Motorola Edge 70 Review: Finally a thin phone done (mostly) right!
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Motorola Edge 70 is one sleek phone | Image by PhoneArena
When it comes to slim phones, devices like the iPhone Air and the Galaxy S25 Edge got the most time under the limelight, but others have quickly caught up. Motorola is one of those who took the slim phone recipe and have perfected it beyond recognition. Where others cut corners, the Moto Edge 70 delivers a strikingly adequate experience that puts its ultra-thin rivals to shame.
This is a 6mm-thin phone that has an adequate dual camera, a large 4,800 mAh battery with fast charging, a lovely design with an IP69 rating, and one aggressive price tag. The only catch? This model, like most numbered Motorola Edges historically, isn't coming to the US.
Is this a reason to experience some serious FOMO because of that? For the most part, yes, this is one very decent phone, and I do hope Motorola launches an adequate version in the US sooner rather than later.
Table of Contents:
Motorola Edge 70 Specs
A great upper mid-range specced device
|
|
| Motorola Edge 70 | Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge |
| Dimensions | |
|---|---|
| 159.9 x 74 x 6 mm | 158.2 x 75.6 x 5.8 mm |
| Weight | |
| 159.0 g | 163.0 g |
| Size | |
|---|---|
| 6.7-inch | 6.7-inch |
| Type | |
| P-OLED, 120Hz | AMOLED, 120Hz |
| System chip | |
|---|---|
| Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 SM7750-AB (4 nm) | Snapdragon 8 Elite SM8750-3-AB (3 nm) |
| Memory | |
| 12GB/256GB (UFS 3.1) 12GB/512GB | 12GB (LPDDR5X)/256GB (UFS 4.0) 12GB/512GB |
| Type | |
|---|---|
| 4800 mAh | 3900 mAh |
| Charge speed | |
| Wired: 68.0W Wireless: 15.0W | Wired: 25.0W Wireless: 15.0W |
| Main camera | |
|---|---|
| 50 MP (OIS, Laser and PDAF) Aperture size: F1.8 Focal length: 24 mm Sensor size: 1/1.56" Pixel size: 1.0 μm |
200 MP (OIS, PDAF) Aperture size: F1.7 Sensor size: 1/1.3" |
| Second camera | |
| 50 MP (Ultra-wide) Aperture size: F2.0 Focal Length: 12 mm Sensor size: 1/2.76" Pixel size: 0.64 μm |
12 MP (Ultra-wide) Aperture size: F2.2 Sensor size: 1/2.55" |
| Front | |
| 50 MP | 12 MP |
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Motorola Edge 70 vs Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge specs comparison
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Motorola Edge 70 Design and Display
Looks and feels smart
The design is the highlight of the Edge 70, which is just a smidgen of a millimeter thicker than the iPhone Air. At just 6 mm, this Moto is one super-sleek device. It's thinner than a USB-C cable's connector!
The very low weight of just 159 g is also an exceptional feature, as the phone looks like it should be heavier. Overall, the phone is very compact one that sits exceptionally well in the hand.
The exterior is a bit more interesting than the average smartphone out there. The phone doesn't utilize the trendy flat style, as the aluminum frame is ever so slightly curved towards the textured vegan leather back. I particularly love the fact that the camera island in the back is gently sloped and doesn't protrude weirdly as on many other devices.
The Moto Edge 70 has the regular power and volume rocker buttons on the right side, while Moto's familiar AI key sits on the upper left-hand side of the phone. This one is still not remappable, sadly.
Colors-wise, Motorola continues its partnership with Pantone: the Moto Edge 70 comes in Gadget Gray, Lily Pad, Bronze Green, and Cloud Dancer, all Pantone-certified hues. The unit I reviewed is the Lily Pad one, and it's a calming pastel green with copper accents around the camera rings.
The extra MagSafe-compatbile case inside is a nice touch | Image by PhoneArena
Inside the phone's box, you will find the following:
- Moto Edge 70
- USB-C to USB-C cable
- Clear magnetic case that's MagSafe compatible
- SIM ejector
- Leaflets and manuals
The display here is a 6.7-inch pOLED screen with up to 120 Hz. However, the screen only goes down to 60 Hz and can't really hit that 1 Hz that most flagships can achieve. This time around, the screen is completely flat, which I definitely appreciate. The excessively curved screen on the older Edge 60 was a bit too extreme and felt outdated, like something out of 2019.
The display is bright and vivid, achieving a peak brightness of nearly 1,500 nits in the PhoneArena benchmark test. Not great, but not terrible either. The screen is well-calibrated out of the box and has fairly decent grayscale accuracy. As with most Android phones, you can tune the color temperature to your liking depending on how hot you want your screen to appear. Good stuff.
The phone has an optical under-display fingerprint sensor, which is fairly fast and accurate but is noticeably a notch beneath ultrasonic scanners in terms of speed. There's also picture-based face unlock for extra convenience.
Motorola Edge 70 Camera
Humble but does the job
It looks like it might have at least three camera, but it doesn't | Image by PhoneArena
The Moto Edge 70 comes with a dual camera in the rear. A bit counterintuitive, as the phone features quad camera cutouts in the back: one houses the LED flash, which is valid, but the other one is a dummy.
The main camera is a 50MP F1.8 one with an average-sized sensor of 1/1.56", while the ultrawide camera is a 50MP F2.0 with a smaller, 1/2.76" sensor. The phone uses in-sensor cropping to provide a native 2X zoom level with optical-grade quality. The phone can otherwise zoom up 20X.
At the front, we have another 50 MP selfie camera.
In terms of image quality, I can see decent details, sharpness, and pleasing colors. There is something to be desired from the dynamic range, but overall, it's not a bad camera system.
Videos also struggle with the dynamic range. Shadows lack details, while the highlights are easily burned. The stabilization isn't ideal either: any small movements will make the footage jitter around.
Motorola Edge 70 Performance & Benchmarks
Okay performance, but don't expect much
Nothing that will blow your socks off | Image by PhoneArena
The Motorola Edge 70 comes along with the Snapdragon 7 Gen 4, which is a poster child mid-range chipset.
Surely, when you compare it with a proper flagship chipset like the Snapdragon 8 Elite in synthetic benchmarks, the Moto Edge 70 loses badly. In the Geekbench 6 single-core tests I ran, the Motorola Edge 70 achieved 1328 points in the single-core test and 4042 points in the multi-core one.
CPU Performance Benchmarks:
Is this an issue in real life? Not at all! The device feels very snappy and performs well in standard everyday tasks, and I had no real issue using it for general browsing, social media, media streaming, and some light gaming.
GPU Performance
The 3DMark Extreme benchmarks I ran aren't really too inspiring either. The phone fares just okay, so you will have no issue with light and more casual gaming, but anything competitive or too demanding might cause the phone to throttle and not perform that well.
The Motorola Edge 70 comes with 12 GB of memory, but you can allocate up to 12 GB of your on-board storage to extend the RAM. The phone can be had with either 256 or 512 GB of slowish UFS 3.1 storage.
The Motorola Edge 70 comes with 12 GB of memory, but you can allocate up to 12 GB of your on-board storage to extend the RAM. The phone can be had with either 256 or 512 GB of slowish UFS 3.1 storage.
Motorola Edge 70 Software
The device arrives with Android 16. As usual with Motorola, the My UX software on deck is very close to the stock one found on the Pixels. There's that Moto flair sprinkled around in the interface, like full theme support, deeper customization, and the familiar Moto gestures thrown in the mix.
Sadly, just like many other Motorola phones of late, this one also comes with a steady amount of bloatware preinstalled. The biggest eyesore is the bunch of vaporware games that have been preinstalled. Sure, I can manually uninstall all the bloatware, but why should I, the user, do that myself in the first place? Tsk, tsk, Moto.
There's a lot of AI on board, of course. By engaging the AI key, you can ask the Perplexity-powered assistant to take note of what's on your screen (record and summarize audio), save on-screen content for later viewing, and provide you with a notification summary. You can also access the Copilot Vision chatbot.
Cool beans, but I had no practical use of any of these. A combination between the Gemini assistant and Circle to Search is everything I need, and it's available here, so I didn't really bother with Moto's other AI features. All of these are tied with the AI Key, and you can't remap it. Sorry to say, but that makes it a waste of a potentially great button.
The phone should receive four years of software support and six years of security patches.
Motorola Edge 70 Battery
See, Apple, this is how it's done
Let that sink in: there's a 4,800 mAh battery inside, and that's massive considering the phone is both 6 mm thin and weighs just 167 grams. That battery is almost as big as the one on the Galaxy S25 Ultra and the upcoming Galaxy S26 Ultra.
Naturally, it's safe to expect that the combination of a fairly large battery and a mid-range chipset like the Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 would lead to fairly decent battery life. And in this case, this expectation checks out! The Motorola Edge 70 achieves some pretty great battery results, which is extremely reassuring to see and fills me up with hope about the future of slim phones.
PhoneArena Battery Test Results:
Let's break down the results.
In the PhoneArena web browsing test, which I ran at 200 nits, the phone scored a respectable result of 21 hours and 25 minutes, truly impressive. In the video streaming test, I saw a very respectable result of 10 hours and 13 minutes, and finally, the Moto Edge 70 lasted 10 hours in the PhoneArena gaming test. Great stuff!
In the PhoneArena web browsing test, which I ran at 200 nits, the phone scored a respectable result of 21 hours and 25 minutes, truly impressive. In the video streaming test, I saw a very respectable result of 10 hours and 13 minutes, and finally, the Moto Edge 70 lasted 10 hours in the PhoneArena gaming test. Great stuff!
Charging-wise, the phone supports up to 68 W fast charging. With an eligible Motorola charger, I saw a charging speed result of just 41 minutes, which is an excellent result. Sadly, you have to source a compatible charger yourself. The phone also supports 15 W wireless charging, and if you use the included MagSafe-compatible case, you can use any magnetic wireless charger.
Motorola Edge 70 Audio Quality and Haptics
The phone has dual speakers, which support Dolby Atmos and spatial audio. The sound is loud and clear, but the bass is notably lacking. Music isn't so enjoyable to listen to, but for the general YouTube video or watching Instagram reels, this one is more than sufficient.
The haptics aren't great. The haptic motor inside is a bit tinny and weak, so the vibrations feel muddy and not very pleasant to experience.
Should you buy it?
The Motorola Edge 70, for all its few flaws in-between, is a slim phone done right.
Aside from the exceptional design language that I absolutely love, the Moto Edge 70 has a lovely screen, and while performance is nothing to write home about, it didn't irked me as much as the synthetic benchmarks would otherwise suggest.
And definitely props to Motorola for not cutting any corners in the battery department, the crux of this generation of thin phones like the iPhone Air or the Galaxy S25 Edge. It surely felt quite refreshing to use a device that combines an ultra-thin build with a more than adequate battery and great endurance.
On the downside, I missed having a telephoto camera on this phone. The software also isn't a highlight: most of the Motorola-exclusive AI features aren't very useful. And don't get me started on the preinstalled bloatware –– we should have left that in the previous decade.
Overall, despite the few kinks that need to be ironed out, the Motorola Edge 70 is one very decent thin phone.
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