Motorola Edge 70 Max review: just one good camera won’t cut it
21.9.2026
Translation: Natalie McKay
Pictures: Jan Johannsen
The «Max» in Motorola Edge 70 Max refers to its large battery and powerful chipset. But the manufacturer has scrimped on the camera setup.
The standard Motorola Edge 70 is nice and slim, but its performance is sometimes lacking when on the go. Motorola has made the case for the Edge 70 Max 2.3 millimetres thicker to accommodate a more powerful chipset and a larger battery. But there’s still no telephoto camera, and the ultra-wide-angle camera has been downgraded.
Durable case and a large display
Visually, the Edge 70 Max has a very sleek and elegant design. The colours it comes in are less bright than Motorola’s usual options. The aluminium frame gives the smartphone a premium look, and the back is made of glass. Just like on the front, it features scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass 7i. The entire gadget’s waterproof in line with the IP69 standard (30 minutes at a water depth of up to 1.5 metres), and it can even withstand a powerful water jet.
On the front, there’s a 6.83-inch AMOLED display with a high resolution of 3,168 × 1,440 pixels. The refresh rate reaches up to 144 Hertz – perfect for gaming. The bezel around the touchscreen is relatively wide, which makes this large smartphone look even heftier. Compared to the Edge 70, the Max version is three millimetres wider and 4.1 millimetres longer.
More than enough power
Motorola uses the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 in the Edge 70 Max. It offers significantly better performance compared to the Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 in the Edge 70. Unfortunately, I only have Geekbench results for it, but in those tests, the Edge 70 Max achieves double the CPU performance and triple the GPU performance.
The chipset in the Edge 70 Max is clearly a cut above those in other mid-range smartphones. But it doesn’t come close to the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 found in top-of-the-line models. Still, it offers more than enough processing power for everyday use and beyond.
Long battery life
At 7,100 mAh, the Edge 70 Max’s battery is above average, but capacities in this range are no longer uncommon. Using the PCMark Work 3.0 battery test, I measured a runtime of 18 hours and 51 minutes with the display brightness set to half. That’s pretty decent and better than the 13 hours my colleague Michelle reported for the Edge 70. But it’s not enough to make it into the top ten for battery life.
Despite its high capacity, the battery’s supposed to fully charge in 51 minutes. The Edge 70 Max can handle up to 90 watts. If a power supply provides less power, charging is slower. Wireless charging also takes longer, even though the smartphone can draw up to 25 watts with Qi2 25 W. And that’s not all – the Edge 70 Max is one of the few Android smartphones to feature magnets for powerbanks and other accessories.
You can also use the large battery to charge other devices. But the current flows so slowly that this is only useful in extreme cases. The Edge 70 Max delivers up to five watts via cable.
No telephoto camera and a poor ultra-wide-angle camera
The Edge 70 Max falls short when it comes to the cameras. While the main camera does offer a decent digital zoom, other cameras in this price range – and in some cases even cheaper ones – have a dedicated telephoto camera. And on top of that, the ultra-wide-angle camera delivers poor image quality.
For the Edge 70 Max’s main camera, Motorola uses the Sony Lytia 710, the same image sensor found in the Edge 70 Pro and the 70 Fusion. On paper, the Edge 70 also has a sensor with the same specifications. But I haven’t found any proof of this for this model. Motorola has downgraded the ultra-wide-angle camera – 8 megapixels instead of 50, an f/2.2 aperture instead of f/2.0 and a sensor size of just 1/4.0 inch instead of 1/2.76 inch. The specs of the 32-megapixel front-facing camera also are worse, but not quite as bad as the ultra-wide-angle camera.
The main camera produces highly detailed images, though the colours appear somewhat muted. They’re less flashy than on most other smartphones. That’s not a bad thing. But if you disagree, you can make the colours more vibrant with just one click during post-processing.
The Camera app offers a 2x zoom. It’s fully digital and doesn’t get me quite as close to the subject as a telephoto camera with a 3x or 5x zoom. The result looks good, though, and shows none of the typical signs of digital zoom.
In low light, the main camera produces mediocre images. Night mode makes my photos too bright. The level of detail is sufficient as long as I don’t zoom in on the image. Streetlights have a corona that you may or may not like.
The ultra-wide-angle camera, on the other hand, fails to produce presentable images, even in daylight. It’s not immediately apparent on the smartphone screen, but when I zoom in just a little, I can see that the entire image is blurry.
It gets even worse in low light. I’ll spare your eyes from having to see the picture. If you want to use an ultra-wide-angle camera, the Edge 70 Max isn’t the smartphone for you.
The front-facing camera, on the other hand, takes decent selfies. The level of detail is high, the images are sharp and the colours are vivid. The only exception is when the sun shines directly into the lens, but even that has its charm:
There are also some fun features. With Frame Match, I can tell someone else how I want to frame a photo. First, I capture a transparent overlay of the part of the image I want. Then I hand the smartphone to someone else and step into the frame. The photographer can now see the composition I want to capture and can use it as a guide.
In Photo Booth mode, the Edge 70 Max takes four selfies in a row, three seconds apart. Although these photos also appear individually in the gallery, the main purpose is to print all four photos together.
Many preinstalled apps I could do without
Android 16 runs on the Edge 70 Max out of the box; the update to Android 17 hasn’t landed yet. Motorola plans to provide the smartphone with four operating system updates and security updates for six years. This means the manufacturer falls one year short of the EU’s operating system requirements, which many other suppliers manage to meet.
Other than that, you’ll find several preinstalled apps from Motorola. Moto Secure lets you customise security settings; with Moto Unplugged, you can take intentional breaks from distractions; and Smart Connect establishes connections to PCs or tablets for cross-device use. With Family Space, you can manage your kid’s smartphone or create a space on your own smartphone where they can’t mess anything up. Why aren’t these just menu items in the settings?
Motorola also installs a few third-party apps but I’m pleased to report they’re easy to uninstall. In addition to the usual suspects like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, I’m particularly offended by Galleryit. At first, I thought it was Motorola’s Gallery app. But it turns out it’s a free app with annoying ads that distract me from editing my photos. So I quickly switched to Google Photos.
There’s also a preinstalled AI app – Perplexity – but it’s by no means the only AI tool on the phone. Gemini is on board too, and Motorola is also equipping its smartphones with its own AI assistant – Qira. This requires me to sign in with a Motorola account – even before I can use it across devices, such as PCs, tablets or laptops from parent company Lenovo.
In a nutshell
Too many weaknesses spoil the overall impression
The Motorola Edge 70 Max does a lot of things right. But for its price range, it has too many shortcomings for me to recommend it. It starts with the lack of a telephoto camera, which other manufacturers already include in less expensive models. It continues with the utterly useless ultra-wide-angle camera and ends with the excessive preinstalled apps.
Motorola gets everything right when it comes to the case and display, but that’s not enough to redeem it. The performance is more than satisfactory and the battery life easily gets me through the day. The main camera and the front-facing camera produce decent photos. Even the fact that the Edge 70 Max is one of just a handful of smartphones that supports 25 W Qi2 charging with a magnetic mount can’t change my mind.
For a smartphone at the higher end of the mid-range price bracket, that won’t cut it. I’d prefer the much more affordable Nothing Phone (4a) Pro, even though it has less processing power, or I’d just buy a Galaxy S26 or Xiaomi 17T Pro, say, for a similar price.
Pro
- Fantastic display
- Sturdy case
- Long battery life
- Wireless charging with Qi2 25 W
Contra
- Useless ultra-wide-angle camera
- No telephoto camera
- Preinstalled (third-party) apps
Header image: Jan Johannsen
Jan Johannsen
Senior Editor
Jan.Johannsen@galaxus.deAs a primary school pupil, I used to sit in a friend's living room with many of my classmates to play the Super NES. Now I get my hands on the latest technology and test it for you. In recent years at Curved, Computer Bild and Netzwelt, now at Digitec and Galaxus.
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