Motorola’s Edge series of smartphones has been a standout in the market this year, and the latest addition, the Edge 50 Fusion, is no exception. This sleek smartphone offers a captivating design and solid performance, all at a lower mid-range price point.

Serving as the direct successor to last year’s entry-level Motorola Edge 40 Neo, the Edge 50 Fusion comes with several notable upgrades. These include a slightly larger battery, an improved camera sensor, Qualcomm’s latest mid-range processor, clean Android software, and a waterproof build. Additionally, its classic curved design with a premium vegan leather back sets it apart in terms of aesthetics, especially within its price range.

Having tested the Motorola Edge 50 Fusion for the past two weeks, I can attest to its impressive performance. However, it does have some shortcomings, which we will delve into later. So, let’s take a closer look at what the Edge 50 Fusion offers and assess whether it remains a worthwhile choice at its price point.

Pros

• Gorgeous, sleek stylish design 
• Stunning 144Hz curved pOLED panel
• Premium vegan leather finish
• Excellent battery life and charging speed 
• IP68 water and dust resistance 
• Snappy main camera 
• Affordable price point 

Cons

• No HDR 10 support
• Bloatware 

Unboxing 

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Price and Availability 

The Motorola Edge 50 Fusion retails at ­£349.99/ Rs 22,999/­€399 and is now available for purchase via Motorola’s official website and Amazon. This phone comes at a much more affordable price point compared to its €699 Edge 50 Pro and €999 Edge 50 Ultra siblings.

The Motorola Edge 50 Fusion ships in three beautiful color options: Hot Pink finished in a vegan suede, Marshmallow Blue in a vegan leather finish, and Forest Blue with a smooth matte finish back. My unit has a Hot Pink vegan leather back which looks ridiculously beautiful.

Design 

When I unboxed the Motorola Edge 50 Fusion, I was immediately struck by its elegant design, curved edges, smooth contours, and seamless camera housing. The mesmerizing Hot Pink color truly captivated me.

The slip-resistant vegan leather back feels quite premium and provides a good grip, making it a joy to use the smartphone all day long. The overall sturdy plastic build also offers scratch-resistant protection, adding to the durability. Motorola’s Edge 50 series smartphones truly boast impressive designs, and the Edge 50 Fusion certainly solidifies that reputation.

In addition to the Hot Pink option with its vegan suede texture, Motorola also offers two different rear finishes: Forest Blue with a smooth matte finish and Marshmallow Blue with a vegan leather finish.

Thanks to its IP68 water and dust resistance, the phone can easily withstand water splashes and dust, surviving for up to 30 minutes in up to 1.5m of water. This level of durability is quite impressive, especially considering that it’s not often seen in budget-focused smartphones. Even the Pixel 8a, which sells for about £150 more, doesn’t have the same rating.

The Edge 50 Fusion measures 162mm high, 73.1mm wide, and 7.9mm deep, and weighs just 175 grams. It feels very lightweight in hand. Speaking of ports and buttons, it has a USB-C (USB 2.0) port on the bottom, while a power button and volume rocker are on the right side.

I usually don’t talk about box packaging in my reviews until it catches my attention. Motorola offers the most appealing packaging box, which is purely made of recyclable cardboard. It comes with Motorola’s signature fragrance, making the unboxing experience really great. You get a 68W charging brick, a USB C cable, and a pretty nice colored case that matches the color option you opt for.

Screen 

Motorola outfitted the Edge 50 Fusion with a stunning 6.7-inch 2400 x 1080 (FHD+) pOLED curved endless edge vibrant display. The panel features a 144Hz adaptive refresh rate, 100% DCI-P3 wide color gamut, and boosted 1600 nits of peak brightness. The Edge 50 Fusion has Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection on top, protecting it from accidental scratches and falls.

Users can manually set the refresh rate at 60, 120, or 144Hz, and there’s an auto mode option that automatically adapts the refresh rate based on the content of the screen. During my testing, I set it to a maximum of 144Hz and didn’t see any lag or freezes.

With a 144Hz refresh rate enabled, the device feels buttery smooth while scrolling social media and the picture quality looks absolutely eye-catching with great contrast, vivid colors, and crisp visuals. However, opting for the high refresh rate screen also increases system power consumption. The screen was quite bright, and I didn’t have any issues while using it in direct sunlight.

The screen has great color accuracy and appears crisp and clear under all lighting conditions, which is not something you see in all phones, particularly at this price range. It has Dolby Atmos-tuned stereo speakers at the bottom. The sound is loud enough to fill a small room with decent highs, mids, and lows. There’s an in-display fingerprint sensor, which is quite fast and quickly unlocks the smartphone in less than a second.

The endless edge display on the Motorola 50 Fusion is excellent and is unlike anything you’d find on any smartphone at this price point. However, it does not come with Pantone-validated screens like its other siblings, such as Edge 50 Pro and Edge 50 Ultra.

Performance and Battery 

The Edge 50 Fusion is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 chipset based on the latest 4nm architecture, coupled with a generous 12GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. It features four Cortex A78 cores at 2.40GHz, four Cortex A55 cores at 1.55GHz, and Qualcomm’s Adreno 710 GPU, capable of handling gaming as well as heavy tasks.

The processor is robust enough to tackle most tasks, from gaming to multitasking. During my review period, I found the Edge 50 Fusion to be great to use, as I didn’t encounter any lags or slowdowns. Its 144Hz super smooth panel offers solid visuals while playing demanding titles.

Qualcomm’s mid-range Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 processor is a slightly weaker version of the original Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 chip. To test its capabilities, I ran benchmark tests such as Geekbench 6 and 3D Mark tests, and I was quite impressed by the results.

The Edge 50 Fusion impressed in the Geekbench 6 benchmark test, scoring 1003 on the single-core test and 2697 on the multi-core test. In the 3D Mark benchmark test, the device achieved an average fps of 17.25 in the Wild Life FPS test and a score of 2987 in the Wild Life stress test. These results demonstrate its speed compared to competitors like the Nothing Phone 2a and Samsung Galaxy A35. The Edge 50 Fusion shows a modest performance improvement over last year’s Edge 40 Neo. However, there’s no significant enhancement in graphical performance, which remains similar to the previous model.

I tested demanding titles such as Call of Duty Warzone and PUBG Mobile on the Edge 50 Fusion. The phone ran all games at their highest graphics settings with ease. During my hour-long gaming session, the device performed admirably with minimal stutter, and I didn’t notice any major lags. While the device did get slightly warm, it wasn’t a significant issue. Gamers can expect solid performance from the Edge 50 Fusion, no matter the game.

The Edge 50 Fusion features a massive 5,000mAh battery that easily lasts a full day without any issues. In my testing, the device consistently lasted an entire day with around five hours of screen-on time, and there was still plenty of charge remaining, offering approximately three more hours of battery life. My usage included activities such as watching anime, movies, scrolling through social media, gaming, receiving calls, and messaging. During testing, I set the phone’s refresh rate to 144Hz, which did result in higher battery consumption compared to 120Hz. Therefore, adjusting the refresh rate to 120Hz will undoubtedly extend the battery life.

The Edge 50 Fusion is equipped with 68W fast wired charging support, and fortunately, Motorola includes a 68W charger in the box, which is a welcome addition. The 68W fast charger took over 15 minutes to reach the 44% battery mark, and it required almost 43 minutes to fully charge the device. Although there’s no wireless charging support, the fast wired charging capability efficiently replenishes the phone’s power in just minutes.

Cameras

Motorola opted for a strong 50MP Sony LYTIA LYT-700C main camera sensor for the Edge 50 Fusion. This main sensor features OIS (optical image stabilization) and all-pixel instant focus technology, which enhances photos even in low light conditions. Paired with the primary unit is a 13MP ultrawide shooter with a 120-degree field of view. The camera interface resembles that of other phones, with a variety of shooting modes located at the bottom, including Night Vision, HDR, Portrait, and Macro Vision.

I took the Motorola Edge 50 Fusion on my recent trip, and surprisingly, it impressed me with its camera performance. I took a couple of macro, daylight, and night mode shots with the 50MP main camera sensor. Honestly, the device produced stunning shots in daylight conditions, offering great color vibrancy and plenty of details. However, it had a difficult time capturing fine details.

What surprised me is that the Edge 50 Fusion managed to capture great night shots with less noise, greater sharpness, and decent highlights. The camera performance in HDR mode is so good, driving great shots with better clarity, crisp colors, and details without making the image dull-looking.

A 13MP ultrawide shooter is a great addition. While it can’t capture the main camera sensor level of shots, still the ultrawide lens is capable of capturing decent shots even in low light light conditions. Motorola also offers an Auto-enhance mode feature which further enhances captured shots with greater contrast and high dynamic range. I simply loved this Auto-enhance feature which is super handy and produced great results in most of the scenarios. All the shots mentioned above were taken with this Auto Enhance mode on. It makes your shot stunning while managing highlights and retaining vibrant colors.

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On the front, there is a 32MP punch-hole selfie camera. I also took some selfies with Edge 50 Fusion, and the Motorola captured sharp and clear photos, however it lacks overall details. But still, you get passable shots. 

Speaking of video, you get a maximum of 4K at 30fps or 1080p at 120fps recording support, which is impressive, and hard to find on budget-conscious smartphones. The device performed quite well in our video test, the footage came out decent with better stabilization, thanks to the OIS support.

Software 

The Edge 50 Fusion runs on Motorola’s custom-designed Hello UI based on Android 14 out of the box. The Hello UI is mostly similar to the Google Pixel Phone, so you can expect a more or less similar experience. Motorola offers plenty of customization features from gestures, home screen personalizations, and fonts to wallpapers, and display tweaking options.

Unfortunately, I noticed some bloatware such as pre-installed Linkedin, Adobe Scan, Facebook, and Amazon on the Edge 50 Fusion smartphone, which is slightly disappointing. However, you can uninstall all these apps easily if you don’t want to.

Quibbles aside, while using the Motorola’s new Hello UI on the Edge 50 Fusion feels super smooth and there were no lags or slowdowns.

Motorola is guaranteeing three major OS updates (up to Android 17) and four years of security patches, the highest on Motorola’s budget phones till date. Compared to the competition, Motorola falls behind its immediate rival, the Samsung Galaxy A35, with its four + five update policy.

Earned for achieving an overage average star rating of at least 3.75 stars, this product is an AndroidGuys Smart Pick, signifying a perfect blend of quality, performance, and value. It excels in key areas like design, innovation, and user experience, offering top-notch functionality at a great price.

Should you buy the Motorola Edge 50 Fusion?

You should buy this if.. 

• You want a curved-display smartphone
• You need the best budget hardware package 
• You want excellent battery life that easily lasts all day ‘
• You want a smartphone with a premium leather back 
• You want refined software experience with long-term software support

You shouldn’t buy this if…

• You need flagship-level performance
• You want great cameras

Verdict

Motorola has done an exceptional job with the Edge 50 Fusion smartphone. The device offers an appealing design, a stunning 144Hz curved display, and an impressive camera system. Its powerful chipset, excellent battery life, IP68 water and dust resistance, and 4 years of software support make it one of the best budget-range smartphones in the market. However, it’s worth noting that Motorola dropped HDR 10 support, which is slightly disappointing. Nonetheless, the 144Hz pOLED display more than makes up for this omission.

If you’re seeking an all-rounder smartphone with a good camera system, efficient processor, high-refresh-rate display, impressive design, excellent battery life, and years of software support, the Motorola Edge 50 Fusion is the best budget phone for you.

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