Motorola Edge 60 Fusion review: The high-end budget phone to beat

Finest Costs At the moment: Motorola Edge 60 Fusion

Motorola has produced a run of nice gadgets not too long ago, from a Razr household that gives choices and distinction within the folding telephone market, via to a variety of Edge fashions that supply nice worth for cash and a few distinctive design options.

Key to the Motorola providing has been the software program expertise that’s about as near a Pixel as you’ll get with out shopping for a Pixel. Whereas different producers providing gadgets at this worth try to completely personal the software program expertise, Motorola has been providing a (largely) bloat-free expertise that’s near inventory Android.

However with a variety of telephones, you’d be forgiven for not likely figuring out what’s what within the Motorola line-up. The Motorola Edge 60 Fusion replaces the Motorola Edge 50 Fusion, and is the most cost effective choice within the Edge household, which is all a few premium expertise.

As such it sits above the Moto G and Moto E fashions, however beneath the Edge 60, Edge 60 Professional and Edge 60 Neo.

I’ve been testing the Edge 60 Fusion for a few weeks to see what this telephone truly affords.

Design & Construct

• Pantone colors with vegan leather-based end
• Plastic body
• IP68 and IP69 water and dirt resistance

Motorola’s design pairs one thing distinctive with one thing that’s a little bit outdated in smartphone design phrases. On the one hand, the Edge 60 Fusion’s rear cowl (right here within the Pantone Amazonite color with a vegan leather-based end) is daring, attention-grabbing and surprisingly premium for a £300 telephone.

Motorola’s persevering with partnership with Pantone ends in some nice colors and I really like the brightness of the end. As such, it is a telephone that doesn’t wish to be put in a case, as that may break the entire impact.

The fake leather-based feels premium, offers loads of grip and stays mercifully fingerprint-free, so this telephone seems to be lots higher than a budget plastic rivals you may think about instead.

On the identical time, the Edge 60 Fusion nonetheless contains a curved edge design. This sees the display screen curving on the edges, the body narrowed and a extra rounded profile than you discover on many telephones as of late.

Chris Corridor / Foundry

On one hand this makes the telephone very easy to grip, not like the squared edges you’ll discover on nearly each different machine, however on the identical time, it’s primarily the identical design that Samsung was utilizing a few decade in the past.

As befits this telephone’s place as an inexpensive machine, the body is plastic and the display screen will get Gorilla Glass 7i safety. The telephone weighs 178g and is 7.95mm thick, so it’s pretty skinny.

Rounding out the design facet of issues is IP68 and IP69 water and dirt safety. Not all producers supply IP69 safety, however it signifies that this telephone will stand up to not only a dunking in water, however publicity to excessive stress water jets too. Whereas that may sound a little bit summary, it simply alerts a better customary of safety.

Display & Audio system

• 6.67-inch pOLED show
• Stereo audio system

One factor that Motorola has finished effectively over the previous couple of years is shows. This 6.67-inch pOLED show has the identical really feel to it that I bought from the Edge 50 Fusion. It’s vivid, vibrant and splendidly clean, due to the 120Hz refresh fee help. The Edge 50 Fusion provided 144Hz, however the loss doesn’t really feel important.

Out of the field I discovered that the show was on Vivid mode, which provides a pleasant saturation to your content material. Some may discover that a little bit too wealthy, however there are alternatives for Pure and Radiant too. You possibly can fine-tune the color temperature for every mode within the settings to get the look you need. But it surely’s price noting that you just get “Pantone Validated” colors from this show, though I’m undecided what that’s purported to imply.

It’s a 2712 x 1220 pixel decision, which provides you 446ppi, so this show has the element to rival that of a flagship telephone. It’s additionally brighter than many flagship gadgets, with 4500 nits peak brightness. This permits two issues: first, it will probably ramp up the brightness in full daylight to take care of reflections (which does ship the color steadiness on the show barely out of whack, however a minimum of you may nonetheless see it) and it additionally means there’s nice potential for HDR.

Chris Corridor / Foundry

Whereas HDR10+ help is listed, I didn’t discover any HDR10+ content material, though that may not be a nasty factor: the HDR10+ content material I’ve watching from Netflix not too long ago has been much more muted than beforehand.

HDR additionally comes out in pictures, with Google Pictures an awesome place to see pictures pop, utilizing this excessive peak brightnesses to carry out that HDR impact. On the Motorola Edge 60 Fusion this didn’t appear to occur. Regardless of being brighter than the Pixel 9 Professional XL, it didn’t look pretty much as good when viewing pictures on the show.

That implies to me that, at this cut-off date, the potential of that 4500 nits isn’t actually getting used. The opposite concern I’ve with the show comes all the way down to design. Whereas the curved edges look good and support grip, contact sensitivity on these edges isn’t nice, which reduces the efficiency of this telephone for gaming. It’s simply not as efficient as a flat display screen.

The audio system are fairly good although, with loads of quantity, and I discovered the turning them up whereas hammering Name of Responsibility Cellular made issues good and immersive.

Specs & Efficiency

• MediaTek Dimensity 7300 chipset
• 8GB of RAM
• 256GB of storage + 1TB microSD

Sitting on the coronary heart of the Edge 60 Fusion is the MediaTek Dimensity 7300. It is a mid-range platform that performs its half in preserving that worth down, whereas being typically equal to one thing just like the Snapdragon 7 collection. In reality, the earlier model of this telephone had the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2.

On paper there’s a slight step-up in efficiency, however in my testing I didn’t discover a lot enchancment and, when gaming, I discovered it wasn’t fairly as clean as I used to be anticipating.

One persistent concern I skilled was connectivity: the Edge 60 Fusion struggled to hook up with my residence Wi-Fi at instances, when different gadgets had been utterly effective. This was most noticeable when gaming, as a result of I’d discover that I used to be not related.

Gaming efficiency did appear to stutter at instances – even when related to Wi-Fi – and that mixed with the curved edges on the show makes it arduous to suggest this telephone if you wish to be aggressive on-line. It’s effective for informal gaming, however not when you’re a hardcore CoD fan.

There’s just one model obtainable, with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage, though that may differ from area to area. There’s additionally help for as much as 1TB microSD card growth.

The Edge 60 Fusion is typical of this degree of machine. Day-to-day interactions are completely clean: skipping between social media and emails presents no issues, however when you begin to do extra demanding issues, you’ll hit the constraints of what the telephone affords.

Motorola 60 Edge fusion benchmarks

Cameras

• 50Mp f/1.8 essential
• 13Mp f/2.2 ultrawide
• 32Mp f/2.2 selfie

You may assume that the digital camera has seen one thing of an improve from that final model of this telephone. Beforehand, there have been solely two lenses on the again, however now there look like 4. It’s a little bit of a trick, making the Edge 60 Fusion look nearly equivalent to the Edge 60 Professional, a telephone that’s specced fairly a bit greater.

Chris Corridor / Foundry

A kind of rear digital camera components is the flash, that’s apparent sufficient, however the third is a “3-in-1 gentle sensor”. Have you ever ever requested your self why flagship fashions by no means appear to have these sensors? Maybe as a result of they’re not wanted.

It’s arduous to inform what this gentle sensor does. I took a collection of pictures throughout the cameras with the sunshine sensor lined and uncovered and couldn’t see any distinction, so I think it’s largely simply there to look good.

The primary digital camera on the Edge 60 Fusion is spectacular, producing good, vivid pictures. There’s a slight color distinction between the ultrawide and essential cameras, however to not a worrying diploma. I examined it alongside the Pixel 9a and located that it typically resulted in brighter pictures, though shadowy areas can generally be ramped up a little bit greater than they need to be.

The entrance digital camera affords good high quality selfies too, with a portrait mode that I discovered correct sufficient when detecting edges.

There’s no optical zoom right here, with the principle digital camera providing 2x zoom within the viewfinder after which as much as 10x digital zoom. On the far finish, outcomes aren’t good, so it’s greatest prevented. 

Battery Life & Charging

• 5200mAh
• 68W wired charging
• No wi-fi charging

The battery efficiency of the Edge 60 Fusion is stable. I discovered it to final via the day often with out concern. Even on an extended day travelling the place I used to be hotspotting a number of the time, I discovered that the Edge 60 Fusion nonetheless managed to provide me with a connection via your entire day.

That’s due to the 5200mAh battery, which is giant by any measure, bigger than many flagship telephones. In the case of charging, you additionally take pleasure in 68W help. This isn’t the quickest that Motorola affords – the Edge 60 Professional affords 90W charging – however it means you may get this telephone recharged very quickly in any respect.

There’s no charger within the field, however connecting it to an present 90W charger, I discovered that I might get the telephone from 0 to over 60% in half-hour. Motorola highlights that you would be able to get a day of use from a 15-minute cost. It might need to be a day of sunshine use, however it’s nonetheless nice to have quick charging in a telephone at this degree.

Software program & Apps

• Android 15
• Moto AI options
• 3 years OS updates, 4 years safety patches

Motorola has provided an inexpensive different to Pixel over the past couple of years, with a clear Android expertise. The Edge 60 Fusion launches on Android 15, however is barely in line for 3 OS updates so it’ll cease at Android 18 in 2028. You’ll get 4 years of safety updates.

It is a little behind the curve: Samsung affords six years of updates on the Galaxy A36 5G for instance, whereas the Pixel 9a will get seven years, though admittedly each telephones are dearer than the Motorola.

Again to the software program and that is nonetheless a reasonably clear Android expertise, however there are some preinstalled apps that Motorola dumps in. There’s a handful of video games right here and although you’re requested if you wish to set up sure apps throughout setup (which you’ll be able to decline to do), you’ll nonetheless find yourself with some junk. Luckily, you may uninstall all of it.

There’s a brand new addition for 2025, which has shaped the main focus of what Motorola is pushing within the Edge 60 Fusion (and different gadgets). That’s Moto AI: sure, Motorola is now providing its personal AI options on prime of these you get from Google. So you may as well entry Gemini, and get picture enhancing abilities via Google Pictures, and integration into Google apps.

Whereas the feel and appear of the Motorola Edge 60 Fusion remains to be very very like Android, you may see how Motorola is making an attempt to take possession via Moto AI.

Chris Corridor / Foundry

To entry Moto AI you’ll have to signal right into a Moto account, which you’ll often be prompted to do. That provides you with entry to a variety of options designed that can assist you save and recall info, analyse screenshots or net pages, reply questions on the fly, or summarise your notifications. That is powered by Perplexity AI and exists as one other layer in your telephone.

That features integration into the apps tray, the place the search bar for apps additionally affords AI queries. New tabs are added to the apps tray as effectively.

Chris Corridor / Foundry

This features a newsfeed, which is powered by Taboola and instantly served my up a group of tales about cats, a machete assault and somebody urinating right into a salmon fish farm.

It feels a little bit compelled and intrusive, however fortuitously you may flip it off within the settings. Equally, when you don’t like AI search within the apps tray, you may flip that off too. For those who don’t log in in any respect you may keep away from all of Moto AI, whereas gestures (like double urgent on the facility button) might be switched to one thing extra helpful, similar to launching the digital camera.

Worth & Availability

The Motorola Edge 60 Fusion launched at £299.99 and within the UK is barely obtainable with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage. It’s obtainable direct from Motorola and Amazon, the place it’s presently on sale for £228.99. It’s not formally obtainable within the US.

The Samsung Galaxy A36 5G is a pure rival to this machine, whereas the Nothing Cellphone (3a) sits in an analogous place however is a bit more costly. See our round-up of one of the best finances telephones for our prime suggestions.

Must you purchase the Motorola Edge 60 Fusion?

The Motorola Edge 60 Fusion affords good worth for cash. It’s noteworthy for its distinctive colors and high quality finishes, excessive degree of water safety and the nice show on the entrance, which has loads of efficiency and vibrancy.

The primary digital camera is an effective performer, the battery life is powerful and charging is quicker than common. However I’m not satisfied by Motorola’s AI options and I favor the cleaner Android expertise you’ll get when you flip it off. The primary digital camera is fairly good and the day-to-day expertise is clean sufficient, however when you push the {hardware}, it’ll begin to battle.

These wanting a telephone for gaming ought to look elsewhere, however when you’re after a great all-rounder, the Motorola Edge 60 Fusion may very well be all of the telephone you want.

Specs

• 6.67-inch, 120Hz Tremendous HD AMOLED essential show 
• MediaTek Dimensity 7300
• 8GB RAM 
• 256GB storage 
• 50Mp, f/1.8 essential digital camera with OIS 
• 13Mp, f/2.2 ultrawide digital camera 
• 32Mp, f/2.2 selfie digital camera 
• 5200mAh battery 
• 68W wired charging 
• Stereo audio system 
• IP69 water and dirt resistance 
• Gorilla Glass 7i
• 5G 
• Bluetooth 5.4 
• 161 x 73 x 7.95mm
• 178g 
• Android 15