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Android 14, augmented by Hello UI
The Motorola Edge 50 Pro runs Android 14 with Motorola’s in-house customizations on top, now called Hello UI (“Hello, Moto!”). The company promises 3 OS updates and 4 years of security patches (which will be delivered on a quarterly basis, we’ve been told).
This is our first encounter with a Moto running Android 14 and also the first instance we’re seeing the Hello branding. We’ve repeatedly said that Motorola’s software looks a lot like AOSP with some added in-house features and finishing touches, and that remains true to a large extent.
Something as simple as a font can add a lot of personality though, and Motorola has been doing that expertly. An AI-generated wallpaper option is also on the table if you’re after personalization, because AI everything – Motorola calls it Style sync and the idea is to have a wallpaper tailor-made to your outfit today.
The customizations live in the usual Moto app ‘hub’, which has been restyled for this iteration. Things are now more neatly organized, with the categories that have a lot of entries, like Gestures, fitting things on a single page, no scrolling required.
Speaking of, the info page for each gesture now has an even better visual explanation as to how the gesture should work. Motorola went so far as to match the animation to the phone’s actual colorway – or is it just Luxe Lavender on all units, as the hero color?
Some long-standing Motorola features can be found on the Edge 50 Pro as well. The Ready For functionality has now been split into Ready For (for connecting to a PC or a tablet) and Moto Connect (for connecting to standalone displays, be it wired or wirelessly). The phone’s screen can be used as a trackpad or the whole phone can be an air mouse too. Both Ready For and Moto Connect can be launched from a quick toggle in the notification shade or from their app icons in the app drawer.
Moto Unplugged and Family Space are two features meant to restrict access to apps and features for one of two reasons – relaxing or staying focused yourself, on the one hand, or limiting a child’s phone usage, on the other.
Benchmarks
The Edge 50 Pro relies on the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 for its computing and compared to the Edge 40 Pro, that’s a +1 on the Gen, but a -1 on the series. That turns the new model into more of a midranger in terms of raw performance – that sort of makes sense, given that there’s an Ultra this time around, but still doesn’t help the Pro’s case against its own competitors.
That’s not necessarily to say the 7 Gen 3 is a bad SoC. While its positioning in the Qualcomm lineup is more than a little weird (a bit more powerful than the 7s Gen 2, nowhere as powerful as the 7+ Gen 2), it’s still an up-to-date 4nm chip. It features an octa-core CPU in a 1+4+3 configuration (1×2.63GHz A715 & 4×2.4GHz A715 & 3×1.8GHz A510) and the Adreno 720 GPU.
Memory options start at 8GB/128GB, and there are also 8GB/256GB and 12GB/256GB variants, while our review unit is the 12GB/512GB top spec. Not all storage tiers will be available on all markets.
Motorola quotes the storage type as UFS 2.2, but our review unit’s write speeds are more in line with UFS 3.1 for some reason.
Looking at the benchmark results, the Edge 50 Pro is not always in a favorable position. Flagship-grade rivals that can be had for Edge 50 Pro money in some markets are far out of reach in all metrics.
