Motorola launched a new mid-ranger in the Edge 50 series a few days back, the Edge 50 Fusion. With a starting price tag of Rs 22,999, the new Edge series device from Motorola is competing with the Nothing Phone (2a) and the OnePlus Nord CE 4 in India. While a detailed review of the device is in the works, here is our first impression of the Motorola Edge 50 Fusion.
In-box Contents, Design & Display Impressions
The Motorola Edge 50 Fusion comes in three shades, each with a different finish. We got the Marshmallow Blue shade with a vegan leather back. Alongside the device, we got a few accessories, such as a 68W fast charger, a USB-C to USB-C cable, manuals, a SIM ejector tool, and a plastic case.
Motorola has been relying on vegan leather back panels for a while now, and it has done so with the Edge 50 Fusion, too. The handset is impressively slim and lightweight, and when combined with the leather finish, it exudes a premium in-hand feel. The keys on the right have a decent tactile finish when clicked but are slightly smaller than usual in size. The handset is also IP68 rated, so using it in rain or dusty environments won’t harm it easily.
There’s Dolby Atmos branding on the top, and the stereo speaker setup is decently loud. It excels with vocals but lacks depth and bass. There’s also a Spatial audio feature that further adds a reverb effect and makes it even louder than it is with the feature turned off.
The panel at the front of the Edge 50 Fusion is a 6.7-inch pOLED curved one with a Resolution of 2400 x 1080 pixels and a Refresh Rate of 144Hz. The display boasts of Gorilla Glass 5 protection, 360Hz touch sampling rate, 10-bit colours and 1600 nits peak brightness.
There’s not much to complain about the panel as it’s an amazing performer, both in low light and under direct sunlight. The viewing angles are excellent, and so are the vivid colours. The curves on either side help your finger glide smoothly when using gestures for navigation. It’s responsive as well as smooth. However, I do have one complaint with it: the refresh rate doesn’t go past 90Hz on auto mode the majority of the time. When set at 120Hz or 144Hz individually, though, it works as intended.
Read More: Motorola Edge 50 Fusion Launched In India: Should You Consider It Over Nothing Phone (2a)?
Motorola Edge 50 Fusion: Hello, “Hello UI”
The device draws power from a Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 chip paired with up to 12GB RAM and 256GB storage. We had the base variant with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage with us which seems to be handling tasks without any major issues for now. I have noticed a few lags in some animations, but nothing major that hampers the experience. Aside from the few stutters, it feels quite snappy, thanks to the sped-up animations.
As for software, the device runs on Hello UI based on Android 14 with a lot of customisation on offer. It gets gestures, a sidebar, a double tap on the back to perform actions, wallpaper-based colours for the UI, dynamic wallpapers, Virtual RAM expansion and a lot more.
However, the software does not support the Always-on display feature, which is a major omission. In addition, I ran into a few bugs with the software. We’ll talk more about the handset’s gaming performance and the features it offers related to this specific area in the full review.
The camera and battery life of the device have to be tested further for final results. What we can tell you is that the device charges quickly from 0 to 100% in about 50 to 55 minutes with the bundled charger.
Overall, for the price, the device seems to deliver in most areas. Whether the full review would change our perception or build upon it remains to be seen.
