The Motorola Edge 70 is a blueprint for future thin phones

I was as skeptical of the thin phone as everyone else. Why would I give up camera specs and battery life just to shave a few millimeters off the phone’s circumference? I He asked pretty much exactly that When I first saw Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge Earlier this year.

But the Motorola Edge 70 may have made me a convert. It’s a cheaper experience on the S25 Edge or iPhone Airis now available in the UK and Europe for £699/€799 (about $920), but it “won’t be a US device,” according to Nicole Hagen, Motorola’s head of global product marketing.

It’s only a third of a millimeter thicker than the Air – an almost imperceptible difference – but it meets some of that phone’s failings head-on by offering a larger battery and a more durable design. It introduces some new drawbacks of its own, but as a blueprint for where thin phones will go next, this makes more sense to me than Apple and Samsung’s offerings.

We’re really in Silicon-carbon battery Because this is the second time in as many weeks that I find myself praising the manufacturer for fitting a high-capacity battery into a small space. while Oppo Find X9 Pro Motorola is using new battery technology to cram an unusually large 7,500 mAh cell into a regular-sized phone, and Motorola has instead used it to fit a regular-sized battery into an unusually thin phone.

The Edge 70’s 4,800 mAh battery is as large as many flagship phones, beating the iPhone Air’s “all-day battery life” to last through day two. It won’t last a full two days unless you use it lightly, but heavier users will have a hard time running the phone dry in a day.

The silicon-carbon battery fixes the biggest fear most potential buyers have about this year’s wave of thin phones, comfortably outperforming the 3,149 mAh battery in the Apple Air or the 3,900 mAh cell in the Samsung Edge. These phones force buyers to give up battery life. Motorola no.

The Edge 70 runs fast with 68W wired charging, and 15W wireless connectivity is also available. There’s no support for Qi2, although Motorola does include a magnetic plastic case with the phone in EMEA if you’re jealous of the phone. Pixel 10 phones that support Qi2 technology.

Because it’s thin, it inevitably detracts from how thin the Edge 70 is. I’ve only used thin Samsung and Apple phones in passing, and after holding on to this phone for a week, I was surprised to find that that thin feeling never got old. I marvel at the phone every time I pick it up, because it can be so thin, so light, and so comfortable in the hand.

I’m sure the Air and S25 Edge feel the same. The difference between Motorola is how the Edge 70 is built, with an aluminum frame and textured silicone back that feels less vulnerable than the glass backs of its rivals. This is the only phone of the three to be IP68 rated and meets the more stringent IP69 standard, and it also meets the MIL-STD-810H military testing standard for durability.

This doesn’t mean the Edge 70 is indestructible, quite the contrary, especially since the Gorilla Glass 7i used on the screen is more vulnerable than the ceramic-reinforced versions found on those other phones. But far from the fear of smashing the back, I found myself more interested in using the phone as is, rather than trapping this thin design in a bulky case.

This is it; The Edge 70 has replaced thin phones forever. If only, eh? It may have improved on some of Samsung and Apple’s failures, but not all of them – and it offers a few of its own.

Cameras are the most obvious compromise, although less so than you might think. The 50MP main camera isn’t bad, and even does a good job in dark conditions, although the combination of dark skies and bright lights at an evening football match proved too much to handle perfectly. Unlike the iPhone Air, you get an ultra-wide lens alongside it, though there’s no zoom yet – what looks like a third camera is really just a light sensor. You can get a half decent telephoto for less at the likes of Galaxy S25 FE or Xiaomi 15T Pro.

Specs heads may also be upset by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 chipset inside. It’s not a bad chip, but you’ll find flagship silicon in similarly priced devices. That’s plenty of power for most people, but on paper it’s less capable than other phones at this price, even if competitive gamers are the only ones who’ll likely notice.

Motorola’s Android challenge is the biggest problem, and will likely be the only version of the operating system that gets access worst.

Quite simply, a £699 phone – any phone – shouldn’t ship packed with ads and bloatware. There are at least 14 Motorola-branded apps pre-installed, plus others including Candy Crush Sagamicrosoft copilot, Monopoly goingPinterest, and something called Toon blast.

Worse still, the first slot in the app drawer is taken up by a games “folder” that actually suggests more time-killers I should download, including gems like Blast block! and Stack ball. What’s more, the Suggestions row dynamically recommends three of my own apps that I’m likely to need at that moment based on my past behavior (which is helpful enough), as well as a fourth app that I don’t have and would never want, ranging from payment app MoneyGram to music app Simply Guitar.

I’m not done yet! The live lock screen is the most terrible ever. It is suggested during setup that this will replace your lock screen with a rotating stream of images paired with links to articles from the web about a pre-selected set of general interests such as “Food” or “Technology.” These are disguised ads, but every three or four, you’re rewarded with something more visible — usually a full-screen banner advertising Temu.

It’s easy to turn all of this off and uninstall apps, but it shouldn’t be there in the first place. Motorola embarrasses itself by including it.

I’m not sure if the way you cut out the compromises makes the Edge 70 better than the iPhone Air. But while I’m looking forward to where this form factor could go next, the Motorola phone looks like a better scheme than the Apple phone, and suggests that adopting a silicon-carbon battery is what’s needed to take the second-generation Air up a notch.

The Edge 70 preserves battery life while reducing the size and feel only Powerful enough to risk going caseless so all the hardware R&D isn’t lost. Cameras are basic, but so are iPhones, and they may be underpowered, but who buys the third thinnest phone of the year and hopes for power? You want it to feel great and last all day, and on that note, the Edge 70 delivers.

Photography by Dominic Preston/The Verge