Motorola Edge 70 Long Term Review: Thin on Size, Heavy on Surprises

Edited By Ayaz FarooqiWritten By Ayaz FarooqiPublished: Feb 27, 2026, 11:17 IST | Updated: Feb 27, 2026, 11:17 IST

The Motorola Edge 70 sports a 6.7-inch pOLED panel with a resolution of 2712 x 1220 pixels (446 PPI) and a 120Hz refresh rate.

Motorola has been quietly doing something regularly that most of the industry do in patches. Building phones that feel different. Not just spec-sheet different, but they feel and look different. With the Edge 70, the brand has gone with a bold design philosophy, make it thin, make it light, and don't sacrifice the things that actually matter. The ultra-thin phone trend was one of 2025's most talked-about stories in the smartphone world. Motorola's Edge 70 also enters this conversation. So the real question with the Motorola Edge 70 isn't whether it's thin. It obviously is. The real question is whether it's good. Whether it earns a place in your pocket for the right reasons, not just the aesthetic ones. After extensive testing, I am sharing my perspective of the Moto Edge 70 in the long term.

DESIGN AND BUILD: There's a moment when you pick up the Motorola Edge 70 for the first time and your brain does a small double take. It feels super thin and lightweight. At just 5.99mm thick and 159 grams, this is one of the thinnest and lightest smartphones. The phone uses an aluminium frame that is ever so slightly curved toward the back, resisting the flat, sharp-edged aesthetic that has become almost monotonous in 2025. The rear panel is finished in a nylon-textured, fabric-like vegan leather that provides genuine grip. It resists fingerprints and smudges, and gives the device a premium feel. Colour options are all Pantone-certified, a partnership Motorola has leaned into heavily. You can choose from Gadget Gray, Lily Pad and Bronze Green. Mine was the Bronze Green variant.

The rear camera island is a refined square module that protrudes only slightly. Motorola has designed the transition from the back panel to the module to feel seamless and organic. There is also a magnetic ring around the Motorola logo that is MagSafe-compatible. There’s a MagSafe-compatible rigid plastic case in the box, a useful inclusion. Durability credentials are like other Edge series phones. The Edge 70 carries both an IP68 and IP69 rating, meaning it can survive submersion in up to 1.5 metres of freshwater and is also resistant to high-pressure, high-temperature water jets. Motorola has added MIL-STD-810H military-grade durability certification. The display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 7i.

The only ergonomic quirk worth flagging is the placement of the under-display fingerprint scanner, which sits quite low on the screen. It’s closer to the bottom bezel than most users would prefer. It takes a slight adjustment when unlocking one-handed. Controls are otherwise well-placed. Motorola's dedicated AI button sits on the upper left.

DISPLAY: The Motorola Edge 70 sports a 6.7-inch pOLED panel with a resolution of 2712 x 1220 pixels (446 PPI) and a 120Hz refresh rate. It is a large, flat, immersive screen with pleasingly thin and even bezels that lend it a modern, premium appearance. The pOLED screen delivers all of the visual advantages of traditional OLED. Deep, true blacks, vibrant colours, and solid contrast. Brightness is where the Edge 70 surprises. Motorola claims a peak brightness of 4,500 nits. In real-world outdoor use, this translates to a screen that remains legible and punchy even in harsh Delhi sunlight.

Colour accuracy is good. What you see on screen corresponds to real-world colorus as the colour reproduction is natural and well-calibrated. There are minor caveats. The refresh rate does not drop below 60Hz. It cannot hit the 1Hz low-power state that some flagships achieve. This means it is slightly less efficient in always-on scenarios. Overall, this is a display that comfortably holds its own against much more expensive phones.

CAMERA: The camera system on the Edge 70 is a dual-camera setup: a 50MP f/1.8 main camera and a 50MP f/2.0 ultra-wide camera with autofocus and a dedicated macro mode. There is no telephoto lens. In good lighting, the main camera delivers excellent results. Images are detailed, dynamic range is well-handled. Colour science leans toward bright, slightly vibrant tones that look great on social media without tipping into oversaturation. White balance is accurate, and OIS keeps handheld shots sharp. The 2x digital zoom, which crops into the high-resolution main sensor, is very capable.

The ultra-wide camera is also decent. But colour temperature can skew cooler than the main lens in certain lighting conditions. Night photography is competent, with Night Vision mode producing bright, low-noise results. Though it cannot match the computational photography prowess of the flagships, it's good for the price. Video performance is solid for everyday use but can be inconsistent in more challenging conditions.

For casual photographers, travellers, and social media users, the Edge 70's camera system is more than adequate. It captures life well and handles most scenarios with confidence. Those who chase optical zoom and flagship-level processing will, however, want to look elsewhere.

PERFORMANCE:  Under the hood, the Motorola Edge 70 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 chipset, built on a 4nm TSMC process. This is paired with 8GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. The Adreno 722 GPU handles graphics. In the long term, I found daily performance as smooth and pretty responsive. App launches are fast, multitasking is handled without hesitation navigation through the interface feels fluid. Sustained performance tests are also encouraging. The Edge 70 retained 86% of its CPU performance after an hour of stress testing. The phone does warm up slightly during heavy loads when used for longer sessions, particularly around the aluminum frame, but never to an uncomfortable degree. Gaming performance is also good. I tested Call of Duty Mobile and the gameplay remained quite smooth. BGMI ran well as well with no lag or stutter even after 30-minute sessions.

On the software side, the Edge 70 runs Android 16 with Motorola's Hello UI layered on top. Hello UI is light-touch and clean, preserving the near-stock Android feel that has long been a Motorola selling point. Motorola has committed to four years of Android OS upgrades and six years of security updates.

On the AI fetaures, Motorola's Moto AI can be summoned from anywhere via the dedicated side button or back-tap gestures. It integrates with both Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot Vision. The inclusion of Perplexity AI for contextual search is nice. What is weird is the pre-installed bloatware. The Edge 70 ships with an excessive number of third-party apps. Motorola really needs to address this.

BATTERY: For a phone this thin, the battery story could have been compromised. But Motorola has  managed to fit a 4,800 mAh cell, which is commendable. I could easily get approximately 6 hours of screen-on time with moderate usage like social media, calls, messages, some YouTube, and light photography. On casual usage, the Edge 70 comfortably gets through a full day. Charging is handled by a 68W wired fast charger, which Motorola includes in the box. A full charge takes under 50 minutes. 15W wireless charging is also supported.

VERDICT: Priced at Rs. 32,999, the Motorola Edge 70 is a phone that sets out to answer a specific question. Can an ultra-thin phone be genuinely practical without the compromises? For the most part, the answer is a convincing yes. The design is beautiful and ergonomic, the display is bright and accurate, the battery life is good for its form factor, and the build quality is also impressive for a 6mm device. 

The tradeoffs are real but manageable. The Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 is not a powerhouse chip. The absence of a telephoto is a genuine gap. Also, the bloatware situation needs to be fixed immediately. But weighed against what the phone gets right these feel like acceptable compromises for most users. If you want a stylish, lightweight, and surprisingly durable phone that will comfortably last a day on a single charge and won't drain your savings in the process, the Motorola Edge 70 makes a strong and honest case for itself.