Motorola Edge 2025 review: Not fast enough
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Motorola’s 2025 lineup is all about style, and the Motorola Edge 2025 is no exception. With a gorgeous PANTONE-certified vegan leather back, a better water and dust resistance rating than you’ll find on any other phone in this price range, battery life that’ll last longer than you expect, and super-fast 68W charging, this phone looks good doing what it does best.
It’s even got Moto AI packed in, and while all the AI features from the Motorola Razr Ultra aren’t here, it does feature some of the most prominent ones. But so much of the experience is needlessly held back by a slow processor that struggles to do even the most basic tasks. Swiping home takes far too long, and tasks like opening the camera or switching apps make this feel more like a phone half its price.
That doesn’t mean there are no redeeming qualities here — the camera is quite excellent, for instance — but the experience is so held back by this processor that it’s impossible to recommend at full price. If you really want one, wait for a good deal and get it for a lot cheaper, or just choose a Pixel 9a or OnePlus 13R, instead.
Nick’s first phone was a rugged old Motorola flip phone, and he’s been following right alongside Motorola’s progress through the years, from the U.S.-built Moto X to the latest Razrs and Edge phones.
Motorola Edge 2025: Price, availability, and specs
The Motorola Edge 2025 will be available in the U.S. unlocked on June 5 at Best Buy, Amazon, and Motorola.com for $549.99. Motorola says T-Mobile and Metro by T-Mobile, Total Wireless, Visible, Spectrum, and Xfinity Mobile will also carry the phone in the coming months. Canadian customers can look for it on June 5 at Motorola.ca.
The Motorola Edge 2025 ships with a PANTONE Deep Forest vegan leather back and includes 8GB of LPDDR4x RAM and 256GB of uMCP storage.
|
Specification |
Motorola Edge 2025 |
|---|---|
|
Display |
6.7-inch pOLED, 2712 x 1220 resolution (446 ppi), 120Hz refresh rate |
|
CPU |
MediaTek Dimensity 7400 |
|
RAM |
8GB LPDDR4X |
|
Storage |
256GB uMCP |
|
Rear camera 1 |
50MP, Sony Lytia 700C, f/1.8, 1.0μm pixel size, 2.0μm quad pixel binning, quad PDAF, OIS |
|
Rear camera 2 |
50MP, ultrawide + macro, 120-degree FoV, macro vision, f/2.0, 1.28μm quad-binned to 12MP, PDAF |
|
Rear camera 3 |
10MP, telephoto, 3x optical zoom, f/2.0, 1.0μm, OIS |
|
Front camera |
50MP, f/1.9, 1.28μm quad-binned, PDAF |
|
Water and dust resistance |
IP68/IP69, MIL-STD-810H |
|
OS |
Android 15 |
|
Battery |
5200mAh |
|
Charging |
68W wired (not included in box), 15W wireless, USB PD 3.0 |
|
Audio |
Dolby Atmos, dual stereo speakers, Bluetooth 5.4 |
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Connectivity |
5G, Wi-Fi 6E |
|
Dimensions |
161.19mm x 73.06mm x 7.99mm |
|
Weight |
181g |
|
Colors |
PANTONE Deep Forest (vegan leather back) |
Motorola Edge 2025: What I loved
If Motorola should be applauded for any one thing in particular, it’s the company’s smartphone design. While some folks will be unhappy with the curved glass, it makes for a gorgeous phone that, when combined with the vegan leather back, makes it hard not to admire it constantly throughout the day.
It’s also quite thin and light feeling thanks to the tapered edges, and the choice of PANTONE Forest Green is simply stunning. It’s hard to find a better looking phone than this, even if it means finding a good tempered glass protector will be tough.
On top of being thin and light, this is one of the elite phones to feature an IP68/IP69 water and dust resistance rating, meaning it can take a real beating, be put in the dishwasher, and still come out running like a champ. It’s also got a giant 5,200mAh battery inside that gives this stellar battery life, and 68W charging ensures you only need a few minutes to top the phone up before heading out the door.
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One of the weakest points of the Motorola Edge 2024 was its camera which has been fixed twofold in this release. Not only does the Motorola Edge 2025 feature upgraded 50MP ultrawide and selfie cameras, but it now features an excellent 3x optical zoom telephoto lens on the back.
Motorola’s use of AI and PANTONE color tuning means that photos taken from this phone generally look stunning in any light. Compared to the Pixel 9a, you’ll get a better quality selfie camera with autofocus, plus better zoom detail thanks to the telephoto camera.
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If there’s any reason to skip the phone, it’s not the camera this time around. I’ve been genuinely pleased with nearly every photo I’ve taken. Even shots I wasn’t sure would look good turned out great, including low-light photos taken during the Nintendo Switch 2 launch event at my local GameStop.
The Moto AI suite of tools is all here and helps keep Motorola in competition with the Google Pixel 9a for most AI features. Both phones feature a lot of similar tools, like AI art generators, great ways to transcribe recordings, and more. Motorola sets itself apart with some unique features like Catch Me Up, which can instantly take all those notifications and give you an executive summary, and AI playlist, which can give you a curated music playlist in seconds.
Much of this is powered by the new Moto AI button on the left, which can be customized to your liking. If you don’t like this, you can disable the key altogether. It’s nice to have that feature!
If I had any one critique about Moto AI, it’s that I wish it were a bit more proactive. Catch me up would be great if it automatically ran when I unlocked the phone after an extended period of time, for instance. I think this is an excellent start, though, and Motorola will certainly tweak and improve things over time.
Motorola Edge 2025: What’s not good
The MediaTek Dimensity 7400 inside this phone holds everything back substantially. It’s not a bad processor, but it doesn’t belong in a $550 phone. Period. Motorola sells the international model of this phone under the Motorola Edge 60 Fusion name, and it’s roughly 30% cheaper than the Motorola Edge 2025.
As I’ve used this phone over the past week, I’ve encountered numerous performance issues, including hitches, lags, and stutters. These are not present in the Google Pixel 9a or the OnePlus 13R, both of which are in the same price range.
Turning off the silly RAM Boost feature helped performance for me, but it didn’t erase the lags and stutters completely. This processor is also not performant enough to even run Minecraft’s Vibrant Visuals setting at a playable frame rate. It’s really a shame because, while this processor is marginally faster than last year’s Edge 2024 processor, it pales in comparison to other phones at this price range.
While most elements of the phone are excellent, the slow processors holds the entire experience back.
While Motorola says the display is better than last year’s, my own tests tell me otherwise. The small bump in resolution isn’t worth the tradeoff in refresh rate, and this display has mura issues in addition to using color dithering to fake deeper colors than the panel can actually produce. Motorola still ships it with the excellent full DC dimming mode that I lauded the Motorola Edge Plus 2023 for, but the aggressive dithering means this isn’t a great display for sensitive eyes.
The Motorola Edge 2025 is only slated for two OS upgrades and three years of bi-monthly security updates. By comparison, Google and Samsung offer seven years of both at this price range, and companies like OnePlus offer five years, further reducing the value of this phone.
Motorola Edge 2025: Competition
Motorola’s biggest problem is that there is steep competition at this price point. If you’re buying unlocked, your money is better spend on a Google Pixel 9a or a OnePlus 13R. My recommendation would be the OnePlus 13R for several reasons.
The OnePlus 13R features a substantially faster processor — nearly 200% faster, actually — plus four OS updates and six years of security updates. That’s double what Motorola offers. It’s not going to have quite as many AI features as Moto AI offers, but I don’t think those things are device sellers, just fun stuff to have.
The Google Pixel 9a is a great second choice that comes in a little cheaper at $499. The Pixel 9a also delivers a faster processor than the Motorola Edge 2025, but not as fast as the OnePlus 13R’s processor. It upgrades the software update policy to seven years of OS and security updates, though, so this is a phone that you can potentially hold on to for a long time.
Motorola Edge 2025: Should you buy
You should buy this if…
- You can get a great deal from a carrier.
- You love Motorola’s design, including the excellent vegan leather backs.
- You want a phone with excellent battery life and fast charging.
You should not buy this if…
- You get easily irritated by phones with slower processors.
- You want to hold on to your phone for more than three years.
- You hate curved screens.
For the second year in a row, Motorola has made an excellent Edge phone that is simply too expensive for its own good. The company did a great job of further improving build and camera quality, but it didn’t focus enough on the weakest link of last year’s phone: the slow processor.
This year’s is better, but it’s still not good enough for a $550 phone. You’ll experience plenty of stutters and lags as you use the phone, and while turning off RAM Boost helps some, the experience is simply worse than other phones you can get for the same price. Plus, with only three years of updates, it’s going to last half as long as a Pixel 9a or OnePlus 13R. Maybe next year, Motorola.
The Motorola Edge 2025 has a gorgeous PANTONE-certified vegan leather back, IP68/IP69 ingress protection ratings, excellent battery life, quick charging, and Moto AI features you’ll love.
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