Motorola Edge 50 Neo Review: A Feature-Packed Mid-Range Smartphone

There are several smartphones that you can purchase under the Rs. 25,000 mark, and most of these handsets offer a good mix of display and camera performance, as well as battery life. The Moto Edge 50 Neo is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 chipset and is slated to receive five years of OS updates and security updates. It is one of several smartphones that compete in this price segment, such as the Nothing Phone 2a, Poco X6 Pro, Vivo T3 Pro, iQOO Z9s Pro, Realme 13 Pro, and the OnePlus Nord CE 4 5G.

The Motorola Edge 50 Neo is available in a single 8GB+256GB RAM and storage configuration that is priced at Rs. 23,999. However, the price of the handset occasionally drops under the Rs. 20,000 mark during sales on Flipkart or the company's online store.

Motorola Edge 50 Neo Design: Stylish, Easy to Grip

• Dimensions - 154.1 x 71.2 x 8.1mm
• Weight - 171g
• Colours - Grisaille, Latté, Nautical Blue (in this review), and Poinciana

Smartphones with vegan leather finishes are becoming more commonplace these days, and the Motorola Edge 50 Neo has one too. The phone also has flat edges on all four sides, and the result is a smartphone that is easy to grip, even without a cover. That's a good thing because the Edge 50 Neo ships with a thin plastic cover that was quite slippery, and I found myself using the phone without a cover.

The texture back panel on the Motorola Edge 50 Neo makes it easy to grip

On the back, there's a Motorola batwing logo in the middle of the panel, while a small section at the bottom, made of plastic, contains the words “Pantone Nautical Blue”. This is included on all Motorola smartphones with colourways developed in partnership with Pantone.

Like most of the company's smartphones released in recent years, the camera module is located at the top left corner of the rear panel, which means it won't lie completely flat on a table or similar surface, even with the thin plastic case on. The words Dolby Atmos appear in faint letters on the top edge next to a microphone, while the bottom edge includes a USB Type-C port, a speaker grille, and a SIM card tray.

Motorola Edge 50 Neo Software: Useful Features, Unnecessary Bloatware

• Software - Hello UI
• Version - Android 14
• Latest security patch - September 1, 2024

The Motorola Edge 50 Neo runs on Android 14, and it has the company's Hello UI, a minimally tweaked version of Google's Android interface. It also includes several useful software features not found on smartphones from other manufacturers, including Moto Unplugged and Family Space. You can also use Motorola's wrist-based gestures to launch the camera or turn on the flashlight.

Motorola Edge 50 Neo regularly sends out notification spam (tap to expand)

Unfortunately, the smartphone also offers unwanted software that is automatically downloaded as soon as you set up the smartphone. These apps are downloaded via the MotoHub app, which also delivers content notifications to the smartphone every couple of hours. While it's not uncommon to see these annoyances on the more affordable Moto G series phones, it's disappointing that they're also seen on the company's Motorola Edge series of smartphones.

This is one of the first handsets from Motorola that are slated to receive five years of OS upgrades and five years of security updates. While Motorola has a slightly spotty record when it comes to delivering timely software updates, it's good to see a long-term commitment to keeping its phones up-to-date. For example, the more expensive Galaxy A35 will receive Android OS updates up to Android 18, while the Edge 50 Neo is expected to get an update to Android 19.

Motorola Edge 50 Neo Performance: Exceeds Expectations

• Processor - MediaTek Dimensity 7300
• Memory - 8GB LPDDR4X
• Storage - 256GB (UFS 2.2)

The company has equipped the Motorola Edge 50 Neo with a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 chipset, which is a significantly upgraded version of the Dimensity 7200 in terms of performance and efficiency. It's easily one of the best 4nm chips in this price segment, and it means that Motorola's smartphone can deal with most tasks without any issues.

Day-to-day tasks, like browsing the web, responding to emails, or scrolling through social media, were easily handled by the Motorola Edge 50 Neo, but the handset also managed to offer reliable performance while playing titles like Asphalt Legends: Unite on the default graphics settings, which is selected based on your smartphone's specifications.

Motorola Edge 50 Neo benchmark scores (tap to expand)

I also didn't notice any frame drops, lag, or throttling while testing Call of Duty Mobile and BGMI on the handset — the latter was running on HD settings (with High framerate). After about 30 minutes of gameplay, the sides of the phone were slightly warm, but there was no thermal throttling or stuttering in the game.

We also run synthetic benchmark tests on smartphones to see how they fare against similarly priced smartphones, and the Motorola Edge 50 Neo outperformed the Nothing Phone 2a in some benchmark tests while it fell behind the OnePlus Nord CE 4, which has a more capable Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset.

You can refer to the table below to see how the Motorola Edge 50 Neo fares in popular benchmark tests against the OnePlus Nord CE 4 and the Nothing Phone 2a.

Motorola has equipped the Edge 50 Neo with a 6.4-inch pOLED screen with a resolution of 1,200x2,670 pixels. This display is bright enough when used indoors and outdoors, and I found that it offered good visibility when I was outdoors in the afternoon. The phone takes a couple of seconds to automatically adjust brightness in dim environments.

The display on the Motorola Edge 50 Neo offers good visibility when outdoors

Just like other smartphones with OLED screens, you might find that the colours displayed on the Motorola Edge 50 Neo are a little too vibrant, but this is easily fixed by selecting the ‘Natural' display mode in the Settings app. The phone's screen refreshes at 120Hz, and scrolling in apps feels very smooth. The display gets quite dim at night, and I didn't experience any eye strain while using it in the dark.

Motorola Edge 50 Neo Cameras: Solid Performer

• Primary camera - 50-megapixel, PDAF, OIS, up to 4K/ 30fps video
• Ultrawide camera - 13-megapixel, macro mode, PDAF
• Telephoto camera - 10-megapixel, 3x optical zoom, PDAF, OIS
• Selfie camera - 32-megapixel, AF, up to 4K/ 30fps video

The Motorola Edge 50 Neo has a 50-megapixel primary camera with a Sony LYT-700C sensor that takes excellent daytime shots. These images offer excellent colour reproduction, and there's enough detail when you zoom in. It focuses very quickly when you point it at different subjects.

You can also use the primary camera to capture images at 2x zoom (in-sensor crop), and these images are very bright and detailed. This mode is also supported when clicking images in low-light scenarios, which makes it the best camera to use at night.

Motorola Edge 50 Neo Camera Samples. Top to bottom - Zoom, Daytime (Tap images to expand)

The telephoto camera on the Motorola Edge 50 Neo delivers detailed images, and there's barely any smoothening or noise when you zoom in. However, it produces images that are slightly duller and less vibrant than the primary camera. It's also less reliable when there's not enough light, and I found myself using the 2x zoom mode on the primary camera at night.

The ultrawide camera captures decent images during the day, but colours appear slightly cooler than the ones captured with the primary camera, but it falls behind in low light scenarios. It also doubles as a macro camera, capturing detailed, bright images of subjects that are a few centimetres away.

Unlike the Moto G45, which we recently reviewed, the Motorola Edge 50 Neo captures images quickly during the daytime. There's a slight delay when clicking images in darker locations, but it's still considerably faster than the company's more affordable phones. In these situations, the primary camera is the best at capturing detailed images.

Motorola Edge 50 Neo Camera Samples. Top to bottom - Low Light, Night, Macro (Tap images to expand)

There's a 32-megapixel selfie camera located in a hole-punch display cutout on the Edge 50 Neo, and it captures sharp images when there's enough natural light. There's quite a bit of softening and smoothening when you click a selfie during the evening, and the camera takes a couple of seconds to capture the image — this includes the time taken to process the image.

Both the primary rear camera and the selfie shooter on the Motorola Edge 50 Neo support video recording at 4K/ 30fps, and the former also supports optical image stabilisation (OIS). Once again, the primary camera is the best for recording video when there's not enough natural light — setting it to record video at 1080p resolution delivered the best results in my testing.

Motorola Edge 50 Neo Battery: Endurance champ

• Battery Capacity - 4,310mAh
• Wired Charging: 68W TurboPower (USB Type-C), 15W (Wireless)
• Charger: 68W (included)

The company has equipped the Motorola Edge 50 Neo with a 4,310mAh battery, slightly smaller than other similarly priced smartphones. However, the handset easily delivers more than one day of battery life on a single charge, with around 5.5 hours of screen on time with some gaming and social media usage and the remaining 18 hours with the device in standby mode.

The Motorola Edge 50 Neo delivered more than a day of battery life on a charge

You get a 68W charger in the box, which fills up the battery in just over an hour. You can even charge the handset with a Qi-compatible wireless charging pad (or a wireless power bank) at 15W, but this is considerably slower and takes the handset well over two hours for a full charge. Nevertheless, it's nice to see wireless charging included on a smartphone at this price point.

We performed an HD video battery loop test on all smartphone review units, and the Motorola Edge 50 Neo lasted for around 21 hours before it had to be charged again. Keep in mind that this test only covers local video playback, so battery life may vary based on how the handset is used.

Motorola Edge 50 Neo Review: Verdict

The Motorola Edge 50 Neo offers an excellent balance between performance and price, and the smartphone's biggest strengths are the Dimensity 7300 chip and the reliable rear camera setup. It also supports fast wired charging, along with wireless charging — if you need it.

The Motorola Edge 50 Neo is worth considering at its current price

The company has also promised five years of OS and security updates for the Motorola Edge 50 Neo, which is unprecedented in this price segment. However, the notification spam and unwanted app downloads were disappointing to see on this handset.

Based on the time I've spent with the smartphone, the Motorola Edge 50 Neo offers good value for money. Other smartphones in this price segment include the Nothing Phone 2a (Review), the OnePlus Nord CE 4 5G (Review), iQOO Z9s Pro (Review), and the Realme 13 Pro 5G .