Motorola Edge 50 Neo: As more and more high-end features are making their way to more budget-friendly smartphones, the competition has become more intense in the smartphone middleweight division.
The Motorola Edge 50 Neo, released in the spring of 2025, is a great example of this, providing a strong, balanced phone that bucks the trend, and allows you to enjoy a good smartphone experience without needing to shell out for a far more expensive, flagship model.
Design and Build
This is complemented by the symmetrically curved front and back panels that flow into the aluminum frame around its edges.
Only 7.7mm thick and weighing just 173g, it’s quite light while still have the structural integrity.
The vegan texture that offers excellent grip due to its unique texture is quite hard to find in this category.
The device also features IP68 water and dust resistance that is usually found in premium ones. The front display is coated in Gorilla Glass Victus to provide that added piece of mind around everyday accidents.
The power and volume buttons are tactile and are easy to find when pressed.
Display Quality
One of the best features of the device is the 6.6-inch pOLED screen. Its 1080 x 2400 resolution provides clear images, and the 120Hz refresh rate promotes smooth scrolling and transitions.
Colors are gorgeous with the vp3264 and it achieves 10-bit color depth for more than 1 billion colors.
The display can reach 1,300 nits at max brightness, allowing your eyes to rest even when outdoors in glaring sunlight.
The panel is also HDR10+ supporting, which promises to improve the streaming experience by adding contrast and colour depth. The gentle curve along the edges minimizes the perceived bezel without causing accidental touches.
Performance
Under the hood, the Edge 50 Neo is fueled by a Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 chip coupled with 8GB LPDDR4X RAM, and the smartphone is perfectly competent when it comes to daily tasks.
App launching is instantaneous, multitasking is still slick, and even beefy applications never stutter.
The UFS 3.1 storage with 256GB offers enough storage for apps and media and you also get some decent data transfer speeds.
Motorola has done its own optimization and the tablet should not get uncomfortably warm if you use it too long.
Camera Capabilities
The triple camera setup is made up of a 50MP main shooter with OIS, a 13MP ultrawide with 120° field of view and a 10MP periscope that is capable of 3x optical zoom.
The primary camera will take in sunlight an above-average detail picture with natural colors and nice dynamic range.
It’s surprisingly capable in low light, too — Motorola’s night mode appears to pull detail out of some tricky scenes.
For this reason alone, the addition of a real telephoto lens shows how Motorola has put their focus into offering a camera that it really useful in real life.
The 32MP front camera also manages to churn out sharp, good looking selfies with nice skin tones and decent dynamic range.
Battery Life
The 4,500mAh battery is a strong performer, with all-day stamina for average use. When it’s time to power up, get up to 70% power in just 25 minutes of charging with TurboPower.
15W of wireless charging support brings welcome flexibility, which is something you don’t often see at this price point.
Software Experience
The Edge 50 Neo runs Android 15 on top of Motorola’s lightly customized skin, so you get a clean, intuitive user experience devoid of bloatware.
Motorola’s added touches are the hit gesture controls and contextual features that add functionality without overburdening the user with extra complexity.
The company says that there will be three years of OS updates along with four years of monthly security updates, which should keep the device going for a long time, increasing its value proposition.
Pros:
Great native display quality with good HDR support I have been thrilled with how great HDR content looks on the Surface Hub 2S.
Portable camera system with zoom optics
Great build with the right amount of water resistance
A bloatware free and super smooth software experience
Quick charge with wireless charge assist
Promise of software support for a longer period of time
Cons:
No expandable storage option
Your speaker sounds are flat and lifeless
Slightly less gaming performance on gaming-oriented devices
Sporadic camera oddness in difficult lighting conditions
Battery life only barely matches, not surpasses, the competition
Not available in all markets
Motorola Edge 50 Neo: Verdict
It’s a bridge too far, but just right The Motorola Edge 50 Neo occupies the space between midrange and premium phones and gets most of it right.
Its careful balance of performance, screen quality, camera flexibility, and build give it the edge over other budget rivals, the most obvious competition being the Moto G4 SuperBowl that launched earlier, and are looking for a phone that’s one step below the top of the range with its price tag.
The bits you lose to all this cutting will be, for many, imperceptible in day-to-day use and that makes this device really shine in a busy, crowded smartphone market.