Motorola Edge 70 tested: slim design, meagre performance
5/12/2025
Translation: machine translated
If you want to be slim, you have to suffer: Motorola has packed a surprisingly large battery into a thin design for the Edge 70. In return, they had to cut back on camera quality and performance.
Motorola is taking the difficult step of launching a thin smartphone on the market after Samsung and Apple. In the test, the Edge 70 has to prove whether this concept works.
Design and display: special is not always good
Normally, I praise Motorola for their bold use of colour and the stylish backs of their phones. I find the Motorola Edge 70 less attractive, at least in the colour I received from the manufacturer. The street tar grey doesn't appeal to me at all. The only thing I like is the blue accent on the lenses. The two-colour combination is a cool idea in itself. However, I'm not completely convinced by the other colour variants - dark green with light green and blue-green with orange. On the other hand, I think the non-slip back is great, it feels pleasant to the touch.
What impresses me is the thin design. The smartphone measures exactly 5.99 millimetres. This is thicker than the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge (5.8 mm) and the iPhone Air (5.6 mm). However, it also has the most discreet camera bump and weighs the least at 159 grammes. The iPhone Air weighs 165 g, while Samsung's Edge weighs 163 g.
The frame of the Edge 70 is made of aircraft-grade aluminium. According to the manufacturer, this is particularly robust. The device is also IP68/69 certified and can therefore survive 30 minutes in 1.5 metres of fresh water without damage.
The 6.67-inch POLED display has a resolution of 2712 × 1220 pixels and a refresh rate of 120 hertz. It delivers a sharp image with good contrasts and perfect black levels. The Motorola Edge 70 achieves a brightness of 1800 nits, with a short-term peak value of 4500 nits. These values are excellent and I'm happy to have a clearly recognisable picture even on sunny days.
Hardware needs more «Pfupf»
In terms of performance, Motorola relies on the mid-range Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 chipset. My model has 12 gigabytes of RAM and 512 GB of internal memory. The chip does not perform outstandingly in the benchmarks, especially in comparison to the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge.
The Motorola Edge 70 struggles with graphics-heavy games such as «Genshin Impact», where I have to live with the lowest graphics settings. The rendering times for image and photo editing are also longer than I'm used to from flagship phones.
Compared to Samsung's Galaxy S25 Edge, the Motorola Edge 70 has a significantly higher battery capacity. The built-in silicon-carbon battery requires less volume for the same battery size. The Edge 70 therefore has 4800 mAh. That is around 25 per cent more than the Galaxy Edge S25 with its 3900 mAh battery.
In the benchmark with PCMark, which simulates regular everyday use, I achieved a runtime of 13 hours at medium brightness. Given the capacity, the value is solid and better than the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge with less than 12 hours. However, I can't manage more than 1.5 days in everyday use. I can then charge it with up to 68 watts via a USB-C cable. I charge the Edge 70 wirelessly with up to 15 watts.
Cameras should be better
Motorola equips the Edge 70 with three cameras. A main camera and a wide-angle camera on the back with 50 megapixels each and a selfie camera with 50 megapixels. Two of the four supposed lenses on the back are just a flash and a light sensor.
The manufacturer has dispensed with a telephoto camera, just like the competition with its thinnest smartphones. The photos are solid, but on closer inspection I notice some shortcomings. Mainly in terms of sharpness, but the colours are also often too bright for me. The biggest weakness is in low light.
The wide-angle camera does its job as well as the main camera.
The digital zoom is less recommendable and only acceptable up to 2x crop. After that, the photos lack structure.
I get a similar result for selfies, but I still like them best of all the cameras. The bokeh cuts out my hair the wrong way, but I know that from most smartphones. At best, you take your photos without the effect.
Too much bloatware
The Edge 70 runs Android 16 out of the box with its own user interface. After setting it up, I notice the amount of bloatware: far too many games and third-party apps that I don't need. They are quickly uninstalled, but totally unnecessary. The smartphone gets four software updates from the factory and six years of security patches. That's fine, more probably makes no sense for the performance of the chip.
Motorola also offers its own AI functions called «Moto ai». These include image enhancements and an image generator. An AI-supported translation is also on board. The functions are mainly gimmicks. However, Motorola combines them with practical Google AI such as the Gemini assistant. AI image editing tools such as an object eraser and a noise remover are also from Google.
In a nutshell
I'm not warming to it
The slim design and the non-slip back are almost the only convincing points of the Motorola Edge 70. The photos are only satisfactory in good weather, but even then they should be a little sharper.
The Motorola Edge 70 has the performance of a good mid-range device. The fact that it is thin does not make it a better phone, nor is the battery outstanding.
Overall, I think the recommended retail price of just under 800 francs is too high. If you really want a thin device that is robust, I would at least wait for a price reduction. This happens at Motorola within a few months.
For the same money, you can currently get top alternatives with good cameras, such as the Google Pixel 9 Pro or the Samsung Galaxy S25+. Although these phones have a few millimetres more on their ribs, they have no functional limitations.
Pro
- Thin and lightweight design
- Interesting colour accents
- non-slip back
Contra
- Photos often only satisfactory in good light
- Price-performance ratio not right
Header image: Michelle Brändle
In my world, Super Mario chases Stormtroopers with a unicorn and Harley Quinn mixes cocktails for Eddie and Peter at the beach bar. Wherever I can live out my creativity, my fingers tingle. Or maybe it's because nothing flows through my veins but chocolate, glitter and coffee.
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