Motorola Edge 50 Ultra vs Google Pixel 8 Pro

Motorola recently announced its Edge 50 series, and boy oh boy, does it offer a great bang for your buck. The best model in the range is the Motorola Edge 50 Ultra, a true flagship with aspirations to take down the big boys, or at least give them a serious run for their money.

Today, we’re going to make a quick preliminary comparison between the aforementioned Motorola Edge 50 Ultra and Google’s best offering, the Pixel 8 Pro. These two phones have a lot in common, but they are also very different in some aspects.

Motorola Edge 50 Ultra vs Google Pixel 8 Pro differences:

Table of Contents:

Finally! We have arrived at a point where there’s a flagship phone with unique build materials. The Motorola Edge 50 Ultra features a wood back option (that’s right) and also a vegan leather one, while the good old Pixel 8 Pro comes with Gorilla Glass on the back.

There are design differences all around. The Motorola sports a much classier, flush-with-the-body camera system (gently curving out), while the Pixel 8 Pro uses an iteration of the camera bar.

When it comes to size, the Motorola is more compact, even though the screen diagonal is the same. As you might’ve guessed, we’re talking about a curved screen, so it might not be everyone’s cup of tea. The Motorola is also lighter—not by a ton, but a little lighter nonetheless.

The Pixel 8 Pro comes in Porcelain, Obsidian, and Bay Blue, and the Motorola is available in Forest Grey (silicone/vegan leather), Peach Fuzz (silicone/vegan leather), and Nordic Wood (wood).

Moving to the display department, there are again differences to be found. The Motorola features a FHD+ display (2400 x 1080 pixels, 20:9 ratio, 393 PPI), while the Pixel 8 Pro comes with a higher resolution panel at 2992 x 1344 pixels and 490 PPI.

On the other hand, the Motorola can do 144Hz display refresh rates, while the Pixel 8 Pro tops at 120Hz. As we mentioned above, the Motorola uses a slightly curved display, while the one on the Pixel 8 Pro is flat, so that’s another consideration right there.

In terms of brightness, Motorola cites 2,500 nits of peak brightness, and we will test this claim once the phone arrives. The Pixel 8 Pro has 2,400 nits of peak brightness on its specs sheet, and we were able to measure 1,449 nits, which is one of the highest results we’ve had. It will be interesting to see if the Edge 50 Ultra will be able to topple that.

As far as biometrics go, both phones rely on under-display fingerprint scanners, with the Pixel 8 Pro also offering a face recognition option. Again, we need to test the Moto to see how good this scanner is and if there’s anything special about it.

The Motorola Edge 50 Ultra comes with the newest Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset, a special version of the regular Gen 3, focused heavily on generative AI and on-device AI, which is not as powerful as the regular 8 Gen 3, but much more efficient. The Pixel 8 Pro uses a third-generation Tensor chipset, which employs an AI-centric philosophy from the get go.We expect the Snapdragon to be the faster chip here, especially when it comes to raw power and synthetic benchmark scores, but we’re not sure how the AI features will stack against each other between the 8s Gen 3 and the Tensor G3.

In terms of RAM, both phones feature 12GB, which is pretty standard in modern flagships, but the Motorola has more storage. The Edge 50 Ultra is listed with 512GB of onboard storage, while the Pixel 8 Pro can be had with a 256GB base storage configuration.

The software features will be pretty interesting. Google is hard at work perfecting its Gemini LLM, and with each and every feature drop, the Pixel 8 Pro becomes smarter. We still don’t know what AI features the Motorola will have, so we’re pretty excited about what’s to come. Stay tuned.

The camera battle between these two will be fierce! The Motorola Edge 50 Ultra comes with three cameras on its back – a main camera with a 50MP sensor under a lens with an f/1.6 aperture, an ultrawide 50MP camera, and a 64MP, 3X Zoom, f/2.4 camera. The selfie camera has plenty of pixels and an f/1.9 aperture, along with autofocus.

The Pixel 8 Pro is a known entity when it comes to photography. The phone features the same trio of cameras on its back: wide, ultrawide, and telephoto, but with slightly different specs. The main camera is similar to the one used in the Edge 50 Ultra. It’s a 50MP sensor with a similar size, and the aperture is f/1.7. The ultrawide camera is 48MP, F1.9, with a pixel size of 0.8 μm. 

Motorola has been doing a great job lately when it comes to audio and haptics. The midrange Motorola Edge 50 Pro comes with pretty decent stereo loudspeakers, and the haptics are pretty strong and snappy too.

We expect at least the same quality and loudness in the Motorola Edge 50 Ultra, as it’s the most premium model you can buy, but we need to run some tests to be sure.

The Pixel 8 Pro has pretty decent sound and haptics as well, so there will be a serious battle in this department. Neither of these phones features a 3.5mm audio jack, so you have to settle for Bluetooth earbuds or use some kind of adapter.

Another section where benchmarks speak louder than words, but as we don’t have any benchmarks yet, we might as well say a few words and share our expectations.

The Motorola Edge 50 Ultra sports a 4,500 mAh battery, which is not much, especially by modern flagship standards. In comparison, the Pixel 8 Pro comes with a 5,050 cell, and in our tests, it ranks 10th in battery life. That’s pretty decent results, given the sheer number of phones we’ve tested in the past 2 years.

When it comes to charging, though, we expect the Motorola to obliterate the Pixel, as it comes with one of the fastest wired charging systems available, pumping 125W of power into the phone. The battery and charging tests will be extremely interesting, so stay tuned!

On paper, this will be a close battle. The Motorola Edge 50 Ultra comes with a lot of bells and whistles, not to mention the cool wood/leather design. Performance-wise and price-wise, both the Edge 50 Ultra and the Pixel 8 Pro seem very close.

It will all boil down to whether you want a Pixel phone with all the AI magic onboard, coupled with the promise of seven years of updates. Or you prefer to go against the grain and get something unique but still very capable. Stay tuned for our final verdict.