To say Motorola has had a busy year is something of an understatement. After launching the Google Pixel-rivaling Motorola Edge 50 Fusion, Edge 50 Pro and Edge 50 Ultra back in April, the Lenovo-owned smartphone maker turned its attention to foldables with the excellent Motorola Razr 2024 and Razr Plus 2024.
Almost all of those devices sit at the sharper end of the price spectrum, but now Motorola is bolstering its mid-range and budget offering with four – yes, four – new smartphones: the Motorola Edge 50, the Edge 50 Neo, the Moto G55 5G, and the Moto G35 5G.
The first two of that quartet are positioned as more affordable alternatives to Motorola’s flagship Edge 50 devices, but they’re no less attractive on the specs front (nor on the aesthetic front, given Motorola's ongoing collaboration with color specialists Pantone). In fact, based on what we’ve seen of the two new phones so far, the Motorola Edge 50 Neo, in particular, could be among the best cheap phones of 2024.
For starters, the Edge 50 Neo’s £399.99 / AU$699 price undercuts and matches that of the Samsung Galaxy A55 (£439 / AU$699) and Google Pixel 8a ($499 / £499 / AU$849), and Motorola's phone also offers more base storage than both of those models (256GB instead of 128GB).
The Edge 50 Neo boasts a potentially Samsung and Pixel-beating camera setup, too. You’ll get a 50MP main snapper, a 13MP ultra-wide camera, and a 10MP telephoto snapper on Motorola’s latest mid-ranger, with the first of that number being an AI-packed Sony LYTIA sensor.
Granted, the Pixel 8a is one of the best AI phones money can buy in 2024 – and it’s unlikely that Motorola’s ‘Moto AI’ software can lay a finger on Google’s excellent AI feature suite – but you do at least get a cold, hard telephoto sensor on the Edge 50 Neo, which is something that both the Galaxy A55 and Pixel 8a miss out on. It’s worth noting that last year’s Motorola Edge 40 Neo didn’t have a telephoto sensor, either.
Cameras aside, the Edge 50 Neo gets a 6.4-inch pOLED display with an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120Hz and a peak brightness of 3,000 nits. Again, that latter figure bests the peak brightness offered by both the Galaxy A55 and the Pixel 8a, though if you’re not a fan of compact phones, you may be better off with the 6.7-inch (though more expensive) Motorola Edge 50, or indeed the 6.6-inch Galaxy A55.
Under the hood, the Edge 50 Neo sports a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 chipset and a 4,310mAh battery. That’s the same mid-range chipset as you’ll find in the Oppo Reno 12 Pro, and while you shouldn’t expect it to deliver blazing performance, we found it to be a perfectly sufficient power source for everyday scrolling, streaming, and light gaming in our Oppo Reno 12 Pro review.
You do, however, get a larger – and potentially longer-lasting – battery in Oppo’s comparably priced Reno model, as well as faster wired charging (80W versus the Edge 50 Neo’s 68W). That said, the Edge 50 Neo boasts 15W wireless charging, which is a rarity at this price point.
Differentiating the Edge 50 series
As for the differences between the Edge 50 Neo and its standard sibling, the Edge 50, the latter phone boasts a larger 5,000mAh battery and an arguably superior Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 chipset. The issue? That device costs €499 / AU$799 (UK pricing has yet to be confirmed), which puts it in the awkward no man's land between mid-range and flagship. By contrast, the Edge 50 Neo is more attractively priced alongside its mid-range competition, and it’s also the only phone in the Edge 50 line to offer five years of OS and security upgrades.
In any case, you’ve now got five Motorola Edge 50 phones to choose from in 2024. That sounds like a lot, but with single configurations and prices for almost every model, Motorola argues that its mobile product offering is actually smaller (read: more accessible) than that of, say, Samsung, which makes each of its phones available in a multitude of configurations.
We’re currently putting the Edge 50 Neo – as well as the standard Edge 50 and the aforementioned (though decidedly lower-spec) Moto G55 5G and Moto G35 5G – through its paces for a full review, so stay tuned to TechRadar for our verdict on Motorola's latest phone.
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