This 2025 Motorola phone is quietly becoming one of my favorite Android devices

When I first decided to try out the Motorola Edge 70, I was both curious and skeptical. I wasn’t sold on the ultra-slim form factor and was worried about the compromises required to achieve it.

However, after spending two weeks with the device, it has charmed me a lot more than I initially expected. In fact, it has made me a fan of a design I’ve mostly dismissed, with the Motorola Edge 70 quietly becoming one of my favorite Android phones.

When rumors first emerged that Samsung was working on an ultra-slim device, I was intrigued. After all, when I look at my older smartphones, I do miss how light some of them were. But when the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge arrived, it made far too many compromises to be an appealing option for me.

It featured an abysmally small  3,900mAh battery, which was further held back by its 25W wired charging. It also only featured two rear cameras — a 200MP wide-angle lens and a 12MP ultrawide lens — with no telephoto lens. For me, this wouldn’t provide the versatility I wanted in my phone’s camera setup, especially when it comes to optical zoom.

At the same time, the S25 Edge’s slim form factor didn’t come with a shaved-down price point. At launch, it cost $1,099, making it more expensive than the base S25 and S25 Plus. Its slim form factor came at a premium price, while it featured worse battery life and a worse camera setup than Samsung’s other flagships. It just didn’t make sense to me.

When the Motorola Edge 70 arrived, I was impressed by how slim the device is, especially since my secondary phone is the bulky Galaxy S23 Ultra. The Edge 70 measures 5.99mm thick, making it only slightly thicker than the 5.8mm Galaxy S25 Edge. But since this is a fraction of a millimeter, I’d say they’re definitely playing in the same realm of thinness. At 159g, the Edge 70 is also a few grams lighter than Samsung’s 163g competitor.

I can’t deny that a phone this slim feels good to hold, especially during long sessions. I’ve been using it to play Pokémon Go and my wrist has been thanking me after swapping out my 234g S23 Ultra. But what use is a slim device if it can’t keep up?

I kept expecting to run into shortfalls due to the device’s slim form factor, but instead Motorola has created a pretty well-rounded smartphone with attractive features beyond its slimness. With a Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 processor, it has handled all the tasks I throw at it without any difficulty. This includes multitasking between apps and running games.

Its battery life is also extremely capable for such a slim device, with the phone featuring a 4,800mAh silicon-carbon battery. I kept waiting for it to let me down at Pokémon Go events, where I run the game for multiple hours, but it hasn’t failed me yet. With 68W wired charging, it’s also quick to top up. For comparison, Samsung’s S26 Ultra features a 5,000mAh battery and 60W wired charging.

The camera setup also feels more balanced compared to the S25 Edge. It features a 50MP front camera and a dual rear camera setup with two 50MP lenses. But there is one compromise I noticed.

One drawback the Edge 70 shares with Samsung’s S25 Edge is the lack of a telephoto camera. And as much as I’ve enjoyed using the Edge’s other sensors, the lack of optical zoom is limiting. It features 2x optical-like zoom through cropping, but it’s not a true substitute for a real telephoto lens.

The shots from the phone’s 50MP main camera are clear and vibrant, while its macro mode helps to focus on close-up subjects. It also handles moving subjects — my cats, in most cases — extremely well. But when your subject is just outside the ideal range, a telephoto lens really comes in handy. In fact, 5x optical zoom is the saving grace of the S26 Ultra experience for me.

Unfortunately, it seems that this sacrifice was in the name of the phone’s extremely slim form factor. Its predecessor, the Motorola Edge 60, featured a 10MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom (as well as a larger battery), but was bulkier at 7.9mm thick and 179g.

I hope there comes a time when smartphone manufacturers figure out how to fit telephoto cameras into ultra-slim devices, though this will probably remain a challenge for some time. Devices with capable cameras and thin profiles already struggle with smartphone camera wobble (though the Motorola Edge 70 balances this well with its camera bump placement).

But to me, the Edge 70 is proving that the form factor can minimize its compromises while balancing performance in other spheres. If a thin and light smartphone is what you’re looking for, I’d keep an eye on what Motorola is doing.