I tested Motorola's cheaper iPhone Air alternative, but it still didn't win
me over to team thin-phone

Date:
Sun, 16 Nov 2025 15:00:00 +0000

Description:
The Motorola Edge 70 is a surprisingly expensive thin-body Android, which doesn't live up to the expectations past generations have set.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Motorola
Edge 70 two-minute review

The Edge series from Motorola has been one of the most consistently interesting lines of Android phones for cost-conscious buyers; theyre not always the best smartphones around, but they look classy and get you
unrivaled value for money in the Android world. But Im not so sure about the Motorola Edge 70, which has fallen in with the wrong crowd by trying to
follow the new thin-phone trend.

Super-thin smartphones are starting to feel like a new bandwagon that tech companies are leaping on, apparently after having noticed the huge lack of interest buyers had in the last bandwagon: AI. This bandwagons turning out no better: we didnt love the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, and the iPhone Air was lambasted online , and so the Motorola Edge 70 has a lot to prove.

Before testing the Edge 70, I thought Moto would be preaching to the choir; I gave the Edge 60 a glowing review (I think it's my favorite phone of the year), and was fond of the Edge 60 Pro too. Perhaps it should have been telling that the previous generation of Edge mobiles came out only six months prior, because this new Edge is nothing to write home about.

Yes, its thin, and yes, its light, but its still just as wide and tall as
your average Android smartphone, so these two tweaked specs dont exactly amount to a revolutionary redesign.

Beyond its chassis, this is another solid mid-range Android phone. Theres a decent processor and enough RAM to blast through games, a good-looking
screen, a classy color scheme, and a competent camera array (albeit with a
few downgrades from the Edge 60 Pro in certain areas).

However, the huge price jump up from the Edge 60 and the solid increase on the Edge 60 Pro too throws my mid-range argument into disarray; this is an expensive mobile which doesnt go nearly far enough in justifying that price.

Bear in mind the number of downgrades from the still-very-fresh Edge 60 line: the new Edge 70 loses a camera from the 60 and 60 Pro, and also misses out on the fast charging and strong performance of the latter. And remember: the 60 Pro is a cheaper phone.

Thats doubly painful when you consider how much bloatware there is on this newer device; it's a symptom of a cheap phone that feels out of place when youre buying a phone thats only a little less pricey than the Samsung Galaxy S25 or iPhone 17 .

Generally speaking, the Edge 70 runs smoothly, and there are a few things to like. I like how the Water Touch feature makes the phone easy to use when
your hands are wet, the screen looks good, and the amount of on-board storage and RAM is great. And there's no denying that the Edge 70 is cheaper than its thin-phone rivals, even if that's simply because they're even more
ludicrously priced.

A slightly-thinner-than-average body doesnt make the price make sense,
though, especially when the Motorola Edge 60 is basically half the price.
Even though its a solid phone all around, the cost makes it hard to recommend the Edge 70 over its six-month senior. Motorola Edge 70 review: price and availability (Image credit: Future) Released in November 2025 699.98 (roughly $920, AU$1,400) No US release expected; AU possibly

Motorola announced the Edge 70 on November 5, 2025, and put it on sale
shortly afterwards.

You can buy the Motorola Edge 70 for 699.98 (roughly $920, AU$1,400). The phone wont be released in the US, as Moto has a different Edge strategy
there, but Im expecting it to come out in Australia at some point in the near future based on precedent.

Thats a massive price increase from the 379 (roughly $520, AU$700) asking price of the Edge 60, but also more than the 599 (around $800, AU$1,250) of the Edge 60 Pro.

The Edge is, at least, cheaper than its rivals: the Galaxy Edge (Samsungs phone, not the Star Wars theme park) begins at $1,099 / 1,099 / AU$1,849, while the iPhone Air goes for $999 / 999 / AU$1,799. Yikes. Motorola Edge 70 review: specs Motorola Edge 70 specs

Dimensions:

159.9 x 74 x 5.9 mm

Weight:

159g

Screen:

6.7-inch FHD (1220 x 2712) 120Hz P-OLED

Chipset:

Snapdragon 7 Gen 4

RAM:

12GB

Storage:

512GB

OS:

Android 16

Primary camera:

50MP, f/1.8

Ultra-wide camera:

50MP f/2.0 120-degree

Front camera:

50MP, f/2.0

Audio:

Dolby Atmos stereo speakers

Battery:

4,800mAh

Charging:

68W wired, 15W wireless

Colors:

Gadget Grey, Lily Pad, Bronze Green Motorola Edge 70 review: design (Image credit: Future) Thin (5.9mm) and light (159g) Comes in three Pantone colors Military-grade protections

I spent the introduction to this review comparing the Moto Edge 70 to its thin-phone contemporaries; its 5.9mm thick, and you can feel how svelte it is just by picking it up. It's so thin, in fact, that I felt duty-bound to protect it with the rigid plastic in-box case, thereby mitigating the
benefits of a slender mobile in the first place.

The rest of the dimensions are more in line with your standard smartphone: it's 74mm wide and 159.4mm long. Mind you, in weighing 159g, it feels lighter in the hand than the average mobile.

Color company Pantone continues its quest to paint all the Edge phones in various distinct hues; this time around, weve got Gadget Grey (a
mostly-boring grey but with some blue highlights), Lily Pad (olive green with some orange highlights), and the one I used, Bronze Green (dark green with lighter-green highlights theres no bronze to speak of).

As always, the use of some interesting colors immediately makes this Moto one of my favorite-looking phones of the year, and the textured back just adds something to the panache. I do wish that Motorola had given the Edge 70 a curved-edge screen like in some of the past generations, but presumably, this wouldnt work with the thin body. The lack of it means that, visually
speaking, the Edge 70 is one of my favorites, but the Edge 60 family pips it to the post.

Lets talk about ports and buttons. Theres a USB-C port on the bottom edge (no 3.5mm jack for audio), a power button and volume rocker on the right edge, and, right out of reach on the left, the AI button.

The Edge 70 is IP68/69 protected against dust and water submersion, and is also compliant with the military MIL-STD-810H standard, which means its tough against the knocks and bumps that a military-grade piece of kit would need to be.

If you decide to use the in-box case to protect the phone, you're not making
a bad decision because it's nice and solid (not a cheapie silicon thing that many phone makers put in the box). But it's also incredibly hard to get onto the phone, and nearly as hard to remove, so you're going to need some good luck and brute strength. If you're buying this phone for your grandma, you should stick around to help her get the thing on! Design score: 4 / 5
Motorola Edge 70 review: display (Image credit: Future) 6.7 inches, 2712 x 1220 resolution 120Hz refresh rate, 20:9 aspect ratio Water Touch adds some extra usability

The Motorola Edge 70 has a 6.7-inch screen, which is roughly the average size for an Android smartphone. The resolution (2712 x 1200) is also what youd expect from such a mobile.

A few other specs and features help the phones display stand out, though. It has a nice high max brightness of 4,500 nits, a 120Hz refresh rate, support for HDR 10+, and some optimizations from Pantone.

A feature I really appreciate is Water Touch, which basically just means the screen will pick up your touches better if youve got wet hands or if the display has droplets on it. No longer does bathtime prohibit the use of screens.

Breaking up the display at the top is a punch-hole cut-out for the front camera, but its so small and unobtrusive that youll easily forget it was there. Display score: 4 / 5 Motorola Edge 70 review: software Here are the apps pre-installed on the Edge 70 (although I can excuse Ecosia, since that's the one I picked as my browser on load-up). (Image credit: Future) Android 16 with four guaranteed updates Bloatware (pre-installed apps) abounds Moto's AI app has yet to prove itself

While Motorola phones have long used stock Android as their operating system, the company has slowly been tweaking the formula in myriad ways over successive generations of Edge. So, while the Edge 70 technically has stock Android 16, its not exactly the same as the stock Android software youd see
on Pixel phones mostly for the worse.

The worst is that, at least on first start-up, Motorola has opted to copy
some cheap Chinese phone makers in plastering its devices with bloatware.
When you first boot up the Edge 70, its already full of apps like Amazon Music, TikTok, and Booking.com, and while you can delete them all, it doesnt help but make it feel like your own mobile is one walking billboard.

Most of these apps are innocuous, at least, but some raise eyebrows. Perplexity is one an AI search engine with myriad active lawsuits and accusations against it and controversy-laden e-retailer Temu is another. It bears repeating that this phone isnt that different in price from the iPhone 17 seeing pre-installed apps at all, especially ones of this caliber, leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Motorolas also pushing harder into its own AI tools than most other
companies, mostly with its Moto AI, an assistant thats slowly gaining skills and tools with each new Moto phone I test.

However, its feature list is still quite eclectic (note-taking, playlist generation, and file organization seem to be its main tools, according to Motos website), and none of them really solve problems Id otherwise have on
my smartphone. I used Moto AI when I was testing the Edge 70, but I no doubt would have ignored it if I were using the phone normally.

Not all the changes to stock Android are terrible, and Ive long liked Motorolas customization and navigation features. And if you ignore the AI and delete the bloatware, the phone runs decently well. Its set to get four years of security updates (presumably up to Android 20), and five years of security updates. Software score: 3 / 5 Motorola Edge 70 review: cameras (Image
credit: Future) 50MP main and 50MP ultra-wide cameras 50MP front-facing Some odd over-brightening issues

Motorolas marketing materials make a point of how the Edge 70 has three 50MP cameras; this is technically true, but dont imagine for a moment that the
Edge 70 has three rear cameras like the Edge 60 members did. Instead, it only has two, with that third high-res snapper being the one on the front, and Im disappointed that Moto opted to drop the telephoto lens that made the last generation surprisingly solid camera phones.

On the back, then, weve got a 50MP main snapper with OIS and a 50MP
ultra-wide with a 120-degree field of view. Nope, no telephoto lens.

I've previously been quite negative about the cameras on Motorola phones, as the optimization software doesn't match that on rival mobiles, making
pictures look a little dull. Usually, the low price of the phone justifies these shortcomings, but that's obviously not the case here. Thankfully, I wasn't too put out by the snaps either.

With sufficient lighting, pictures have a fair amount of color and detail,
and autofocus was fairly quick to find objects. Manual focus was a bit of an issue, though; usually, I find tapping on an object in the viewfinder does
the job, but when I tried it in the Edge 70's camera app, it also changed the brightness of the shot... quite dramatically.

Look at the two snaps of cookies in the camera sample section; the first one is default, the second is when I pressed on the snack. I like a bright
picture as much as the next guy, but it's a little too much in that
particular case. (Image credit: Future)

I took quite a few low-light photos with the camera; it's that period of the year where we have about three minutes of sunlight, after all. The camera
held up well, presumably thanks to a solid sensor that takes in lots of
light.

Around the front, the selfie camera uses pixel binning to ensure snaps have enough light; you can see the results on a pretty gray day below.

Taking a stroll through the rest of the phone app, you'll find most of the standard options you've come to expect on a smartphone: night vision, panorama, portrait photography, slow-mo and time-lapse videography, and so
on.

You can record video at 4K at 30fps or FHD at 60fps, and slow-mo switches between 120fps at FHD or 240fps at HD. Camera score: 3.5 / 5 Motorola Edge 70 camera samples Image 1 of 11 (Image credit: Future) Image 2 of 11 (Image credit: Future) Image 3 of 11 (Image credit: Future) Image 4 of 11 (Image credit: Future) Image 5 of 11 (Image credit: Future) Image 6 of 11 (Image credit: Future) Image 7 of 11 (Image credit: Future) Image 8 of 11 (Image credit: Future) Image 9 of 11 (Image credit: Future) Image 10 of 11 (Image credit: Future) Image 11 of 11 (Image credit: Future) Motorola Edge 70
review: performance and audio (Image credit: Future) Mid-range Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 chipset 12GB RAM and 512GB Storage Dolby Atmos-tuned stereo speakers

Looking under the hood, the Motorola Edge 70 has a Snapdragon 7 Gen 4
chipset, which is a mid-range piece of kit weve seen in a handful of
Androids, including the Realme 15 Pro and Vivo V60. While seeing mid-range
may cause you to be wary, let me win you back over: theres 12GB RAM and a hearty 512GB storage. Now those are specs I like to see!

I took the Edge for a whirl (well, many whirls over two weeks) playing Call
of Duty: Mobile and Northgard, and was impressed by how close the performance was to that of phones with top-end chipsets or more RAM. Playing hectic
online games, I never felt like I was lagging or dropping behind in a way
that affected my performance, and the phone seemed fine to render loads of assets or enemies at once.

When I put the Edge 70 through the Geekbench 6 multi-core benchmark test, it returned an average score of 4,115 (though, notably, with a bigger variation in results than I normally see with this test). That reflects the mid-range status of the mobile, with Snapdragon 8 Gen chipsets scoring in the 5,000-6,000 range (or even higher), though it is a little way behind the Edge 60 Pro, which used a top-end chipset from a different company.

Honestly, though, when you get to a certain point, these numbers are just numbers. I never felt that the Edge 70 lacked performance when I was gaming, and thats what matters.

Audio-wise, the Edge 70 has dual stereo speakers, which were tuned with some Dolby Atmos magic. Otherwise, for listening to music, you can use the Bluetooth 5.4 to connect wirelessly, or via a wired connection if you can
find an adaptor to plug your cans into the USB-C port (theres no headphone jack). Performance score: 4 / 5 Motorola Edge 70 review: battery life (Image credit: Future) 4,800mAh battery 68W wired charging 15W wireless powering

Despite being a thin smartphone, the Edge 70 has a battery thats roughly average in capacity: 4,800mAh, which a few years ago wed have called positively huge.

Im not going to pretend it grants the Edge a miraculously long battery life, as its powering a pretty big display, but it ensures the handset will easily last a full day of use. During my testing, the Edge 70 reliably waltzed through half of day two before needing to be powered up.

Charging is done at 68W, which is the same as most past Moto Edge phones, and 15W wireless charging has been thrown in for good measure. Youre getting from empty to full in about 40 minutes if you charge with a compatible cable. Battery score: 3.5 / 5 Motorola Edge 70 review: value (Image credit: Future)

Thin phones are, unfortunately, exceedingly expensive devices. When you consider that, in the Edge 70, youre getting one for substantially less than the iPhone Air, perhaps you can convince yourself that youre getting a good deal.

But if you look at the Motorola Edge 70 as the sum of its parts, its hard to deny that it doesnt offer great value for money. Its specs are mostly all mid-ranged, with much cheaper alternatives from various rivals beating it six ways from Sunday.

So, if you absolutely need a smartphone thats a few millimeters thinner than your current one, no matter the price, at least this is getting you better value than the iPhone or Samsung. But if youre happy to consider all your options, no matter their thickness, skipping the Edge 70 is a no-brainer. Value score: 3 / 5 Should you buy the Motorola Edge 70? Motorola Edge 70
score card

Attributes

Notes

Rating

Value

From another brand, a phone with the same specs would have a price tag that's half of the Edge 70's.

3 / 5

Design

Pantone wins again, but the slender body helps too.

4 / 5

Display

It's just as good-looking as the last time we saw this screen on a Moto
phone.

4 / 5

Software

The bloatware's getting worse, and Moto's more preoccupied with its AI tool than fixing it.

3 / 5

Camera

The cameras are fine for the price, though I miss the better hardware of the Edge 60.

3.5 / 5

Performance

You get a solid set of power specs for the price.

4 / 5

Battery

Any kind of reliable battery is a miracle in a thin phone like this.

3.5 / 5 Buy it if...

You must have a thin phone
If you're looking at the iPhone Air or Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge with envy,
then the Moto Edge 70 is your way to get a thin phone without breaking the bank.

You need lots of storage
With 512GB of on-board storage, you're never going to need to choose which photos you need to delete to get more space, or pick and choose the apps that take up that space.

You like the look
Honestly, all of Moto's Edge phones have a little extra pizzazz thanks to Pantone's decorations; they're a splash of color in a monochromatic market. Don't buy it if...

You don't care about your phone's thickness
All thin phones are expensive... but if thinness isn't an important thing for you, your money will go a lot further with a different device.

You're on a budget
Many people associate Motorola with cheap phones, because it makes some of
the best. But the Edge 70 is certainly a premium model.

You're not an AI fan
Moto's been very gung-ho about its own AI tools, but the Edge 70's bloatware includes lots more, like Copilot and Perplexity. If you're on the righteous anti-AI train, this isn't the right phone for you. View Deal Motorola Edge 70 review: Also consider

Let's take a proper look at those phones I've been comparing the Motorola
Edge 70 to:

Apple iPhone Air
Apple's thin phone is 0.3mm more slender than the Edge 70, but a little heavier. It's the one to buy if you want an Apple phone, although it's not
the strongest specs-wise.

Read our full Apple iPhone Air review

Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge
This is a powerful phone with top specs across the board, and it's also thinner than the Moto, though not as light. It's super slow to charge,
though.

Read our full Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge review

Motorola Edge 60
It's cheaper and it's weaker, but otherwise this slightly older phone matches or exceeds the specs of its newer relative. So, it's certainly well worth keeping on the wishlist.

Read our full Motorola Edge 60 review

Motorola Edge 70

Apple iPhone Air

Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge

Motorola Edge 60

Starting price (at launch):

699.98 (roughly $920, AU$1,400)

From $999 / 999 / AU$1,799

From $1,099 / 1,099 / AU$1,849

379 (roughly $520, AU$700)

Dimensions:

159.9 x 74 x 5.9mm

156.2 x 74.7 x 5.6mm

158.2 x 75.6 x 5.8mm

161.2 x 73.1 x 7.9mm

Weight:

159g

165g

163g

179g

OS (at launch):

Android 16

iOS 26

OneUI 7, Android 15

Android 15

Screen Size:

6.7-inch

6.5-inch

6.7-inch

6.67-inch

Resolution:

2712 x 1220

2736 x 1260

1260 x 2736

2712 x 1220

CPU:

Snapdragon 7 Gen 4

A19 Pro Bionic

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy

Mediatek Dimensity 7300

RAM:

12GB

Unconfirmed

12GB

12GB

Storage (from):

512GB

256GB / 512GB / 1TB

256GB / 512GB

512GB

Battery:

4,800mAh

Unconfirmed

3,900mAh

5,200mAh

Rear Cameras:

50MP main, 50MP ultra-wide

48MP main

200MP main, 12MP ultra-wide

50MP main, 10MP telephoto. 50MP ultra-wide

Front camera:

50MP

18MP

12MP

50MP How I tested the Motorola Edge 70 Review test period = 2 weeks Testing included = Everyday usage, including web browsing, social media, photography, video calling, gaming, streaming video, music playback Tools used = Geekbench 6, Geekbench ML, GFXBench, native Android stats

I used the Motorola Edge 70 for two weeks in order to write this review. That's the usual TechRadar test period, and a figure I use as an absolute minimum in order to ensure I've given every gadget a fair shake.

In that time, I used the Edge 70 as my normal smartphone for tasks like
social media, photography, and gaming. Outside of full testing, I also took
it for a few camera tests to collect more samples for the gallery. Alongside experiential use, I used a few lab tests to gauge certain metrics of the phone.

I've been reviewing mobiles at TechRadar for over six years now. I tested
both members of the Edge 60 family, and have used most previous Moto Edge devices, as well as countless other handsets made by the company (and, of course, non-Moto phones too!).

Read more about how we test

First reviewed November 2025



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