Expanding its Edge series in India, China’s Lenovo-owned smartphone brand Motorola recently launched the Edge 50 Fusion. Priced at Rs 22,999 onwards, the smartphone features peppy looking back covers in colours curated from Pantone. Moreover, the back covers wear vegan leather texture for premium aesthetics. In terms of specifications, too, the smartphone packs a surprise – powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 chip, paired with up to 12GB of RAM. That said, the Motorola Edge 50 Fusion seems to be a value proposition in the midrange smartphone segment. Is it? Let us find out:
Design
The Motorola Edge 50 Fusion smartphone looks identical to its elder sibling, the Edge 50 Pro. Both the smartphones feature curved display on the front and a vegan leather back panel, which subtly elevates on the top left to form the camera module. Notably, the camera module on the Fusion is slightly slimmer than that of the Pro model, incorporating a dual-camera setup and a pill-shaped vertical flash bar.
The soft-touch vegan leather finish gives the smartphone a premium appearance and a comfortable in-hand feel. Surprisingly, despite the leather-textured back in the light Marshmallow Blue colour (review unit), the smartphone resists attracting dust. Furthermore, the sleek design and lightweight construction enhance the ergonomics of the Edge 50 Fusion.
Overall, the smartphone has a subtle, understated appearance, avoiding anything too flashy. Yet, it exudes a premium feel that belies its price.
Display
The Motorola Edge 50 Fusion sports a 6.7-inch FHD+ pOLED curved display, providing an immersive viewing experience – thanks to enhanced display-body ratio. Although the display does not support HDR, the pOLED panel delivers an exceptional multimedia experience with deep contrast, punchy colours, and vibrant visuals. Its 144Hz refresh rate ensures smooth animations and responsive transitions.
The company claims that the display can reach a peak brightness level of 600 nits, which seems on the lower side on-paper but does not affect sunlight legibility. However, the display produces glare under direct sunlight, which can hinder the viewing experience from certain angles.
Motorola has maintained a clean user interface, avoiding an overload of display optimisation features. The available features, such as the Edge Lights, are functional and useful. This feature lights up the edges of the curved display for incoming notifications when the phone is placed face down. Despite the added functionality, the curved screen and sleek frame design can cause accidental touches and slides, particularly when using the smartphone without a cover.
Audio
The Motorola Edge 50 Fusion features a stereo speaker system, which supports Dolby Atmos surround sound. Within the settings, users can find Dolby Atmos-powered sound profile options, allowing for audio optimisation based on the type of content. There are preset options for gaming, music playback, and more, all of which are customisable for personalised experience. Additionally, there is an option for “Spatial audio”, which enhances select content with directional sound through the stereo speakers, creating a more immersive experience.
Overall, the built-in speakers produce clear audio at adequately loud volume levels for indoor use. The speakers maintain voice clarity even at high volumes; however, the low-frequency output can be underwhelming for those who prefer bass-rich music playback. Despite this, the speakers are a good companion for watching movies or TV shows on the smartphone.
Camera
The Motorola Edge 50 Fusion smartphone has a dual-camera system on the rear. The 50-megapixel main sensor (Sony Lytia 700C) produces vibrant and sharp images, especially in daylight. The sensor is aided by optical image stabilisation (OIS), which effectively reduces motion blur, resulting in stable shots even when you are in motion. Low light shots are also impressive, maintaining detail capture under night time or artificial lighting. However, the camera occasionally oversaturated images, leading to a yellow tint and artificial-looking colours.
The accompanying 13MP ultrawide-angle camera, while not as detailed as the primary camera, produces natural-looking colours. It struggles to maintain quality under artificial lighting, requiring more manual adjustments for good shots in such conditions.
The front-facing 32MP camera sensor captures good shots in daylight, but tends to over-optimise images under artificial lighting, resulting in softer images with fewer details compared to daytime pictures.
For videography, the smartphone supports recording in FHD and 4K resolutions, with 60 frames-per-second (FPS) recording limited to FHD quality. There is an option to enable stabilisation, which effectively smoothens frames and works well in 4K recording. Additionally, you can switch between the main and ultra-wide-angle cameras while recording in 4K with the stability mode enabled. This is something that not many mid range smartphones offer, giving the Edge 50 Fusion an edge over others.
Motorola has equipped the Edge 50 Fusion with numerous camera-related features. Users can disable the AI-powered “Shot Optimization” from the camera settings, allowing for quicker multiple image captures by reducing processing time. Camera modes include basics like panorama, time-lapse, and night mode, as well as advanced options such as dual capture, which records or captures from both the front and back cameras simultaneously. Other modes include spot colour, ultra-res, and more. In the settings menu
In the settings menu, there are other dedicated features for recording such as Audio Zoom that amplifies the audio from a specific region in the shot that has been zoomed into.
Performance and software
The Motorola Edge 50 Fusion smartphone is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 chip, which offers a balance of performance and power efficiency. The chip offers good performance to deliver smooth everyday experience related to tasks such as web surfing, social media browsing, and casual gaming. It manages multitasking well, maintaining smooth performance. While playing demanding games like Genshin Impact, there were occasional stutters at the highest graphic settings with 60FPS mode enabled, but the gameplay remained playable. Additionally, the smartphone maintained a cool temperature even during these demanding tasks.
On the software side, the Motorola Edge 50 Fusion boots Android 14-based Hello UI out of the box, offering a clean user interface with no unnecessary bloatware apps or notifications. However, some advertisements within native apps, such as ad banners in the Weather app, might be noticeable. While these apps do not send unnecessary notifications or pop-ups, the ad banners slightly detract from the premium experience the smartphone otherwise offers.
Apart from the built-in camera and audio features discussed earlier, Hello UI includes a personalisation section where users can truly customise the smartphone experience. Accessible by long-pressing the home screen, this section allows users to change wallpapers, lock screens, themes, text fonts, colour palettes, and more, all from one convenient location. This not only offers extensive personalisation options but also streamlines the process.
Overall, the software experience is smooth, though there are some glitches. Occasionally, the smartphone does not wake up the screen automatically when you pull it away during a phone call. There were also instances where tapping on an app icon made the screen unresponsive. These issues were occasional and might be specific to the review unit. However, if they occur on other devices, they can likely be fixed with a software update that Motorola might roll out soon.
Battery
The Motorola Edge 50 Fusion smartphone is powered by a 5,000mAh battery, which lasts for more than a full day on a single charge. For reference, charging to full at seven in the morning allowed the smartphone to last until 11 at night with 33 per cent battery remaining.
Motorola includes a 68W charger with a USB Type-C to Type-C cable in the box, and it takes about 50 minutes to charge the battery completely from around 20 per cent. The company has also incorporated a “Charge Boost” mode, which needs to be enabled from the Settings. With this feature enabled, the smartphone charged completely from 20 per cent in slightly more than half an hour. However, it should be noted that this mode causes the smartphone to heat up, especially around the frame section.
Verdict
Priced at Rs 22,999 onwards, the Motorola Edge 50 Fusion makes a compelling case for itself as the value-for-money smartphone. It offers premium aesthetics, which translate into a clean yet feature-rich user interface. Additionally, the smartphone is a well-rounded device, boasting a good camera system and decent performance for extensive tasks. The Edge 50 Fusion has something in store for everyone. However, if you are looking for a more performance-oriented smartphone, there are other options available in the market.
