see all the premium design features you’d expect from an £850 smartphone including full IP68 dust and water resistance, an aluminium frame and durable screen protection in the form of Gorilla Glass Victus. That high-end vibe even extends to the unboxing experience with Motorola sprizing each (fully recyclable) box with a gorgeous scent. It really is a treat for the senses.
Screen
- 6.67-inch OLED screen
- Fast 144Hz refresh rate
- No LTPO or always-on display
It’s time to talk screen tech; you get a fairly sizeable 6.67-inch OLED display with the Edge 50 Ultra, complete with curved edges that are starting to go slightly out of fashion. While I would have preferred a flat screen, the curvature isn’t too egregious here, and it means that the side swipes feel ultra-smooth compared to flat-sided alternatives.
Regardless, this is a very good panel thanks to the 1200p resolution (Motorola is calling this Super HD), high levels of brightness and strong HDR support. More specifically, it’ll cap out at a maximum of 2500nits when watching HDR content, and with support for HDR10+, supported content looks phenomenal.
Considering the high-end price, many might be wondering why Motorola didn’t plump for a 1440p display. However, I don’t think you’re missing out on much with the 1200p panel chosen here, as you’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference between it and a 1440p screen unless you were truly pixel-peeping. And, if it helps stretch the battery life further, it makes sense.
There’s also support for refresh rates up to 144Hz, ideal for high-framerate gaming. The refresh rate is faster than most of the flagship competition, most of which cap out at 120Hz, though it’s worth noting that you’ll have to force the screen into a constant 144Hz if you want to take advantage of the fastest refresh rate possible.
What is odd is that there’s no kind of always-on display support with the Edge 50 Ultra – and aside from the Edge 50 Pro, which also lacks the tech, I’m struggling to think of a single phone that doesn’t offer it, even at the budget end of the market.
It may sound like a small feature, but coming from phones like the iPhone 14 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S24 and Honor Magic 6 Pro that all have always-on displays that show the lock screen, I miss being able to glance at my phone for information without actually having to interact with it.
It’s likely down to the lack of LTPO support that allows the screen to drop down to a battery-friendly 1Hz, which is also an oddity for such a premium phone, but it’s disappointing nonetheless.
Even without some of the premium display tech you’d expect from a phone at this price point, the accompanying audio – delivered by stereo speakers with Snapdragon Sound support – certainly pack a punch. This phone is loud, and while the quality won’t match that of a dedicated speaker, it’s more than clear enough for casual podcast listening or watching a YouTube video while cooking dinner.
Cameras
- High-res triple camera setup
- Optional AI-powered image processing
- Main camera can overexpose shots
While the Motorola Edge 50 Ultra may sport a handful of similarities between it and the cheaper Edge 50 Pro, camera tech certainly isn’t one of them, sporting the most capable camera tech out of the Edge 50 line-up – even if it doesn’t quite reach true ‘Ultra’ branding territory.
That’s comprised of three cameras on the rear; a 50MP main with f/1.6 aperture, OIS (optical image stabilisation) and phase detection autofocus (PDAF). That’s flanked by a 50MP (122-degree FOV) ultrawide with a dedicated macro mode and a 64MP telephoto with 3x zoom for those close-ups. Around the front, there’s a 50MP selfie with autofocus – a feature not found on too many phones.
The main 50MP snapper is, of course, the star of the show. The combination of a fairly large 1/1.3-inch sensor and a wide f/1.6 aperture delivers amazing shots packed with detail and colour, even in low-light conditions where it can still deliver a balanced, detailed photo that doesn’t look aggressively processed or unnaturally light.
The wide aperture also delivers a nice bokeh when taking close-up shots, negating the need for the software-powered effect for a more natural shot.
That said, the dynamic range performance could be better. I noticed that some photos would look blown out with very little detail in lighter areas, particularly when shooting outside during daylight. It’s almost certainly a software issue that’ll get fixed, as it’s not present on the auxiliary lenses, but worth bearing in mind.
The accompanying 64MP telephoto lens and its 3x zoom is the ideal length for portrait photography, especially when combined with Motorola’s impressive edge detection tech and adjustable bokeh, but it can also hold its own when switching to a purely digital zoom with usable results up to around the 10x mark.
It’s not exactly going to win any awards for zoom prowess, with true Ultra-level competitors like the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and Oppo Find X7 Ultra leaving the Edge 50 Ultra in the dust both in terms of levels of zoom and overall quality, but it’ll suffice for most people without truly breaking the bank on those top-end alternatives.
The 50MP ultrawide is a great upgrade over the 12MP ultrawide of the Edge 50 Pro, with much better detail and colour accuracy that more closely resembles that of the main and telephoto lenses for a consistent shooting experience. It doubles up as a macro lens with middling results, but that’s a rather niche feature anyway.
Importantly, the quality of the images you’ll get will depend on whether you want to use Motorola’s AI-infused Photo Enhancement Engine.
You’ll get the option to enable it when you shoot your first photo in the Camera app, explaining that the AI can tweak multiple parts of an image, from colour to exposure to bokeh and even shadows to boost the overall quality – but the trade-off is that it takes a few seconds to process.
It was a feature that was more noticeable with the mid-range cameras of the Edge 50 Pro rather than the top-end tech of the 50 Ultra, but it still adds a nice vibrant touch to most of the images you capture. Besides, I quite enjoy seeing the ‘before and after’ as the photo processes after being taken.
Performance
- Snapdragon 8S Gen 3 power
- 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB storage
- Great performance, but can get hot under load
Motorola has made several interesting choices when it comes to the internals of the Edge 50 Ultra. Instead of the true flagship 8 Gen 3 chipset from Qualcomm, there’s the slightly less feature-rich 8S Gen 3 instead.
The differences between these chips are minimal – you can read about all the differences in our Qualcomm 8 Gen 3 vs 8S Gen 3 comparison – and are mostly focused around supported camera features rather than pure power, though it doesn’t quite have the 8 Gen 3 pipped on that front either.
Still, that’s paired with an impressive 512GB or 1TB of internal storage – ideal for those who want to store lots of offline content – and 16GB of RAM too, more than you’d expect at this price.
Combined, the Edge 50 Ultra doesn’t really want for much. It has handled just about everything I’ve thrown at it over the past week and a bit, from basic tasks like scrolling through TikTok and replying to emails to running demanding 3D titles without as much of a hint of stutter.
More specifically, the Edge 50 Ultra could handle the demanding anime-style One Punch Man World with ultra-level graphics and no cap on frame rate, and it was as buttery smooth as it would be on any gaming phone, and remained that way for my entire 40-minute session.
It also just feels responsive and snappy, partly thanks to the fast refresh rate, but also down to an optimised software experience with speedy animations that really make it feel like a powerful bit of kit.
However, the thin, stylish design of the phone means that it can get really hot when pushed to its limits with tasks like the aforementioned high-end 3D gaming.
Surprisingly, that didn’t seem to translate to notably worse performance as with some phones, but it not only made areas of the phone – particularly where your hands rest when playing landscape-style games – but it had a knock-on effect on battery life. More on that a little later.
Software
- Near-stock Android 14
- Handy Motorola-exclusive features
- Not the best long-term support
Software has always been a strong point of Motorola devices, and that trend continues with the Motorola Edge 50 Ultra and its near-stock implementation of Android 14.
It’s about as close to stock Android that you’ll find on the Android market without opting for a Pixel smartphone, offering a clean experience with an easy-to-use UI. It’s essentially Android as intended.
Now that’s not to say that Motorola hasn’t done anything to the OS experience. There is a range of features that help the Edge 50 Ultra stand out, including returning favourite gestures like a karate chop to turn the torch on and off, and a flick of the wrist to access the camera, as well as Motorola Ready For.
Ready For is essentially Motorola’s answer to Samsung DeX, providing a Windows-like UI for all your Android apps and games when plugged into an external monitor. It also plays well with Windows 10 and Windows 11, allowing you to use the Edge 50 Ultra’s main camera as a high-quality webcam.
These features are available on most, if not all, Motorola devices, so it’s not exclusive to the Edge 50 Ultra, but it remains a strong point compared to the flagship Android competition and their custom Android skins.
Motorola is dabbling with AI with its latest flagship, with AI-powered features like the ability to generate wallpapers based on various prompts, as well as the image enhancements we’ve already mentioned, but it doesn’t go quite as far as the AI offerings from Google and Samsung.
You could easily use this phone for six months before you realise it has any AI capabilities at all, as they don’t really impact the day-to-day like transcribing voice notes or real-time translation does.
It also falls behind the likes of the Galaxy S24 and Pixel 8 when it comes to long-term software support, with the Edge 50 Ultra’s three OS upgrades and four years of security updates falling well short of the seven years of OS upgrades from Team Samsung and Team Google. It’s still competitive, but not as competitive as it would’ve been a couple of years ago.
Battery life
- 4500mAh battery
- All-day battery life, possibly two
- One of the fastest charging experiences around
Given that the Edge 50 Ultra has a slightly smaller 4500mAh battery than much of the 5000mAh flagship competition, I didn’t have high hopes about battery life – but reader, I’ve been pleasantly surprised.
That’s because the Edge 50 Ultra is more than capable of providing a full day of usage and then some. On one particularly demanding day during testing, I had the phone off charge for 18 hours with around 4.5 hours of screen time and a bit of screen off time listening to music, and it still had 56% charge when I went to plug it in at bedtime.
That means that, with more sporadic use, the Edge 50 Ultra is more than capable of providing two-day battery life.
However, it does depend on what you’re doing; while watching Netflix drained 5% and 30 minutes of casual gaming only took 6%, 30 minutes of the demanding 3D title One Punch Man World drained a whopping 18% charge. So, while it is capable of impressive battery longevity, it does have its weaknesses.
That would usually be a problem, but with the 125W charging that the Edge 50 Ultra offers, it’s barely an afterthought. That’s because, using the 125W charger that comes in the box (a treat by itself!), the Edge 50 Ultra can achieve 50% charge in 9 minutes, and a full charge in just 19 minutes, making it one of the fastest-charging phones on the market in 2024 along with the equally matched Edge 50 Pro.
There’s also wireless charging on offer, as with most flagship-level phones, and at 50W, it’s pretty speedy – though you’ll need to source your own Motorola-branded 50W wireless charger as it requires proprietary tech to achieve such rapid wireless charge speeds. It’ll also reverse wireless charge accessories like wireless earbuds at 10W.
Still, with such rapid wired charging on offer, wireless charging isn’t something I imagine people will use all that often.
Latest deals
Should you buy it?
You want a good-looking phone that does most things
The Motorola Edge 50 Ultra is a combination of style and substance, with a high-end look and a spec to match.
You want the best camera performance
While the Motorola Edge 50 Ultra can hold its own in the camera department, it doesn’t achieve the same results as premium alternatives like the iPhone 15 Pro and Google Pixel 8 Pro.
Final Thoughts
The Motorola Edge 50 Ultra is certainly one of the better-looking flagship phones on the market with unique finishes and colour options, complete with a thin and light design that makes it a pleasure to hold and use.
That’s backed up by a 6.67-inch OLED screen with a 144Hz refresh rate that delivers smooth everyday performance, though the lack of LTPO tech present in practically all competitors at the £849 price point is a disappointment, especially when combined with the fact there’s no AOD functionality.
Performance is pretty solid from the Snapdragon 8S Gen 3 chipset and a healthy 16GB RAM, handling both everyday tasks and gaming with ease, though the latter did make the smartphone uncomfortably warm after around 20 minutes of demanding gameplay.
However, aspects like a solid camera setup, 125W fast charging that’ll get you a full charge in 19 minutes (with the charger in the box!), a streamlined approach to Android 14 and strong all-day battery life help negate some of the Edge 50 Ultra’s complaints.
It’s not a true ‘Ultra’ smartphone in the same way that the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and iPhone 15 Pro Max are, but it comes pretty close for a lot less money.
How we test
We test every mobile phone we review thoroughly. We use industry-standard tests to compare features properly and we use the phone as our main device over the review period. We’ll always tell you what we find and we never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Used as a main phone for over a week
Thorough camera testing in a variety of conditions
Tested and benchmarked using respected industry tests and real-world data
You might like…
FAQs
Yes, it has IP68 dust and water resistance.
Yes, it offers support for 125W fast charging and you’ll get a 125W charger in the box too.
Motorola has committed to three OS upgrades and four years of security updates for the Edge 50 Ultra.
Trusted Reviews test data
Full specs
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
