Motorola Edge 60 Fusion Review: Minor Yet Meaningful Upgrades
The Motorola Edge 60 Fusion shows that even minor upgrades and good optimisation are enough to make a better mid-range smartphone.
Last year, Motorola did not have the Stylus, but it did have the Edge 50, and given its attractive starting price of Rs. 27,999, it made a lot of sense to stretch your budget by a little and get a smartphone with a lot of upgrades, given that the Edge 50 Fusion (from Rs. 22,999) was mainly a case of “all show and no go”. This year is another mess. It's mainly down to Motorola's confusing pricing. We have the Edge 60 Fusion priced from Rs. 22,999, the Edge 60 priced from Rs. 25,999 and the Edge 60 Pro priced from Rs. 29,999. The price margins have only grown tighter this year and so, choosing the Edge 60 over the Edge 60 Fusion is a more sensible option, provided you can spend the additional Rs. 3,000. But should you?
Editor's Note: Motorola launched its Edge 60 model priced at Rs. 25,999 in India a few weeks after this review was published. Our review has been updated to reflect our slightly altered verdict given that a new model by the same brand with more features is now offered at an additional Rs. 3,000.
Motorola Edge 60 Fusion Design: Still slick and slim
- Dimensions - 161.2 x 73.08 x 8.25 mm
- Weight - 180 grams
- Durability - IP68 + IP69 + MIL-STD-810H compliant
The Motorola Edge 60 Fusion appears and feels very similar to the Edge 50 Fusion it aims to replace. This year, Motorola has gone all out when it comes to design, offering the phone in vegan leather-clad options made from silicon. This is interesting because the phone's IP rating has also been bumped up to IP69, meaning it can withstand high-pressure jets of water and hot steam as well. However, do keep in mind that any damage due to water ingress will not be covered under warranty.
Motorola continues to go with its older design philosophy with a curved edge display (aggressively curves on the left and right sides), but the protective Gorilla Victus 7i screen also curves a bit at the top and bottom edges. There are also uniform and skinny borders all around, which is a stark contrast to the Samsung Galaxy A26 I reviewed earlier and is priced similarly. Its mid-frame is made from polycarbonate, is flat and has a matte finish.
Although it may appear slightly different, the camera unit remains unchanged in terms of hardware. Instead of two camera cutouts, there are now four, one of which holds the LED flash. Apart from the two user accessible cameras (primary and ultrawide), there is also now a third camera that functions as an ambient light sensor, flicker sensor and an RGB sensor.
Motorola Edge 60 Fusion Display: Looks good and works great!
- Display size - 6.67-inch, 2,712 x 1,220 pixels, 1.5K, (446 PPI)
- Display type - pOLED, 120Hz
- Display protection - Gorilla Glass Victus 7i
Upgrades are always good to have, and the Edge 60 Fusion gets a better display than the previous model. There's now a 1.5K display with a higher pixel density compared to the last full-HD+ screen. It's plenty sharp and shows natural colours with the Natural screen colour mode enabled. This display has a high brightness mode of 1,400 nits and offers a peak brightness of 4,500 nits. It was able to tackle the bright outdoors whenever the situation presented itself, given the monsoons in Mumbai.
That said, when set to Auto mode, the screen's refresh rate remains capped at 90Hz only. Things remain this way when browsing through the interface and operating apps but drops to 60Hz when playing games. The maximum 120Hz screen refresh rate only goes into effect when you enable it manually in Settings. But again, this setting only sticks to 120Hz when using the software interface and browsing through apps and not for games. The touch sampling rate is set to 300Hz, and it felt sufficient when playing fast-paced FPS titles.
The phone does have an HDR certification, but I could not stream or find supported HDR content when using OTT apps like Netflix or Amazon Prime Video. However, YouTube did seem to support it, and it looked really good with contrasted blacks and vibrant colours. The overall picture quality in general is great, and you get Widevine L1 support for streaming content in full-HD playback resolution.
It's nice to see Motorola retain the Edge 50 Fusion's stereo speakers on the new model. The speakers support Dolby Atmos sound and can get really loud, but sound clear even at high volume. I was pretty impressed by the Dolby Atmos integration, which does a fine job of delivering immersive audio when viewing supported content in OTT apps.
Motorola Edge 60 Fusion Software: Now with budding AI features
- Software version - Android 15
- Software - Hello UI
- Software commitment - 3 years OS + 4 Years SMR
Motorola's software experience over the years has gradually moved from what used to be a clean and near-stock interface to offering moderate bloatware. It's nowhere close to Samsung in the bloatware business, but it's sort of on the path to getting there eventually. One reason behind these additional Moto-branded apps that keep growing with every passing year is the growing Motorola ecosystem. Today, it includes not only smartphones but also laptops, tablets, TVs, and smart appliances. Bloatware aside, there are also three preinstalled apps and four games, but all of these could be uninstalled. On the plus side, I did not receive any random or spammy notifications on the phone during the review period.
Motorola's Hello UI, despite the growing number of apps, has managed to maintain its near-stock appearance. You still get the ability to change fonts (there's plenty to pick from, unlike other brands) and change icon shapes (a feature that will be making a comeback with the next version of Android). What I did find annoying was seeing ads in the default weather app, a newsfeed built right into the app drawer (like Google's Discover Feed wasn't enough) and the need to choose between the two AI interfaces (Moto AI and Gemini AI).
Remember, this lets you snap or take a screenshot and add a voice note for recall, but unlike Nothing's take, it cannot set any to-do's or reminders, which makes it half as useful. Accessing your Memory (where the Remember this stores these notes) is also quite a few menus deep (Home Screen> App Drawer> Moto AI app> Settings icon> Memory). While you can manually search for memory and expand to check the tagged photo, you cannot edit but only delete existing memories.
There's another Moto AI feature called Update me, which basically glances through your notifications and creates a concise summary, which is spoken out by Moto AI. This is handy in case you haven't checked your phone for a while and still have your hands full.
Motorola Edge 60 Fusion Performance: Typically mid-range
- Processor - MediaTek Dimensity 7400, 2.5GHz, 4nm
- RAM - 8/12GB (LPDDR4X)
- Storage - 256GB (UFS 2.2) + 1TB Micro(SD) (Hybrid)
We faced no performance issues with the Edge 50 Fusion last year, and Motorola's choice of processor for its Edge 60 Fusion provides a similar experience this year. You will experience no hiccups or lag when operating the phone's software or apps, but I did not notice the device getting hot when using the camera app (which slows down the app a bit). The phone does not have a cooling mechanism in place and, so the heat from the processor can be felt on the display instead of the (silicon) vegan leather-clad rear panel.
Benchmark results, as expected, were as it should be for a mid-range device.
| Benchmarks | Moto Edge 60 Fusion | Nothing Phone 3a | Poco F6 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chipset | MediaTek Dimensity 7400 SoC (4nm) | Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 (4nm) | Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 (4nm) |
| Display resolution | 1.5K | FHD+ | 1.5K |
| AnTuTu v10 | 6,49,652 | 8,04,179 | 14,57,491 |
| PCMark Work 3.0 | 16,841 | 13,554 | 15,743 |
| Geekbench 6 Single | 1,087 | 1,158 | 1,835 |
| Geekbench 6 Multi | 3,049 | 3,255 | 4,693 |
| GFXB T-rex | 92 | 60 | 120 |
| GFXB Manhattan 3.1 | 46 | 55 | 112 |
| GFXB Car Chase | 26 | 28 | 71 |
| 3DM Slingshot Extreme OpenGL | 5,742 | 5,485 | 5,481 |
| 3DM Slingshot | 7,155 | 6,954 | 4,655 |
| 3DM Wild Life | 3,630 | 3,988 | Maxed Out |
| 3DM Wild Life Unlimited | 3,675 | 4,175 | 11,734 |
Gaming performance is quite good, and the phone manages sustained and smooth gameplay when playing Asphalt Legends Unite at the highest possible settings (60 fps mode only). When playing Call of Duty: Mobile, the phone manages smooth performance both when playing at Very High graphics and Very High frame rate and when playing at Low graphics and Ultra frame rate. Given the underlying hardware (we were given the 12GB RAM variant), the Ultra setting manages around 60 fps and not 90 or 120 fps like on premium devices. Also, a majority of the graphics effects in this game are greyed out.
Motorola Edge 60 Fusion Cameras: A capable shooter
- Primary camera - 50-megapixel, f/1.8, OIS, AF
- Ultrawide camera - 13-megapixel, f/2.2, PDAF
- Selfie camera - 32-megapixel, f/2.2, FF
Since the camera setup seems unchanged, I was curious to see if the new processor (its ISP) and other imaging optimisations have made a difference. To my surprise, things have changed for the better, at least for the primary camera. And most of the improvements seem to be due to the use of the third additional camera or sensor.