Motorola’s Edge 70 is the blueprint for future skinny telephones

I’ve been as a lot of a skinny cellphone skeptic as anybody. Why would I surrender on digital camera specs and battery life simply to shave a few millimeters off a cellphone’s waistline? I requested just about precisely that once I first noticed Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Edge earlier this 12 months.

However the Motorola Edge 70 could have made me a convert. It’s a less expensive tackle the S25 Edge or iPhone Air, out now within the UK and Europe for £699 / €799 (round $920), but it surely “is not going to be a US machine,” in response to Nicole Hagen, Motorola’s head of worldwide product advertising.

It’s only a third of a millimeter thicker than the Air — an all however imperceptible distinction — however meets a few of that cellphone’s failings head-on by providing an even bigger battery and extra sturdy design. It introduces a number of new flaws of its personal, however as a blueprint for the place skinny telephones go subsequent, this makes extra sense to me than Apple’s and Samsung’s choices.

We’re actually in silicon-carbon battery season, as a result of that is the second time in as many weeks that I’ve discovered myself praising a producer for becoming a high-capacity battery right into a small house. Whereas the Oppo Discover X9 Professional makes use of the novel battery tech to cram an unusually massive 7,500mAh cell right into a regular-sized cellphone, Motorola has as an alternative employed it to suit a regular-sized battery into an unusually skinny cellphone.

The Edge 70’s 4,800mAh battery is as massive as many flagships’, breezing previous the iPhone Air’s “all-day battery life” to final effectively right into a second day. It gained’t final a full two days except you utilize it evenly, however heavier customers will battle to run the cellphone dry in a single day.

The silicon-carbon battery fixes the only largest concern most potential consumers have about this 12 months’s wave of skinny telephones, comfortably outclassing the three,149mAh battery in Apple’s Air or the three,900mAh cell in Samsung’s Edge. These telephones power consumers to surrender battery life. Motorola’s doesn’t.

The Edge 70 tops up shortly with 68W wired charging, and 15W Qi wi-fi can be accessible. There isn’t Qi2 help, although Motorola features a magnetic plastic case with the cellphone in EMEA in the event you’re jealous of the Qi2-enabled Pixel 10 telephones.

Slim because the case is, it inevitably detracts from simply how skinny the Edge 70 feels. I’ve solely used Samsung and Apple’s skinny telephones in passing, and after sticking with this cellphone for every week, I used to be shocked to seek out that skinny feeling by no means actually acquired outdated. I marvel on the cellphone each time I decide it up, that it may be so skinny, so mild, so snug within the hand.

I’m positive the Air and S25 Edge really feel a lot the identical. The place Motorola diverges is in the way it constructed the Edge 70, with an aluminum body and textured silicone rear that feels much less weak than the glass backs of its rivals. That is the one cellphone of the three to have each an IP68 ranking and meet the harder IP69 customary, and it additionally meets the MIL-STD-810H army testing customary for sturdiness.

That’s to not say the Edge 70 is indestructible — removed from it, particularly for the reason that Gorilla Glass 7i used on the display screen is extra weak than the ceramic-hardened variations on these different telephones. However freed from the concern of shattering the again, I’ve discovered myself extra carefree about utilizing the cellphone as is, somewhat than trapping that skinny design in a cumbersome case.

In order that’s that; the Edge 70 has solved skinny telephones for good. If solely, eh? It could have improved on a few of Samsung and Apple’s failings, however not all of them — and it introduces a number of of its personal.

The cameras are the obvious compromise, although lower than you may assume. The 50-megapixel principal digital camera isn’t unhealthy, even doing an honest job in dim situations, although the mix of darkish skies and brilliant lights at a night soccer sport proved an excessive amount of for it to course of completely. In contrast to the iPhone Air, you get an ultrawide lens alongside it, although there’s nonetheless no telephoto — what seems like a 3rd digital camera is absolutely solely a lightweight sensor. You will get a half-decent telephoto for much less within the likes of the Galaxy S25 FE or Xiaomi 15T Professional.

Spec-heads may additionally take umbrage with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 chipset inside. It’s not a nasty chip, however you’ll discover flagship silicon in equally priced gadgets. It’s loads of energy for most individuals, however on paper it’s much less succesful than different telephones at this value, even when aggressive players are possible the one ones who’ll discover.

Motorola’s tackle Android is the larger downside, and it’s in all probability the one model of the working system getting worse.

Fairly merely, a £699 cellphone — hell, any cellphone — shouldn’t ship packed to the rafters with advertisements and bloatware. There are no less than 14 Motorola-branded apps preinstalled, and different apps together with Sweet Crush Saga, Microsoft Copilot, Monopoly Go, Pinterest, and one thing referred to as Toon Blast.

Worse, the primary slot within the app drawer is taken up by a video games “folder” that really simply suggests extra time-killers I ought to obtain, together with gems like Block Blast! and Stack Ball. Above that, a strategies row dynamically recommends three of my very own apps I’m prone to want at that second in time based mostly on my previous habits (which is beneficial sufficient), together with a fourth app I don’t have and by no means need, starting from cost app MoneyGram to the musical Merely Guitar.

I’m not executed but! The Stay Lock Display is probably the most egregious of all. Urged throughout setup, this replaces your lock display screen with a biking stream of pictures paired with hyperlinks to articles from the online on a predefined set of broad pursuits like “meals” or “tech.” These are advertisements in disguise, however each three or 4, you’re rewarded with one thing extra overt — normally a full-screen banner promoting Temu.

It’s simple to show all of this off and uninstall the apps, but it surely shouldn’t be there within the first place. Motorola is embarrassing itself by together with it.

I’m undecided if the best way its compromises shake out make the Edge 70 a greater cellphone than the iPhone Air. However as I sit up for the place this manner issue may go subsequent, Motorola’s cellphone looks like a greater blueprint than Apple’s, and means that adopting a silicon-carbon battery is what’s required to raise the Air’s second era.

The Edge 70 preserves battery life whereas shaving down the majority, and feels simply robust sufficient to threat going case-free so all that {hardware} R&D doesn’t go wasted. The cameras are fundamental, however so are the iPhone’s, and it might be underpowered, however who’s shopping for the 12 months’s third-thinnest cellphone and hoping for a powerhouse? You need it to really feel nice and final all day, and on that depend, the Edge 70 has nailed it.

Images by Dominic Preston / The Verge