Motorola has released the new Edge 60 Fusion, but how does it differ from last year’s Edge 50 Fusion?
While the two sport the same stylish design and a range of attractive Pantone-certified colour options, this year’s affordable smartphone offers several key upgrades that improve on the already exceptional experience of last year’s Edge 50 Fusion. That includes better durability, improved screen tech, and more, all for the same £299 as its predecessor.
Here’s how the Motorola Edge 60 Fusion compares to the Motorola Edge 50 Fusion on paper, ahead of our full in-depth comparison coming very shortly.
Pricing and availability
The Motorola Edge 60 Fusion starts at an affordable £299 with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, with a 512GB option available at an additional cost. It’s available to buy right now from retailers like Amazon and Motorola itself.
The Edge 50 Fusion also retailed at £299, but as it came out in May 2024, it can now be found at a discount. It’s just £249 at Amazon at the time of writing, for example, and it’ll likely get cheaper over time as retailers shift the last remaining stock of the 2024 mid-ranger.
The Motorola Edge 60 Fusion is more durable
The Motorola Edge 60 Fusion looks a lot like its predecessor, sporting the same slim dimensions, curved back and quad-curved screen. Both are certainly among the more stylish budget-focused phones out there.
The popular Pantone partnership also remains in place, with this year’s smartphone available in Slipstream (navy blue), Amazonite (light blue) and Zephyr (pinky purple), complete with a Pantone logo on the rear.
What is new, aside from the option of a new canvas-inspired finish to complement the returning vegan leather finish, is a renewed focus on durability. The Edge 50 Fusion was already solid in this regard with its IP68 dust and water resistance and Gorilla Glass 5 screen protection, but the Edge 60 Fusion takes things a step further.
Matching the more premium Motorola Edge 50 from 2024, the Edge 60 Fusion offers MIL-STD-810H certification. It’s essentially a US military standard that shows that the smartphone has survived rigorous testing focused on elements like temperature, shock, vibration, dust, moisture and more.
That’s backed up by boosted IP69 dust and water resistance that protects the phone from high-pressure jets of hot water, while Gorilla Glass 7i should provide a slight improvement to screen protection.
The Motorola Edge 50 Fusion has a faster screen
The Motorola Edge 60 Fusion has several key upgrades in the screen department. Despite offering the same 6.7-inch pOLED panel as its predecessor, the Edge 60 Fusion seriously kicks it up a notch in the brightness department with a 4500nit peak brightness. That leaves the 1200nit peak brightness of its predecessor in the shadows, so to speak.
There’s also an upgrade in the resolution department, with a 1220p (1220 x 2400) resolution in place of the FHD+ (1080 x 2400) resolution of its predecessor, which should offer a slight boost to detail and overall sharpness.
However, the Edge 50 Fusion takes the lead when it comes to refresh rate, offering a faster 144Hz than the Edge 60 Fusion’s (fairly standard) 120Hz. Whether you’ll see a difference in real-world use outside of the handful of games that can run at 144fps is unlikely, but we can’t say for sure until we’ve compared both side-by-side.
The Motorola Edge 60 Fusion has a faster processor
As you might expect, the newer Edge 60 Fusion has a more capable chipset than its predecessor – though neither are exactly what we’d describe as truly powerful.
Last year’s Edge 50 Fusion ran the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 which we found to be solid, though not exceptional, in our review, while the Edge 60 Fusion switches sides to MediaTek’s Dimensity 7300. If it sounds familiar, it should; it’s the chipset of choice of not only the Motorola Edge 50 Neo, but the foldable Motorola Razr 50.
However, it’s also available on the CMF Phone 1, a phone around £100 cheaper than Motorola’s option. This gives you some idea of the kind of performance you should expect ahead of our in-depth testing.
Regardless of the phone you choose, both are equipped with up to 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, depending on the variant you go for.
The Motorola Edge 60 Fusion has more AI smarts
Not keen to miss out on the AI rush, even at the lower end of the smartphone market, the Motorola Edge 60 Fusion offers support for the company’s own Moto AI. It works with Gemini and essentially provides additional features and functionality for the virtual assistant.
These include Catch Me Up, which provides a summary of your notifications a la Apple Intelligence, and Pay Attention, which transcribes and summarises conversations. There’s also Remember This, which remembers important information from voice inputs, screenshots, and the like, while Recall allows you to quickly recall this information at a later date.
It also offers support for Magic Canvas, which allows for AI-powered image generation.
It’s unclear whether the Edge 50 Fusion will get Moto AI support via a software update later. A beta is available for the top-end Razr 50 Ultra, Edge 50 Ultra, and Razr 50, but not any of Motorola’s more affordable options.
The Motorola Edge 60 Fusion has a slightly larger battery
Rounding out the most notable changes with this year’s Edge 60 Fusion is a larger battery – though there isn’t that much in it.
The new Motorola Edge 60 Fusion packs in a relatively high-capacity 5200mAh battery within its slim chassis, a 200mAh increase on the 5000mAh cell of the Edge 50 Fusion. Whether this will translate to a notable difference in everyday use is yet to be seen, but combined with the slightly slower refresh rate, it could well provide an extra chunk of battery life.
Charging remains identical, however, offering the same support for 68W TurboCharge tech as its predecessor.
Early thoughts
The Motorola Edge 60 Fusion isn’t a complete redesign of the Edge 50 Fusion, but it doesn’t really need to be.
The Edge 50 Fusion was already an exceptional budget-friendly smartphone that not only sits atop our best cheap phone chart but also won the Best Affordable Phone award at the Trusted Reviews Awards 2024 – the Edge 60 Fusion just needed to strengthen that already strong experience, and it looks like it does exactly that.
Upgrades in the durability department are appreciated, and even if its 120Hz screen is slightly slower than that of its predecessor, the combination of a higher resolution and much higher peak brightness should be more noticeable and useful for users. A boosted processor with more AI smarts and a slightly bigger battery are nice to have, too.
That said, we’ll hold our final thoughts until we’ve thoroughly tested the new Edge 60 Fusion, so check back soon to see our full verdict.
