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The Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge is a big phone with small phone energy
Product Reviews

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge is a big phone with small phone energy

by admin


Oh shit. Did I leave my phone at home?

I experienced that moment repeatedly while testing the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge. I’d glance into my bag, or note the lack of weight in my jacket pocket, and my stomach would drop. The phone isn’t there. But lo and behold, after another moment of digging through my purse, or by reaching into my pocket, I’d find it. These moments don’t usually happen when I’m carrying a big phone — but the Galaxy S25 Edge isn’t your average big phone.

On paper it might not sound so impressive. The Edge is 1.5 millimeters thinner than the Galaxy S25 Plus and about an ounce lighter. That’s what all this fuss is about? I was skeptical, too. And I haven’t been completely slim-phone-pilled by the S25 Edge, either. But after living with it for a couple of weeks, I’ve come around to the idea as a pleasant alternative to chunky phones I can barely wedge into an evening bag. Especially since I’ve been able to draw one important conclusion: the battery life is fine.

$1100

The Good

  • Like a regular phone, but slim
  • Surprisingly lightweight
  • Battery life isn’t as bad as I feared

The Bad

  • No telephoto camera
  • Battery life not as strong as a standard phone

It feels like a cop-out to say that you really have to hold the S25 Edge to understand it, but I’ll say it anyway. Maybe after a decade holding phones that are roughly the same size and weight we’ve become hyperaware of even slight weight differences — at least that’s the theory one of my colleagues put forth when I handed the phone to him. I think he’s right.

There are a few scenarios where the slightly slimmer dimensions and lighter weight make a difference. It doesn’t look or feel as bulky as other phones usually do in the side pocket of my yoga pants. I spend a lot of time in yoga pants (and if I’m being honest, zero time actually doing yoga) so I appreciate this. And the S25 Edge actually fits into a slender clutch that’s only designed to hold a couple of credit cards and a chapstick. No other modern phone — save the iPhone 13 Mini — has gone in without a fight.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge key specs

  • 158.2 x 75.6 x 5.8mm | 163g (5.75 oz)
  • 256GB storage | 12GB RAM
  • Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset
  • 6.7-inch 1440p 120Hz LTPO OLED
  • 200-megapixel f/1.7 main camera with OIS | 12-megapixel f/2.2 ultrawide | 12-megapixel f/2.2 selfie
  • IP68
  • 3,900mAh battery
  • 25W wired charging | 15W wireless | Qi2 Ready

I’d be less willing to endorse the S25 Edge if it cost a lot more or the battery life was markedly worse than the standard S25-series phones. Great news: it only costs a bit more, and battery life is only a bit worse. It’s $1,099 compared to the $999 Galaxy S25 Plus. An extra $100 is nothing to sneeze at, but if you’re spreading that cost out over three years the difference is a few bucks a month.

My biggest concern when I started testing this phone was the battery life. The Edge’s 3,900mAh capacity is much lower than the 4,900mAh cell in the S25 Plus. And no surprise, the S25 Edge’s battery doesn’t stretch as far as what you’ll get in the S25 Plus or Ultra. But it’s fine.

Compared to the S25 Plus (left) the difference is noticeable, but you feel the impact once you pick the phone up.

As a rule, I turn on every battery-draining feature I can when I test a phone, including the always-on display and the highest screen resolution and refresh rate settings. With all this enabled I embarked on a trial by fire: a full day covering Google I/O in person. With about three hours of screen-on time and an hour-ish using it as a mobile hotspot to post photos to our live blog, it managed to get through the day with 20 percent left by that night. Did it feel great? No. Under normal circumstances I would have charged it partway through the day, because I suffer from battery anxiety. But it was fine.

I’ll give it a stamp of approval, but with the caveat that if you watch a lot of streaming video or do a lot of graphics-intensive gaming, this is probably not the phone for you. I’m also concerned about what the battery performance will look like a few years from now as its capacity naturally degrades. If you’re the kind of person who wants to hang on to your phone for as many years as possible it wouldn’t be a bad idea to plan on getting a fresh battery swapped in after a few years — take it from an iPhone 13 Mini owner.

On the subject of small phones: the S25 Edge isn’t one. It’s a lighter, more approachable big phone, but I still struggle to get my thumb to the far corner of its 6.7-inch screen. Most people will want to put a case on this phone anyway, which takes it from “slim” to “just kinda regular” rather than “wow this is super chunky.” This is a very vibes-based assessment, but I don’t want any of my fellow small-phone fans to make the mistake of thinking this could be a small phone in disguise.

This is the first non-Mini phone to go into this bag without a fight.

Battery life might be the biggest tradeoff you’ll have to make for this phone, but it’s not the only one. The Galaxy S25 Edge comes with only two rear cameras — a 200 megapixel main similar to the S25 Ultra’s and a 12-megapixel ultrawide. On the standard S25 and S25 Plus you get a 3x telephoto, too. Obviously the size constraints were a factor on the Edge, and Samsung included a top-shelf main camera to make up for the telephoto. I think that was the right call.

I love a dedicated telephoto camera as much as the next guy, especially with Samsung’s excellent portrait mode, but the 2x crop zoom works fine for a little extra reach. As always, you’ll either love Samsung’s punchy, bright colors or they won’t be your cup of tea. I’ve learned to live with them.

Outside of battery life and camera options, the S25 Edge gives up remarkably little. You still get a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, full IP68 dust and water resistance, and a 6.7-inch screen with 1440p resolution. Even with the slimmer profile heat dissipation is fine. In everyday tasks I rarely noticed the phone heating up, and it managed a 20-minute Diablo Immortal session with every display setting I could access cranked up. It was toasty by the end, but I didn’t see any drop in performance.

More than meets the eye.

Using the Galaxy S25 Edge for the past couple of weeks has cleared up some of my concerns with this new form factor — one we’re likely to see from Apple in the near future, too. Battery life is alright. Using a thin phone really does feel different. Subtracting 1.5 millimeters in thickness actually does make it appreciably easier to carry.

The S25 Edge makes a kind of sense for someone who likes a large screen but not the bulk and weight of a big phone. But this person should also be someone who’s easy on a battery, and isn’t the kind of person who just wants to buy a phone and not have to think about replacing it (or more likely its battery) for as long as possible. Those are some pretty serious caveats.

At the very least, I encourage you to go find this phone at your wireless carrier or Best Buy or whatever and just pick it up. It doesn’t seem that impressively slim or light on paper, but you might just be amazed at how it feels in your hand.

Photography by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Agree to Continue: Samsung Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Edge

Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it — contracts that no one actually reads. It’s impossible for us to read and analyze every single one of these agreements. But we started counting exactly how many times you have to hit “agree” to use devices when we review them since these are agreements most people don’t read and definitely can’t negotiate.

To use the Samsung Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, or S25 Edge, you must agree to:

  • Samsung’s Terms and Conditions
  • Samsung’s Privacy Policy
  • Google’s Terms of Service (including Privacy Policy)
  • Google Play’s Terms of Service
  • Automatic installs (including from Google, Samsung, and your carrier)

There are many optional agreements. If you use a carrier-specific version, there will be more of them. Here are just a few:

  • Sending diagnostic data to Samsung
  • Samsung services, including auto blocker, customization service, continuity service, nearby device scanning, personal data intelligence, and smart suggestions
  • Google Drive backup, location services, Wi-Fi scanning, diagnostic data
  • Bixby privacy policy (required to use Bixby), plus optional for Bixby options like personalized content, data access, and audio recording review

There may be more. For example, Samsung’s Weather app also has its own privacy policy that may include sharing information with Weather.com.

Final tally: there are five mandatory agreements and at least 10 optional ones.





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The Motorola Edge 60 Pro above a leafy garden
Product Reviews

Motorola Edge 60 Pro review: a premium-feeling Android phone that undercuts big rivals

by admin



Why you can trust TechRadar


We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Motorola Edge 60 Pro two-minute review

When Motorola first started releasing its line of more affordable ‘premium’ Edge smartphones in 2020, it never could have expected that it’d be the last mobile brand to make truly eye-catching flagship phones.

That’s not quite true, of course, but with expensive phones like the Samsung Galaxy S25, iPhone 16, and Xiaomi 15 all offering relatively boring designs that defy their hefty price tags, Moto is one of the few flagbearers whose top-end phones actually feel… well, top-end in 2025.

Moto has released a new generation of Edge phones each year since the debut of the Motorola Edge in 2020, and the Edge 60 Pro is the most advanced model of the current crop (at least until the next Ultra-branded model arrives). And thankfully, almost all of the previous models’ selling points remain valid on the Edge 60 Pro.


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Glancing at the phone’s specs list, you might think it’s not an upgraded Edge 50 Pro, but rather a different ‘take’ on it. And to a certain extent, that’s true. The Edge 60 Pro and Edge 50 Pro are very similar phones, with the former bringing as many upgrades as downgrades. The newer model, for instance, has a bigger battery, a higher-res ultra-wide camera, and upgraded speakers, but those positives are counterbalanced by a lower screen refresh rate and slower charging (both wired and wireless).

Some users, then, might consider the Edge 60 Pro to be worse than, or equal to, its predecessor, but the proof is in the pudding, not on the specs sheet.

With the Edge 60 Pro, Motorola has rounded down some unnecessarily high features and balanced those perceived downgrades with upgrades that really matter. I don’t imagine many people need a 144Hz refresh display over 120Hz, for instance, or truly require the extra few minutes that 125W charging saves you over 90W.

The inclusion of Dolby Atmos speakers, meanwhile, tangibly improves the experience of watching movies and TV shows on the Edge 60 Pro, while the jump to another chipset provider results in a useful jump in power. The addition of reverse wired charging, too, is really useful if you’re reliant on other gadgets.

These small-but-important improvements result in a phone that’s strong in all areas, though not the best in any of them, and for the 99% of people who don’t actually need the literal top specs available to them, that’s okay.

The only exception comes in the camera department, which is still a weak point of the Edge series. A few annoying issues abound, but the real problem is that photos taken on the Edge 60 Pro are too devoid of color. They look lifeless and dull, as though the AI scene optimization shrugged and said, “I can’t be bothered”. The phone’s camera performance doesn’t compare to that of any top-end rivals.

That would be a bigger problem if the Edge 60 Pro were hampered by an extreme price tag, but it isn’t. It undercuts pretty much all of the best Android phones by a decent margin, making it a borderline budget alternative that arguably feels fancier.

As sanded-down premium phones, Moto’s Edge devices appeal to those who want to feel like they own a powerful phone but won’t ever put that power to the test. Sure, the Edge 60 Pro won’t win any benchmark battles, but in a year’s time, when even the ultra-pricey Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra has been transformed into an ugly box, Motorola’s latest flagship will at least look the part. It’s one of the best Motorola phones you can buy today.

Motorola Edge 60 Pro review: price and availability

(Image credit: Future)

  • Released in April 2025
  • Phone sells for £599 (roughly $800, AU$1,250)
  • Price matches predecessor

The Motorola Edge 60 Pro was announced alongside a non-Pro version in April 2025, roughly a year on from the release of the previous series, albeit with a different selection of sibling suffixes.

You can pick up the phone for £599 (roughly $800, AU$1,250). Due to precedent, we don’t expect that Moto will release the Edge 60 Pro in the US, but an Australian announcement seems likely later this year, especially with the Edge 60 Fusion already selling in the country.

That price makes the Edge 60 Pro the most expensive non-folding smartphone sold by Motorola, but in the wider smartphone world, it’s on the border of mid-range and premium – which means it undercuts a lot of big-name flagship rivals. The Google Pixel 9, Samsung Galaxy S25, and iPhone 16 all cost more, while the supposedly budget-friendly iPhone 16e retails for the same price.

Motorola Edge 60 Pro review: specs

Swipe to scroll horizontallyMotorola Edge 60 Pro specsHeader Cell – Column 0 Header Cell – Column 1

Dimensions:

160.69 x 73.06 x 8.24mm

Weight:

186g

Screen:

6.7-inch FHD (1220 x 2712) 120Hz AMOLED

Chipset:

Mediatek Dimensity 8350

RAM:

12GB

Storage:

512GB

OS:

Android 15

Primary camera:

50MP, f/1.8

Ultra-wide camera:

50MP f/2.0 120-degree

Telephoto camera:

10MP, f/2.0 2x optical

Front camera:

50MP, f/2.0

Audio:

Dolby Atmos stereo speakers

Battery:

6,000mAh

Charging:

90W wired, 15W wireless

Colors:

Dazzling Blue, Sparkling Grape, Shadow

Motorola Edge 60 Pro review: design

(Image credit: Future)

  • Premium curved-edge design
  • Thin and lightweight
  • Pantone-designed blue, khaki or purple

With companies like Samsung having seemingly jettisoned ‘attractive design’ from the list of important smartphone traits this year, I was worried that Motorola might abandon the Edge’s roots and follow suit. Fear not: the Motorola Edge 60 Pro is just as appealing as past entries (largely because it’s a dead ringer for past models).

To discuss the eye-catching part, we’ll have to start at the back: Moto typically offers these mobiles in a range of Pantone-designed hues, and it’s no different this time around. The model you see in the review images is Dazzling Blue, and there’s a greenish-khaki Shadow option too, but the real eye-catcher is Sparkling Grape, a vibrant and commanding purple. Unlike in some previous generations, Moto hasn’t included a literal color swatch on the back of the Edge 60 Pro, so you don’t feel like you’re texting on a walking paint advertisement.

Instead, the back features a slightly raised camera bump that’s incorporated well into the overall design; it’s reminiscent of Oppo Find X phones before they became overdesigned. It doesn’t stick that far from the phone’s body, so you can put the handset flat on a surface without undue wobbling. The phone’s rear is also textured – slightly differently depending on the color option you pick – making it feel more premium than your average Android.

Moving to the sides reveals the Edge 60 Pro’s other premium feature: a curved-edge display (admittedly, the name does give it away). This means that the phone’s screen curves slightly at the edges to become incorporated seamlessly into the sides of the phone without ending at an abrupt angle. While curved edges are divisive, and admittedly are slightly frail and prone to accidental touches, they’re still considered a trait of premium mobiles. As a result, the Edge 60 Pro is much more comfortable to hold in the hand than your average flagship, and it just feels more advanced.

The edges of the phone also feature all the mandatory buttons, plus one extra one. The right edge has a power button – just about within thumb’s reach on my hand – and above it a volume rocker, which I had to stretch to use. But on the left side, high enough up that I couldn’t really reach it, is a new addition: the AI Key.

Pressing and holding this button brings up Motorola’s AI assistant, while double-pressing it either opens a note-taking function or quickly summarizes your notifications – all of these require a separate Motorola account. If you’ve no interest in AI features like this, you can turn them off in the settings menu.

Let’s briefly continue our tour around the Edge 60 Pro: the bottom edge has its USB-C charging port and the SIM card slot. There’s no 3.5mm jack for wired audio, like in past generations. And that’s that in terms of design – except for the display, which we have a whole section about.

The total dimensions of the phone are 160.69 x 73.06 x 8.24mm, and it weighs 186g, so it’s on the lighter side of things.

Moto is also making a song and dance about the Edge 60 Pro’s protections. It has IP69 certification, indicating that it’s safe from dust ingress and high-pressure beams of water, plus the military MIL-STD-810H accreditation, which means it’s safe from shocks, high and low temperatures, high altitudes, and strong vibrations. We usually only see this kind of certification in rugged phones, but a growing number of consumer ones have them too – and it’s nice to know that your handset is protected from the unexpected.

Motorola Edge 60 Pro review: display

(Image credit: Future)

  • 6.7 inches, 2712 x 1220 resolution
  • 120Hz refresh rate and 4500-nit max brightness
  • Various filters and modes to tweak

The Motorola Edge 60 Pro’s screen is 6.7-inches diagonally, a size Edge fans will be used to, and that’s not the only spec that the 60 Pro has in common with its predecessors: the resolution is once again 2712 x 1220, or FHD+, and the 20:9 aspect ratio makes the screen feel long and thin.

We can’t knock Motorola for a lack of design upgrades year-on-year, but some tech fans might be upset that the refresh rate has seen a downgrade from the Edge 50 Pro: it’s now 120Hz. But that’s matched by a massive brightness increase, of over double, to a new high of 4500 nits: suffice to say this is a phone that’s easy to use when you’re outdoors in the sun.

The screen is broken up by a pretty minimal punch-hole cut-out for the front-facing camera at the top. It has an embedded fingerprint scanner which… worked when it wanted to, let’s put it that way.

Motorola has stuffed quite a few design features into the Edge 60 Pro’s display, including support for HDR10+ and DCI-P3 color space. There are also filters to reduce the amount of blue light coming from the display, which may placate people who use blue light filters to help them sleep (despite the scientific evidence that your phone’s blue light doesn’t affect sleep).

Pantone also shows its face for some display tweakery, with Moto’s listing for the Edge 60 Pro also mentioning “Pantone Validated Colour” and “Pantone Skintone Validated”, which suggests the color company had a hand in optimizing the screen.

Good job, too, because the Edge 60 Pro is pleasant to look at while watching movies and playing games, with nice contrast and vibrant colors.

Motorola Edge 60 Pro review: software

(Image credit: Future)

  • Android 15 with four years of updates
  • Customization options galore
  • Moto AI useful for small tasks, not big ones

The Motorola Edge 60 Pro comes with Android 15 as its default software. This is stock Android, ostensibly how Google designed it, but with every new generation, Moto adds more and more tweaks that make it feel distinct from Pixel or Nokia phones.

I’ve already discussed arguably the biggest software change – the AI key and Moto AI in general, which the brand seems to be presenting as something you’ll opt to use over Google Assistant for various tasks and needs.

Moto AI is at its best when you’re using it for little tasks around your phone: you can ask it to take notes, set an update reminder, or create a new background for your device. But like other AI chatbots like ChatGPT, if you start to ask it questions, it provides you with the usual factually inaccurate (and oftentimes totally irrelevant) gibberish that you love to mock.

Some of the features that Moto is touting most simply don’t make sense – unless you’ve received an absolute deluge of messages since you last checked your phone, it takes longer to use Moto AI’s notification summary tool than simply to check your messages. There’s also a function that creates a bespoke playlist based on your mood, but it only supports Amazon Music, so if you use Spotify or Tidal, you’re out of luck.

What’s more, every time I used the AI Key, the pop-up appeared with my last search or command, which I’d need to backspace from before starting my new task. I found it pretty frustrating.

Beyond its AI, the Edge 60 Pro retains Moto’s suite of personalization features, from the big things like background, font, and color scheme to the shape of icons and the animation that appears when you use the fingerprint unlock.

You can now also generate wallpapers based on your own prompt or a photo from your gallery. I sent this feature a photo of a cat, and it returned some patterned decals that looked like a marbled chocolate cake. Thanks, but I think I’ll just use the photo of the cat as my background. The point being: some of the AI’s creations were very tangential from the original photo, but I appreciate that none of them resembled the phony tripe you usually get from AI image generators, which is definitely a plus.

Motorola has committed four years of software updates to the Edge 60 Pro. It’s a perfectly acceptable amount of time that’ll future-proof your phone, though it falls just shy of being an industry-leading figure.

Motorola Edge 60 Pro review: cameras

(Image credit: Future)

  • 50MP main, 50MP ultra-wide and 10MP telephoto cameras
  • 50MP front-facing
  • Pictures look dull and colorless
  • Offers the standard range of camera modes

There are three cameras on the back of the Moto Edge 60 Pro: a 50MP f/1.8 main snapper, a 50MP f/2.0 ultra-wide one with a 120-degree lens, and a 10MP f/2.0 telephoto camera which supports 3x optical zoom.

On paper, that seems like a solid range of snappers, giving you a range of ways to take pictures, whether you want to zoom in from a distance or get yourself nice and close (the ultra-wide snapper also supports a macro mode). But Moto has yet to put out a killer camera phone, and the Edge 60 Pro doesn’t change that streak.

The main issue, which certainly isn’t new for Moto phones, is that pictures are just a little more dull and desaturated than they’d be on any other phone. While many brands pride themselves on the vibrancy of snaps you can take with their phone cameras, the pictures I took on the Edge simply weren’t social media-worthy due to how lifeless they look.

It’s a shame, because technically, the photos taken aren’t terrible – I was really fond of using the telephoto lens, for instance, as its depth of field was exquisite, and thanks to the high-res snappers, photos have lots of detail. But while some photos could be saved by dropping them into Photoshop, this shouldn’t be a necessary step for smartphone photographs to look worthy.

(Image credit: Future)

That’s not my only issue with the Edge 60 Pro’s cameras, though it’s the only one that can’t be deactivated. Firstly, the background bokeh blur on Portrait shots is intense – you can change this, but I only noticed after taking a few shots, so make sure to tweak it yourself. But the other biggie is macro mode, which by default turns on when you put the phone near a close-up subject.

When this mode turns on, it jumps over to the ultra-wide lens, which is lower positionally than the other two (when you’re holding the phone horizontally to take a shot). This often meant that the subject was in a different spot of the frame, or not in frame, causing the camera to decide that I was no longer trying to take a macro snap, and jump back to the main camera, whereupon it’d see the subject again. Rinse and repeat, you can see how this goes.

The camera app features most of the photography and video modes that you’re used to seeing on an Android phone, like slow-mo video, night vision shots, and tilt-shift photography. Video recording goes up to 4K at 30fps or 1080p at 60fps.

The selfie camera is a 50MP f/2.0 snapper, and it uses an ultra-wide lens so that you can take wider group shots if you need, though it defaults to the one-person view. These pictures suffer from the aforementioned issues, specifically Portrait absolutely obliterating the background, and the color tuning being lackluster – in the examples below, there’s an odd green hue to several of the images.

Motorola Edge 60 Pro camera samples

Image 1 of 8

(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)

Motorola Edge 60 Pro review: performance and audio

(Image credit: Future)

  • Uses the Dimensity 8350 chipset
  • 12GB RAM and 512GB Storage
  • Dolby Atmos-tuned stereo speakers

The Motorola Edge 60 Pro marks a shift for Moto in that it’s moved from the dominant chipset maker Qualcomm to its underdog rival Mediatek.

The phone uses the Mediatek Dimensity 8350 chipset, a fairly powerful mid-range Android chip that we also saw in the Oppo Reno 13 Pro. Like in that contemporary handset, it provides good amounts of power, enough that most users won’t notice a difference between it and true top-end ones for most ordinary tasks.

A Geekbench 5 benchmark test on the Edge 60 Pro returned a multi-core score of 4,504, which is a solid upgrade on the roughly 3,000 score we saw on the Edge 50 Pro, and even better than the Reno 13’s 4,042.

The sole configuration on sale offers 12GB RAM and 512GB storage, which is generous: it means you’ve got loads of space to store years of photos and countless apps, and the RAM ensures the handset feels fast to use. There’s also RAM boost, which lets you sacrifice some storage space for a speed increase; a feature that has niche appeal but will be useful to certain users.

Audio-wise, Moto has long since binned off the 3.55mm jack in its Edge phones. However, you’re getting Dolby Atmos-tuned stereo speakers instead, which isn’t quite as good as wired headphones, but it’ll do.

Motorola Edge 60 Pro review: battery life

(Image credit: Future)

  • Boosted 6,000mAh battery
  • 90W wired charging, 15W wireless
  • Reverse wired charging is new

Motorola has packed the Edge 60 Pro with a massive 6,000mAh battery, which is markedly bigger than the cell in its predecessor, though that upgrade is counterbalanced – on paper, at least – by a decrease in charging speed.

A big power pack like this ensures that the Edge 60 Pro can breeze through a day of use without running out of power, which isn’t a guarantee with big-screen phones these days. I also found that the Edge 60 Pro could withstand lengthy gaming sessions without draining too much power.

However, the amount of battery drain ensured that this isn’t a two-day phone; it’ll need daily recharges.

The charging speed sits at 90W, which, while technically a downgrade from the 125W powering on the Edge 50 Pro, is still an impressive figure. The difference between the two can be measured in mere minutes of charging speed, and I think most people won’t even notice the downgrade.

Motorola estimates that the charging time for the Edge 60 Pro is 40 minutes; however, to get this speed, it recommends that you use a sold-separately charger, which I couldn’t actually find on its website (in the box, you get a USB-C to USB-C cable but no mains plug). Mind you, even when using a third-party fast charger, my charging times weren’t that much longer.

Like any good premium phone, the Edge 60 Pro also offers wireless charging, although it too has seen a speed downgrade versus the last-gen model. It can support wireless charging at 15W and, while there’s no longer support for reverse wireless charging, the Edge 60 Pro does offer reverse wired charging, which lets you use it as a little power bank to charge other gadgets.

Motorola Edge 60 Pro review: value

(Image credit: Future)

Throughout this review, I’ve been mentally referring to the Motorola Edge 60 Pro as a premium phone, which is both correct and wrong.

It’s a correct designation in that the specs are all there, but wrong in that the phone doesn’t actually cost quite as much as a Galaxy, iPhone, or Pixel.

The bottom line: the Edge 60 Pro is a great-value phone if you want a top-end mobile, because you’re paying a bit less for mostly-similar specs. Sure, its cameras will leave you wanting, but in almost every other department, the Edge 60 Pro is a winner.

Should you buy the Motorola Edge 60 Pro?

Swipe to scroll horizontallyMotorola Edge 60 Pro score card

Attributes

Notes

Rating

Value

You’re basically getting a premium smartphone for a lower price, which sounds good to me!

4 / 5

Design

The phone feels and looks premium, and it’s well-protected with military-grade accreditation.

4 / 5

Display

The Edge 60 Pro has a high-res screen with a top max brightness and useful extra features.

4 / 5

Software

It’s a clean software with customization options and a long shelf life, even if Moto is relying too much on AI as a big new feature.

3.5 / 5

Camera

Photos look dull and there are one or two other issues with the cameras that lose it points.

3 / 5

Performance

The chipset suits most tasks and there’s lots of storage and RAM to go around.

4 / 5

Battery

It’s fast to charge and has a decently-sized battery, though there are some downgrades here.

4 / 5

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Motorola Edge 60 Pro review: Also consider

Still not sold on the Motorola Edge 60 Pro? Here are some other comparable smartphones you should consider looking at instead:

Swipe to scroll horizontallyHeader Cell – Column 0

Motorola Edge 60 Pro

iPhone 16e

Xiaomi Poco F7 Ultra

Motorola Edge 50 Pro

Starting price (at launch):

£599 (roughly $800, AU$1,250)

$599 / £599 / AU$999

£649 (roughly $900, AU$1,400)

£599.99 / AU$999 (roughly $800)

Dimensions:

160.69 x 73.06 x 8.24mm

146.7 x 71.5 x 7.8mm

160.3 x 75 x 8.4mm

161.2 x 72.4 x 8.2mm

Weight:

186g

167g

212g

186g

OS (at launch):

Android 15

iOS 18

Android 15, HyperOS 2

Android 14

Screen Size:

6.7-inch

6.1-inch

6.67-inch

6.7-inch

Resolution:

2712 x 1220

2532 x 1170

1440 x 3200

1220 x 2712

CPU:

Mediatek Dimensity 8350

Apple A18

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite

Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3

RAM:

12GB

8GB

12GB / 16GB

up to 12GB

Storage (from):

512GB

128GB / 256GB / 512GB

256GB / 512GB

256GB / 512GB

Battery:

6,000mAh

4,005mAh

5,300mAh

4,500mAh

Rear Cameras:

50MP main, 10MP telephoto. 50MP ultra-wide

48MP main

50MP main, 32MP ultra-wide

50MP main, 10MP telephoto, 13MP ultra-wide

Front camera:

50MP

12MP

32MP

50MP

How I tested the Motorola Edge 60 Pro

  • Review test period = 2 weeks
  • Testing included = Everyday usage, including web browsing, social media, photography, video calling, gaming, streaming video, music playback
  • Tools used = Geekbench 6, Geekbench ML, GFXBench, native Android stats

I tested the Motorola Edge 60 Pro for two weeks in order to write this review.

In that time, I used it as my normal phone, which involved socializing, listening to music, taking pictures, and playing games, as well as lots of other normal tasks.

I also did some ‘lab’ tests with the phone, as you’ll have read about in the performance section of this review, in order to get a more objective understanding of its power.

I’ve been reviewing smartphones for TechRadar for over six years now, and even reviewed the original Moto Edge models. So, I’m well-versed in the brand and its various handsets.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed May 2025

Motorola Edge 60 Pro: Price Comparison



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The Nothing Phone 3 arrives in July
Product Reviews

The Nothing Phone 3 arrives in July

by admin


Nothing plans to launch the Phone 3, its first proper flagship, on July 1, the company announced today. We already knew the phone was coming this summer, thanks to a teaser Nothing shared during last month’s The Android Show I/O Edition. During the segment, Nothing CEO Carl Pei said the new device will cost around £800 ($1080), which would easily make it the most expensive handset the company has produced to date. Pei also said Nothing plans to go “all-in” on Phone 3 with “premium materials, major performance upgrades and software that really levels things up.”

It will be interesting to see how Nothing builds on the Phone 3a and 3a Pro (pictured above), the two mid-range handsets the company released earlier this year. I reviewed both phones for Engadget, and felt they offered great value for the asking price of $379 and $459. I’m also curious to see if Nothing decides to make a proper push into the US market. While you can buy the company’s phones stateside, they don’t have robust carrier support. In any case, we’ll find out more about the new Phone 3 next month.



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Honor 400 review shot
Product Reviews

Honor 400 review: a mid-range Android phone with a truly gorgeous display

by admin



Why you can trust TechRadar


We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Honor 400: Two-minute review

In the time that I’ve spent with the Honor 400, part of me is stunned to see just how far the mid-range market has come. Usually, when I test phones at this end of the scale, I anticipate there being one area that significantly holds the phone back from true greatness. This is understandable – there needs to be some reason to upgrade to the best phones like the iPhone 16 Pro or the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra – but on the Honor 400, this caveat never really applied.

For starters, with an affordable price tag of £399.99 in the UK, the Honor 400 already undercuts a ton of mid-range contenders like the Pixel 9a, the Samsung Galaxy A56 and the Nothing Phone 3a Pro, which will make it a more tempting buy for those who are tied to a strict budget.

Diving into the phone itself, Honor spoils us with a number of features, the highlight being the 6.55-inch AMOLED display, which can reach a peak brightness of 5000 nits. I’ve tested a lot of phones in my time, but Honor just knows how to make a mid-range display that’s instantly eye-catching. It’s colorful, easy to use outdoors, and great for streaming films and TV shows.


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The new 200MP main camera captures some great shots, especially when the sun is out, but the setup really comes into its own when paired with the Harcourt-inspired filters in the phone’s portrait mode. If you prefer taking pictures of friends and family rather than what you had for dinner, then you’ll appreciate what’s available here.

This amounts to a solid experience overall, but in some instances, it’s a slight downgrade compared to the phone’s predecessor. For instance, the Honor 200 has a slightly larger 6.7-inch display as well as an additional telephoto lens. The same Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset has been carried over, so you won’t gain much where performance is concerned.

With that in mind, I wouldn’t recommend the Honor 400 to owners of last year’s Honor mid-range. For those with a device that’s been out for four or five years, though, it’s hard to argue with the value proposition Honor has put together.

Honor 400 review: price and availability

(Image credit: Future)

  • Starts at £399.99 in the UK
  • Released in May 2025

Situated as the middle child of the new Honor 400 series, the Honor 400 has a starting price of £399.99 for the 256GB model, but that price leaps up to £449 if you want the larger 512GB storage option.

At the time of writing, only UK pricing and availability have been confirmed, with the phone releasing in May 2025 both as a SIM-free device and from several UK networks.

Even though their naming conventions are easy to understand, the pricing within the Honor 400 range is a little confusing. At present, the Honor 400 Lite costs £249.99, just £150 less than the Honor 400, whereas the Honor 400 Pro asks for an extra £300 with an RRP of £699.99.

I can only hypothesize that the Honor 400’s entry-level price is a strategic move to make it more affordable than some of the established best mid-range phones, which tend to sit around £499.

Honor 400 review: specs

Swipe to scroll horizontallyHeader Cell – Column 0 Header Cell – Column 1

Dimensions:

156.5mm x 74.6mm x 7.3mm

Weight:

184g

Display:

6.55-inch (2736 x 1264) up to 120Hz AMOLED

Chipset:

Snapdragon 7 Gen 3

RAM:

8GB

Storage:

256GB / 512GB

OS:

Android 15

Primary camera:

200MP (f/1.9, 1/1.4”, OIS) sensor

Ultra-wide camera:

12MP (f/2.2, FOV 112°) sensor

Front Camera:

50MP sensor

Battery:

5,330mAh

Charging:

66W wired

Colors:

Midnight Black, Meteor Silver, Desert Gold

Honor 400 review: design

Image 1 of 2

(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)

  • Honor is definitely nipping at Apple’s heels
  • The design feels more confident than the Honor 200

The overall design of Honor’s mid-range phones has always felt a little off to my eyes. For example, the Honor 90 from a few years back had a wonderful Emerald Green option that made it stand out, but it was hampered by two distinct camera bumps that felt wildly out of place.

Things weren’t much better with last year’s Honor 200, which featured far too much negative space in its camera module, making the design feel like an afterthought compared to the rest of the device. Thankfully, Honor has finally hit a far more premium, if potentially dull, aesthetic.

As mentioned in the Honor 400 Lite review, it isn’t hard to see where Honor is drawing its inspiration from here. The flat edges around the device, alongside the vertically aligned cameras, give off a whiff of the iPhone 16, which is no bad thing when you consider that the Honor 400 is less than half the price of Apple’s £699/$699 handset.

It does feel premium in the hand, and even with a plastic chassis, I think people would be surprised to learn just how cheap the Honor 400 is at the checkout, based solely on its looks.

I do wish, however, that Honor could have kept some of its signature flair where the colors are concerned. The company has instead opted for safe black, silver and gold variations. Thankfully, there is an official IP rating this time around of IP65, so you won’t have to worry about dust particles or jets of water – always helpful over long-term use.

While it certainly won’t wow anyone, I feel that this is the most confident-looking mid-ranger that Honor has ever put out, and I have to admire it for that.

Honor 400 review: display

(Image credit: Future)

  • It’s a smaller display at 6.55 inches
  • The curves have been swapped out for a flat panel

If there’s one area where this company has easily outpaced the mid-range competition, it’s in the quality of its displays, and the Honor 400 is no exception, although there is one tweak that might put off some folks from upgrading.

Starting with the good, this 6.55-inch AMOLED display is just drop-dead gorgeous to look at. It gets impressively bright at up to 5000 nits, and when using it outdoors against direct sunlight, I haven’t found myself squinting to make out what’s on the screen.

The crisp 2736 x 1264 resolution also makes the phone great for catching up on Netflix or whichever streaming service takes your fancy. Using the Honor 400 at the gym, I was quite immersed in a few episodes of Prime Video’s Invincible while on the treadmill, with the phone doing the show’s vivid color palette justice.

If you don’t mind sacrificing a little more battery life, you can toggle Super Dynamic Display alongside Vivid Display, two modes that use AI to analyze what you’re watching and respond with improved colors and realism in real time. I can’t say that I saw an immediate difference, but the screen already looked great, so I can’t really complain.

(Image credit: Future)

While the phone’s refresh rate can be set to 120Hz at all times, by default it’s placed in an adaptive mode that allows it to change depending on the task at hand, saving battery life in the process. Even though this has long been a feature among the best Android phones, it blows my mind that it’s now something we get as standard in the mid-range/budget market.

Making a return is all of Honor’s dimming and eye-health features. That sounds impressive on paper, with ‘3840Hz RiskFree Dimming’, but what does it actually mean? In practice, this tech limits the amount of refreshes that take place at a speed imperceptible to the human eye, reducing the risk of eye fatigue over time.

Of course, something like this is difficult to quantify. However, I will say that out of all the phones I’ve used, the Honor 400 is one of the few that doesn’t leave me with noticeable eye-strain if I do a quick bit of scrolling before bed, particularly if the fantastic ‘eBook mode’ is activated.

All of this amounts to a wonderful display, but if you currently own an Honor 90 or an Honor 200, it’s worth bearing in mind that both of those phones have a larger 6.7-inch display, so you are getting a slight downgrade where size is concerned. Personally, I don’t mind, particularly as it makes the Honor 400 easier to use one-handed, but it’s still something to consider.

Honor 400 review: cameras

(Image credit: Future)

  • Just like the display, the cameras have also been downgraded/upgraded
  • The new 200MP main sensor is the star of the show

There’s a definite pattern of give and take with the Honor 400. I’ve already mentioned the differences in the display tech, and unfortunately, it also extends to the new camera setup.

On paper, you’ve got a 200MP (f/1.9, 1/1.4”, OIS) main sensor, flanked by a 12MP (f/2.2, FOV 112°) ultrawide that also serves as a macro lens. That might sound fairly decent given the £399.99 price tag, but eagle-eyed readers might have already noticed that while the main sensor has had a bump from 50MP to 200MP, the phone is missing the additional 50MP telephoto lens from the Honor 200.

While it’s nice to have a dedicated telephoto lens, having the upgraded megapixel count on the main lens does open up more opportunities for cropping and zooming that don’t completely wreck the quality of the photo.

Enjoying the wonderful sights of Surrey’s Box Hill, I was able to snap some fantastic shots that really did the trail justice, helped in large part by the brilliantly sunny weather. When I felt the need to crop in on certain photos for social media after the fact, I didn’t feel hard done by in the final results.

The same can be said for the ultra-wide shots, which, despite that 12MP ceiling, still packed an impressive degree of detail and color. In a pinch, that same ultra-wide lens can be used for macro shots if, like me, you enjoy getting the odd picture of fauna up close (although I can’t imagine using it for much else).

You’ve got 4x digital zoom for picking up subjects in the distance, but for something really far out, you can lean on Honor’s 30x AI Superzoom. Just like it operates on other Honor phones, this feature uses AI to recreate the picture you’ve taken. This means the end result isn’t technically a photo at all, but something AI has constructed from a real photo. As you might imagine, its success rate can be mixed, and there’s a general ‘watercolour’ look that plagues all of these images after the fact.

Speaking of AI, there’s an ‘image to video’ feature that lets you make short AI-driven animations out of shots you’ve taken. I’ll admit, one video it derived from a selfie felt so realistic that I didn’t like the idea of seeing what else it could do. Thankfully, these videos don’t go beyond five seconds, so there isn’t a huge use case for them.

When it comes to more traditional AI features in the phone’s editing suite, like AI cutout or AI outpainting (the latter of which extends the picture with generative AI), it all works rather well.

Last year, Honor made a big splash by partnering with photography studio Harcourt to add more pizazz to the portrait photography of the 200 series; now those signature Harcourt filters are back on the Honor 400, looking better than ever.

If you’re the type of person whose Instagram uploads are filled with model-style shots, you’ll appreciate what’s on offer here. Although there are just three Harcourt filters (Vibrant, Color and Classic), they all look great and pump out truly eye-catching shots.

While the 50MP selfie camera doesn’t utilize Harcourt’s prowess, it still managed to capture self-portraits that I was more than happy to share with the world, which doesn’t often happen. There’s a wonderfully soft bokeh here that pairs well with the camera’s autofocus.

The dedicated night mode also does a respectable job, so you should be in luck with most low-light situations if you do want to take a quick snap.

Honor 400 review: camera samples

Image 1 of 6

(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)

Honor 400 review: performance

(Image credit: Future)

  • Same chipset as last year
  • Respectable performance in its price range

The best thing I can say about the Honor 400 from a performance perspective is just how little it’s been on my mind over the course of testing the device. Of course, I’m not saying that it exceeds the best iPhones – far from it – but even though it uses the same Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset as last year, it goes to show how far the mid-range market has come, where you can now expect solid day-to-day performance without breaking the bank.

In the time that I spent with the Honor 400, I didn’t have an app fail to load or crash mid-use, and I could jump from one app to another without any significant delay. Even when using the phone as a hotspot to watch a video on my iPad, I could still scroll through Google Chrome on the Honor 400 without any noticeable slowdown.

When it came to games, the phone handled booting up a race in Asphalt Legends Unite and the game’s frenetic energy with ease. Graphics look bold and exciting on the display, and any visual stuttering was very brief and infrequent.

I found the performance within Call of Duty Mobile to be even better, so if you like to get in a few rounds of Nuketown on your lunch break, you won’t have any issues doing so here.

I will say that for both games (and at times when I was really pushing the device), I felt some heat radiating off the Honor 400. It was never enough to make holding the device uncomfortable, but it did give me pause to make sure that I didn’t overstretch the phone’s limitations.

I do, however, want to give a brief nod to the speakers, which performed surprisingly well in testing. I almost always anticipate a mono-speaker system at this end of the market, but there’s a stereo set-up on the Honor 400, and it can get impressively loud and immersive when you’re diving into a spot of gaming.

Honor 400 review: software

(Image credit: Future)

  • Honor has gone all in on AI
  • MagicOS is better, but there’s still room for improvement

Just like almost every other company on the block right now, Honor has gone all-in on AI.

As with AI implementation on other devices, I found the overall experience to be a mixed bag. I don’t think the situation is quite as dire as what I’ve come across using Apple Intelligence on my iPhone 16 Plus, but there are definitely areas where Honor has plenty of room for improvement.

On the better side of that equation is Honor’s Magic Portal, which operates similarly to Google’s Circle to Search (which already exists on the Honor 400), only this time requiring that you highlight an object using your knuckle. I found the feature to be incredibly responsive, and once you’ve selected your desired image or piece of text, you can quickly share it to a list of apps that appear on the side, as chosen by AI. It’s genuinely a great example of AI being used intelligently, and I did find myself using it a few times to save text quickly.

Features like AI Subtitles and AI Translate have their moments, but there’s still work to be done. For the former, it can generate speech to text with decent speed and accuracy, but when I tried to get it to make subtitles from a YouTube video, the whole experience fell apart with nonsensical text. AI Translate fares a bit better with a quick response time for translations, but it doesn’t boast quite as many available languages as Live Translate on Galaxy AI-toting Samsung phones, so you’ll find a more robust experience elsewhere.

At the lower end of the scale, AI Suggestions pretty much does what it says on the tin by offering up quick access to apps it thinks you need at certain times of day, but this is a feature Apple’s had for years so I don’t understand why Honor has drawn so much attention to it here as if it’s something brand new. There’s also AI Deepfake Detection, although this only works with video calls and doesn’t let you know if you’re seeing a video or image online that’s fake, which is really where it should be targeted.

Magic Capsule on the Honor 400 Pro, which also features on the 400 (Image credit: Future)

All of this sits on top of MagicOS 9.0, Honor’s Android 15 overlay, which in itself is something of a head-scratcher. I will say that compared to when I last used MagicOS on the Honor 90, the operating system has come quite a long way, and it feels less cumbersome to use than I remember.

It’s not quite as slick as stock Android, which can be found on the best Pixel phones, but it does have a nice aesthetic. And as someone who mostly uses an iPhone, I did appreciate the nods to iOS, including Honor’s take on the Dynamic Island, which shows music playback at the top of the display, as well as the need to swipe down from different sections to access the notification tray or the control center (even if I did find myself in the latter a few times when it wasn’t my intention).

What holds MagicOS back is the unfortunate amount of bloatware that comes preinstalled on the Honor 400. When setting the phone up, I needed to get rid of several apps, including TikTok and Temu, not to mention Honor’s own-brand apps, which include the company’s Google Play Store competitor, the Honor App Market. It’s not a deal-breaker, by any means, but it doesn’t help the phone against fierce competition.

On a better note, the Honor 400 now comes with a promised six years of updates, providing official support until at least 2031. Compared to the paltry support that Honor provided for previous devices, this is a huge shift that makes the Honor 400 a better option as a phone to last you well into the future.

Honor 400 review: battery life

  • Slightly larger 5,300mAh cell
  • Easily gets you through a full day of use comfortably

Despite its smaller stature, the Honor 400 features a slightly increased battery capacity compared to the Honor 200, jumping from 5,200mAh to 5,300mAh. Honor hasn’t been too specific where longevity is concerned, other than claiming an “all-day battery life” for the phone, which, thankfully, is an assessment that’s more on the conservative side.

I put the Honor 400 through a heavy day of use, starting at 8:30am, getting just over four hours of screen time, including 40 minutes of Instagram and 25 minutes of Prime Video, alongside 33 minutes of Spotify in the background and 1 hour and 39 minutes of using the phone as a hotspot for my iPad. With all that in mind, the phone still had 30% left in the tank by 10:30pm, 14 hours later.

For my money, that’s more than enough to alleviate any major battery anxiety. You also toggle one of two power-saving modes, which halt a lot of background processing to extend the longevity as much as possible. On most days, however, I didn’t need to charge the Honor 400 until about halfway through the following day.

When you do need to top up, you won’t have to wait long as the Honor 400 boasts 66W fast charging, although there isn’t a compatible fast charger included in the box. When charging at a slightly slower 60W rate on an adapter I had to hand, it took about 30 minutes to get from 20% to 69%, and a total of 54 minutes to get back to a full tank.

Unfortunately, there’s no wireless charging available, which does feel like a sticking point when that feature is creeping into the mid-range conversation.

Should I buy the Honor 400?

Swipe to scroll horizontallyHonor 400 score card

Attributes

Notes

Rating

Design

It might not turn heads with its colorways but the Honor 400 has a confident look.

4 / 5

Display

The display is the true highlight here, just not for owners of last year’s phone.

4.5 / 5

Performance

Great everyday performance that’s difficult to fault.

4 / 5

Camera

The absent telephoto is missed, but everything else is solid.

4 / 5

Battery

More than enough to get you through an intensive day of use.

4 / 5

Software

MagicOS still has some way to go, as does Honor’s AI suite.

3 / 5

Value

Great cameras, a gorgeous display and tons of storage make this a winner.

5 / 5

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Honor 400 review: also consider

If you’re not completely sold on the Honor 400’s set of features, then these alternatives might be a better fit.

How I tested the Honor 400

  • Tested over a single week
  • Used as the reviewer’s main handset
  • Battery tested against intensive and typical days of use

For the purposes of this review, I used the Honor 400 as my main handset for a total of seven days as it carried my SIM card. Due to this being a pre-release model, certain features like Google Wallet wouldn’t work with the device, so I relied on a paired TicWatch Pro 5 Enduro smartwatch for payments.

While the phone does feature 66W fast charging, I used a 65W adapter during the charging test, which automatically downgrades to 60W in the process. The phone I used prior to the Honor 400 was the iPhone 16 Plus, which served as a mental reference over the testing period.

First reviewed: May 2025



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A woman holds her phone and a bank card while standing in an airport.
Gaming Gear

Traveling Abroad This Summer? Here Are the Best Tips to Avoid Roaming Phone Charges

by admin


Modern smartphones makes international travel a breeze compared to the old days. The Android or iOS supercomputer in your pocket has all the downloadable apps and included features to smoothly reserve hotel rooms, navigate cities, translate signage through the camera and pay for goods and services. With the latest software upgrades, you can translate conversations in real time with AI-powered features and even ask your AI-powered assistants for travel tips.

All those fancy phone features and apps work best — and sometimes only work — with a data connection. While that’s covered by your domestic plan, it usually comes with extra roaming fees when you travel abroad. Here’s how to avoid those charges.

Read more: Best Phone to buy for 2025

First and foremost, you’ll want to understand how pricey those extra charges are or whether you’ll be traveling to a region that’s cheaper or free with your carrier. Some mobile carriers have partnered with carriers in other countries for more affordable roaming or even free service, albeit with some restrictions. For example, some plans — like T-Mobile’s Essentials — offer free service in Canada and Mexico, but only at slow, 2G- or 3G-like speeds. So don’t expect to stream much video on that connection.

But traveling to most countries will require you to pay mobile roaming charges if you try to use data services, make voice calls or send text messages on your phone as normal. If that’s your plan, check out our guide for the best travel phone plans. 

If you want to avoid mobile roaming charges, keep the following tips in mind.

Jordi Salas/Getty Images

Set up mobile service before you leave

Some carriers will let you pick traveling service options ahead of time, which can include daily, weekly or monthly flat fees to get service from partner carriers in other countries. You can wait until you arrive at your destination and wait to be prompted to select your chosen service or you can set it up ahead of time. Note that some carriers will simply default you to these services rather than charge you higher roaming fees, although it’s worth confirming before you travel.

These international plans are pretty convenient, although some may come with caveats such as being deprioritized behind other carrier customers, meaning you’ll get slower speeds during peak traffic times. Check the fine print of each travel plan to know its restrictions and what you may need to pay for extra service.

Verizon’s international plans start pretty simply, with $10 a day getting you 2GB per day of high-speed data and unlimited 3G-speeds data thereafter, as well as free voice calls and texting, in more than 210 countries. That plan is discounted to $5 per day in Canada and Mexico. 

If you have one of the carrier’s latest plans, known as Unlimited Plus and Unlimited Welcome, you’ll get these features included for Canada and Mexico. Customers with Verizon’s top Unlimited Ultimate option will get this international data for Canada and Mexico as well as for more than 210 countries. 

Watch this: Here’s Why Your Phone Battery Still Sucks

02:46

AT&T has a similar $10-per-day travel plan for unlimited data, voice calls and text. The data counts against your usual plan’s allowance; going over will result in a charge and/or reduced download speeds of a super slow 2G-like connection. If you don’t sign up for this plan, traditional roaming fees kick in, charging per text message, megabyte of data and minute of voice calling. 

Unlimited data for Canada and Mexico is included in AT&T’s main Unlimited plans, while the carrier’s Unlimited Premium PL and Unlimited Elite plans also allow unlimited data in 20 Latin American countries.

T-Mobile has its own international plans with unlimited calling, but they’re pretty modest with data, starting at $5 per day for half a gigabyte of downloaded data. Keep in mind that the carrier’s standard plans also include some international data allowances.

The basic Magenta and Go5G plans offer up to 10GB of high-speed data a month in Canada and Mexico, and once that’s used up, get unlimited data at very slow 2G speeds (as previously mentioned, the cheapest Essentials plan only gets data in Canada and Mexico at 2G speeds). Go5G Next, Go5G Plus and Magenta Max plans have a small 5GB monthly travel allowance for high-speed data in more than 215 countries, although that’s subject to potential extra taxes and conditions. Standard Go5G plans get the same 5GB data allowance in 11 European countries.

Although it’s possible to bump up your plan for the month (or more) you’re traveling and return to your old plan thereafter, it’s likely simpler to just pay for international data.  

Getty Images

Getting mobile service directly from a local carrier

Before carriers got friendlier with their international agreements to support each other’s customers, one of the better traveling strategies was to get service straight from the carrier in the country you were traveling in. Once you landed, you’d just walk into a local carrier’s retail store and get a prepaid SIM card to last you the length of your trip.

That’s still possible today but it’s a bit more complicated. If you have one of the many phones that lack a physical SIM slot, including the latest iPhone 15 series and Samsung Galaxy S24 series, you’ll have to register for service through one of the eSIM accounts on your device. It’s pretty easy to do and is in fact one of the benefits of having multiple digital eSIM slots — so you can have one for domestic use and one for traveling — but it requires you to register through the carrier in question. You can even load the eSIM before you travel, through apps such as Airalo and Ubigi.

Unfortunately, there’s something else to consider: whether your phone is unlocked, that is, not tied to a carrier and restricted in using eSIMs from other carriers (even international ones). If you bought your device unlocked, you’re in the clear. 

If you’re paying off your phone in installments from your carrier, it’s complicated. Verizon users have it best, as their installment plans unlock phones after 60 days. AT&T and T-Mobile, however, require you to finish your installments and fully pay off your phone to unlock it. Because AT&T’s plans have a minimum of 36 monthly installments, customers may be out of luck getting a local carrier eSIM unless they’re nearing the end of their contract — in which case it may make sense to pay the balance for more travel freedom.  

Relying on a hotspot and tethering

Another method to avoid roaming is a bit more roundabout and requires you to sign up for service with a local carrier anyway but you won’t have to fiddle with eSIMs. When you land in your country of travel, you can rent a mobile hotspot (or register service on one you already own), which is a handheld device that turns cell signals into Wi-Fi. 

Note that you’ll still need to pay for service either from the hotspot maker or from a local carrier, and there’s no guarantee that their networks will play nicely with a given hotspot device. Check that it’ll work in the area you’re traveling to. 

Once you have one set up, you just connect to the hotspot’s Wi-Fi using your phone as normal. While it’s a bit more cumbersome, this also lets you get internet for your other devices, such as tablets and laptops, pretty much anywhere you get a phone signal from a local carrier.

Read more: Best cheap phone plan for 2024

Another caveat is that you’ll need to keep the hotspot itself charged, which is another device battery you’ll have to worry about. It might be worth carrying an external battery to make sure your hotspot can last a full day while you’re out and about.

Ultimately, whatever option you choose should fit your travel habits and destinations. Some carrier partnership options will be more appealing but offer slower speeds than getting service straight from the local carrier. But don’t worry about getting locked into a choice: You can always try out one way when you arrive and switch to another if a better choice presents itself.

I Took 600+ Photos With the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. Look at My Favorites

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Product Reviews

Ring, Ring! It’s the First ‘Black Phone 2’ Trailer

by admin


Those weekend teases had to lead up to something, right? Blumhouse unveiled a full first look at Black Phone 2 during its CCPX panel, and if you’ve ever wanted to see Ethan Hawke ice skate toward someone he intends to murder, this sequel will be for you.

With main baddie the Grabber (Hawke) dead, the sequel picks up years after the first, the now teenage Finney (Mason Thames) and Gwen (Madeline McGraw) Blake dealing with another Colorado winter. Soon, Gwen finds herself dreaming of the Grabber’s lair and three young boys who’ve been killed dead at Alpine Lake Youth Camp. Using a black payphone near the camp, the Grabber calls the teens up saying he’s looking to kill them: either in their dreams or potentially in the real world, he’s gonna get his revenge.

Talking to THR, returning director/co-writer Scott Derrickson called Black Phone 2 a ghost story like its predecessor, but one where “the ghost is the villain.” And with the kids aged up, he and co-writer C. Robert Cargill were excited to “ratchet up the intensity,” since Finn and Gwen in high school makes for a “more violent, scarier, more graphic” film.

Black Phone 2 hits theaters on October 17 and also stars Jeremy Davies, Anna Lore, Arianna Rivas, Miguel Mora, and Demián Bichir.

Hell has frozen over. #BlackPhone2 is calling, only in theaters October 17 pic.twitter.com/OpYvtJLAHi

— Blumhouse (@blumhouse) June 2, 2025

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.





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Oppo Find X8 Ultra Review
Gaming Gear

This Might Be the World’s Best Phone Camera

by admin


I get it—the smartphone market is boring. Galaxy after iPhone after Pixel, year after year after year—at least if you’re in the U.S. Even if you’re into phone tech, it can be hard to feel enthusiastic about the prospect of annual upgrades.

In Asia, however, the battle for smartphone supremacy is as brutal as ever. Chinese companies like Huawei, Vivo, and Xiaomi are still locked into breakneck competition, releasing multiple devices a year that put Western offerings to shame—at least on paper. The Oppo Find X8 Ultra is one of the strongest recent examples. It’s an all-around flagship phone that crams the very best of high-end specs into a sleek form factor. All things considered, I think it’s the best camera phone available anywhere in the world.

Oppo Find X8 Ultra

Oppo’s latest flagship Find X8 Ultra has everything you could possibly want from a phone—except availability outside of China.

Pros

  • Unbeatable specs
  • Versatile camera system
  • Best-in-class image processing

Cons

  • Mediocre ultra-wide lens
  • Only available in China

It’s not exactly a Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, but Oppo’s stated goal with the Find X8 Ultra’s design was to pull off “the thinnest camera phone.” At 8.78mm thick compared to its 9.5mm-thick predecessor, the Find X7 Ultra, Oppo has indeed slimmed the Find X8 Ultra down beyond any of its cutting-edge competitors. But because of its boxy, squared-off design, it doesn’t necessarily seem that much thinner in the hand. This year’s Xiaomi 15 Ultra, for example, is 9.48mm thick but has tapered edges that don’t dig into your palms as much.

That’s not to say the Find X8 Ultra is unwieldy. Oppo has basically achieved what it set out to here; it essentially feels like a very slightly thicker iPhone 16 Pro Max, which is a strong achievement considering the hardware. But the design is extremely straightforward and austere, which may or may not be to your taste. Oddly, the Find X8 Ultra looks near-identical to the base Find X8, while the mid-tier Find X8 Pro is sleeker and flashier than both.

© Sam Byford / Gizmodo

The display is as good as you’ll find on any premium phone. It’s a 6.82-inch flat-sided OLED panel with a variable refresh rate (1 to 120Hz) and 1440p resolution. The Find X8 Ultra gets up to 1,600 nits bright in regular outdoor usage and peaks at 2,500 nits with HDR content. The bezels are equally slim on all four sides. It has Dolby Vision support and, more unusually, Oppo’s Splash Touch technology to limit unwanted inputs when it’s wet. I did make a point of testing this in a hot tub, for science, and the phone really does actually stay more or less usable even when it’s covered in drops of water.

I’ll also mention the ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, not just for its speed improvements over the X7 Ultra’s optical reader, but for how Oppo improved the way you set it up—now you can register your thumb by just rolling it in a circle a few times rather than tapping the sensor repeatedly with every part of the tip. Not the biggest deal in the world, but a welcome improvement if you’re a weirdo like me who goes through that process dozens of times a year when testing new phones.

Another design quirk is Oppo’s shift away from a mute slider switch, a popular differentiating feature on phones from its subsidiary OnePlus. There’s now a customizable button on the top left of the phone called the Shortcut Button, and yes, it works more or less identically to the iPhone’s Action Button—right down to the full-screen UI that pops up when you choose its function. I’m fine with the hardware change, but the implementation is a little brazen.

© Sam Byford / Gizmodo

Elsewhere, the Find X8 Ultra’s spec sheet includes what you’d expect from the top shelf of Android flagships in 2025. The processor is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite and the phone can be outfitted with up to 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. (The base model has 12GB and 256GB, respectively.)

This is Oppo’s first Ultra-class phone to include silicon-carbon battery technology, following its debut in the X8 Pro and a subsequent appearance in the folding Find N3. Basically, this allows Oppo to get a lot more capacity out of a smaller physical space—despite its slimmer frame, the Find X8 Ultra’s battery weighs in at 6,100mAh versus 5,000mAh on the X7 Ultra. As for charging, Oppo’s own 100W SuperVOOC adapter can get you from zero to 100 percent in under 40 minutes, which is impressive considering the increased capacity of the battery. The Find X8 Ultra also supports wireless charging at up to 50W with a compatible proprietary charger. Between the fast charging and the large battery capacity, I’ve found the phone unlikely to die on me in regular use. I’m not going to say it’ll never happen on a long day of shooting in the sun, but it’s been as solid as any comparable phone I could name.

That brings me to the camera system, which—as ever with “Ultra”-class Chinese flagships—is the main point of differentiation here. The Find X8 Ultra doesn’t necessarily have the best hardware in every single category, but there’s a strong case to be made that it’s the most well-rounded and versatile camera system around.

© Sam Byford / Gizmodo

The Find X8 Ultra’s primary camera uses a 1-inch-type sensor, which is the class-leading standard for Chinese flagship phones; it’s the same size as what you’ll find on Sony’s RX100 range of point-and-shoot cameras or Fujifilm’s new X half. What this means in practice is that the lens you use the most gives you far more depth and dynamic range than what you get from an iPhone or Galaxy. The light-gathering ability is simply on another level, and you’re able to separate subjects through shallow bokeh (background blur) without resorting to portrait mode, which often still shows imperfections between the foreground and background.

The Find X8 Ultra’s telephoto lenses—yes, there are two—are also a particular strength. The 3x periscope camera has an unusually large 1/1.56-inch sensor paired to an f/2.1 lens with close-focus ability, allowing for excellent mid-range and macro shots with natural shallow depth of field. There’s also a 6x f/3.1 lens with a 1/1.95-inch sensor. The one drawback is the 1/2.75-inch ultra-wide camera, which isn’t necessarily weak next to the competition but does feel like a compromise in the name of thinness; previous Oppo flagships performed much better.

© Sam Byford / Gizmodo

Oppo has also adopted a thoughtful approach to camera software. The regular photo mode turns out pictures along the lines of what you’d expect from a high-end smartphone, with crunchy sharpness and HDR detail preserved in every shot. I think Oppo has the best color science in that sense, which is why phones like the Find N3 can outperform their hardware. But if you’re not into the typical smartphone photo look—which I personally am not—you can swipe on over to the Hasselblad-branded Master mode, which gives you much more natural results right out of the box. While Master mode is fully customizable, its default settings tend to line up with what I’d be aiming for when editing files from a dedicated camera.

This year, Oppo’s image processing is aided by what the company calls a “True Chroma Camera,” a low-res sensor dedicated to capturing accurate color information across the frame for better automatic white balance. It’s difficult to test exactly how the camera system would work without this additional hardware, but I did see impressive results in challenging situations like low-light portraits.

The shooting experience is also helped by the “Quick Button,” which is pretty much a facsimile for Apple’s Camera Control. It gives quick access to the camera app and shutter release, but it’s fully capacitive and much easier to press; I found myself using it a lot more often than I do on my own iPhone 16 Pro.

The Find X8 Ultra has a vastly more capable camera system than you can get on any smartphone sold in the US, and it trades blows with the best available from domestic competitors like Xiaomi and Vivo. That said, I can’t really recommend anyone go out of their way to buy it unless they’re based in China. I have personally found it to work well on my NTT Docomo SIM card in Japan, but I can’t speak to bands or coverage wherever you might be reading this.

© Sam Byford / Gizmodo

Oppo’s China-focused version of ColorOS is pretty usable and comes with built-in compatibility for Google Mobile Services through a settings toggle, meaning you can use the Play Store and Google apps along with any third-party software that relies on Google’s APIs. Still, an uninitiated Western user might feel blindsided by a bunch of Chinese bloatware and services they won’t ever be able to use. The Find X8 Ultra’s eSIM support is only accessible through the built-in ORoaming app, for example, and you can only pay for data through WeChat or AliPay.

But the bigger picture here is that the Find X8 Ultra demonstrates how Chinese phone makers are simply miles ahead of what’s available in the U.S. and Europe. Whether you’re shopping for a Galaxy, Pixel, or iPhone this year, you’re getting a raw deal when it comes to pure hardware capability and camera performance. This phone launched at 6,499 yuan in China, which works out to around $900.

Given the present political climate, it seems less likely than ever that Chinese OEMs will find a way to sell their highest-end devices in the U.S. That’s unfortunate for anyone interested in the best hardware available. The Oppo Find X8 Ultra will be my go-to camera phone until something better comes along, and I have a feeling that that something won’t be available in the U.S. either. It’s not like this particular phone necessarily changes the game—Chinese companies have been leapfrogging Apple and Samsung for years.

All in all, the Find X8 Ultra is an awesome phone that’s as good an example as any of what’s capable today with modern mobile technology. I think it’s clearly better than anything Apple, Samsung, or Google are selling in the U.S. today. Does that mean you should import it? Probably not. But it does mean you should raise your standards for the next time those companies try to sell you on new hardware.



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Black Phone2 Grabber
Product Reviews

‘The Black Phone 2’ Dials In Some Ominous Teasers

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In 2022, horror duo Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill of Sinister fame teamed to adapt Joe Hill’s short story The Black Phone. Things wrapped pretty conclusively in that one, but you can’t keep a good Grabber (Ethan Hawke) down it seems, because he’s back in a sequel coming this fall.

The first film saw Finn (Mason Thames) kidnapped by the Grabber and stuck in a room with a rotary phone that could contact ghosts of the killer’s previous victims. With their help, Finn killed the Grabber and reunited with his family. In anticipation for Black Phone 2, Blumhouse’s released three teasers that let you know the Grabber’s returned and set his sights on kids at Colorado’s Alpine Lake Youth Camp during the winter.

“The phone is ringing again. Are you going to answer?”

We just got a text that included the first tease for BLACK PHONE 2! Only in theaters this October. pic.twitter.com/ckfgKx9nUT

— Fandango (@Fandango) May 31, 2025

“We’re going to die out here.”

A third video teasing BLACK PHONE 2 just arrived in the form of another mysterious text message… on our phone 😱 pic.twitter.com/vjrS9xguDQ

— Fandango (@Fandango) May 31, 2025

Each of the teasers contain grainy shots of the snow-covered camp and its various facilities, photos of young boys kidnapped and what remains of them after the Grabber’s finished. (One victim’s left in the ice, another folded under a bed, and the third has half his face burned and appears throughout all of them, either looking at the camera or appearing and disappearing without a word.) Each teaser also has a single word flash onscreen, which spell out the phrase “Word is Just.” Finally, there’s a phone booth somewhere on the premises with its own black phone, which keeps ringing and is waiting for someone to answer.

Back at April’s CinemaCon, Universal showed off Black Phone 2 footage teasing the Grabber is using the titular phone to come back and haunt the surviving kids from the previous movie. If that’s the case, he certainly hasn’t lost a step, and we’ll find out what other tricks he’s got up his sleeve when the film releases October 17.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.





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The Nintendo Switch Phone App Just Got A Lot Better
Game Reviews

The Nintendo Switch Phone App Just Got A Lot Better

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Screenshot: Nintendo / Kotaku

The Nintendo Switch 2 launches in exactly one week, and in the lead up to the new console, Nintendo has updated the Nintendo Switch Online app and made it much more useful. It also has a new, pithier name. Say goodbye to the Nintendo Switch Online App, and say hello to the Nintendo Switch App.

Nintendo Switch 2 Could Launch With Almost No Reviews

On May 28, Nintendo quietly pushed out update 3.0.1 for the Nintendo Switch Online app. As mentioned, this abbreviated the app’s name and also reworked some of its UI. But the big news is that the Switch App will now let you upload screenshots and videos from the Switch 2 directly to your phone without needing to use a QR code. You can even set the Switch 2 to automatically upload up to 100 screenshots and videos to the app. These will remain available to download from your phone for 30 days. Even better, this new feature is available for free, no paid Switch Online membership is needed. However, this new option is only available on the Switch 2.

Some other great changes include the ability to add friends via the app itself, and the ability to receive notifications on your phone when your friends log on.

A lot of these features are things that have existed in Sony and Microsoft’s apps and consoles for years now, so it does feel like Nintendo is finally catching up. Still, it’s nice that the Switch app on phones will feel more modern and be far more useful. As someone who never shared a screenshot from my Switch to my phone, I was gobsmacked that you had to use a QR code and transfer it over wifi. Using the cloud and letting the console do it automatically is a huge improvement.

Here are the full patch notes for the big update:

Switch App 3.0.1 patch notes

  • The app name has changed from Nintendo Switch Online to Nintendo Switch App. Elements of the app design have been updated.
  • Nintendo Switch 2 consoles are now supported.
  • Screenshots and videos saved in your console’s album can now be uploaded to the app.
  • You can now receive GameChat invitations.
  • More friend features are now available in the app.
  • You can now add friends via the app.
  • You can choose to receive a notification in the app when a friend comes online.
  • Various other small improvements and bug fixes have been made.

  .



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Someone Take Away Randy Pitchford's Phone
Game Updates

Someone Take Away Randy Pitchford’s Phone

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Sometimes you just gotta walk away. And this might be one of those times. Earlier this month, Gearbox co-founder and CEO Randy Pitchford replied to someone on social media about the studio’s next game, Borderlands 4, possibly receiving an $80 price tag. He said it wasn’t his call and then infamously added, “If you’re a real fan, you’ll find a way to make it happen.” This didn’t go over well with people online. A few days later, on May 22, he said he didn’t intend to sound like an asshole.

Nintendo Switch 2 Could Launch With Almost No Reviews

Now, a week later, he’s posted about the “real fan” comment yet again. However, this time Pitchford basically wrote an article about it, posting a 573-word tweet. In the lengthy response, he apologized for the “misunderstanding” and reiterated that he never intended to suggest people who can’t afford Borderlands 4 aren’t real fans.

Instead, he said his point was that Borderlands 4—a game that I’m still excited to play in September—costing $10 more likely won’t hurt the upcoming looter shooter, as he believes it’s great and still worth the price. And you know what, after reading this 500+ word post, I do believe him. I think Pitchford really didn’t expect his short tweet to set off a firestorm. But it did, and at this point, I’m not sure posting over and over again about it is helping. If anything, it just leads to more people learning about the original comment and, as a result, more discourse happening. He’s like Sideshow Bob stepping on rakes. Each post angers more people, making the situation worse. It’s time to put the phone down, walk away, and let the internet move on to something else. So, that’s my advice to you, Randy. Log off, dude.

Anyway, here’s the full post, lightly formatted so it is easier to read:

I am sorry there was a misunderstanding. The absolute sincere truth is that I don’t want anyone to pay any more than they should or are comfortable with and I always work with the intent and hope that a customer always feels they got the better end of the deal no matter what they pay.

The actual context was that a guy replied to a post about Borderlands 4 on the Nintendo Switch 2 was warning me that if the price ends up being $80, the game will fail. What I was trying to do was explain that it wasn’t my call but that if a $10 price increase does happen (since that’s obviously where the industry is going), it will be okay and that Borderlands 4 will be okay because it’s a great game and there are a lot of fans who will see the value and want it.

I think my trying to short hand that using the phrase “real fans” triggered some people and I saw that it got inflated as if I was making some big statement (I wasn’t – I was just trying to help someone who I thought was sincerely worried about us and looking out for us) and I could see that it was being pressed into the idea that I was taking the audience for granted (which is a super shitty look, but it was not at all my intent and does not reflect at all how I feel).

The sincere truth is that I’m grateful that anyone likes our games and humbled that so many fans show up to enjoy and support what we do.

As an artist, I don’t want prices to go up because I want everyone to have access to what we create. I get that business is a thing and that the market and economy are driving prices up and sooner or later we’re going to have to all adapt to that so that the creative engine can make at least as much as it spends to provide us with amazing content. Whatever the case, I’m here to try to entertain people and my priority has always been to try to add some joy and happiness and creativity to the world. To whatever extent I succeed at that, I am grateful and honored and take on every effort with passion and humility.

May I recommend you consider the people who create entertainment you enjoy are actual, real people who sincerely are working to try to make cool stuff. I have dedicated my life to video games as entertainment and I have made the choice to be accessible on here. I don’t want to let edge cases ruin that for the majority of people who find value in using this medium for a positive connection, but I cannot help that there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to at least try to help those that don’t get it to gain some perspective and some dignity in how they choose to interact.

I’m not claiming I’m perfect. But I don’t deserve any less latitude than anyone else. I choose to think of others with the most amount of charity and am often surprised to discover some that jump to the worst possible way to consider a thing as doing that is just counter to my nature.



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