Slowly and quietly, Motorola could become my favorite phone manufacturer, and a real problem for Samsung and co.
The Lenovo-owned company isn’t an unknown quantity by any means — far from it, including its entire history — but it does seem to have transitioned into a bolder, more assertive form lately.
Motorola used to be known for its solidly built, cheap phones. This used to be an easy recommendation if you didn’t have a lot of money to spend on your next phone: just the latest Moto G. For a while, every new model topped our list of the best budget phones.
In recent years, however, Motorola seems to have shifted its focus. It still makes solid Moto G phones, but it now also makes consistently good mid-range and flagship phones.
Mattias Inge
The Motorola Signature is one of my favorite flagship phones of 2026 so far, offering an unusually slim and distinctively stylish profile without sacrificing camera quality – all at a price that seriously undercuts the iPhone Air and even the aging Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge.
Then there’s the Motorola Razr Fold, which builds on the Signature’s solid work with one of the most tactile and inviting book-style foldable phones yet. It may not be as slim as the Galaxy Z Fold 7, but I know which one I prefer to use on a daily basis.
Instead of adopting the me-too-iPhone-adjacent designs of almost every other manufacturer, Motorola has gone its own way. It’s one that uses warm, natural (and nature-inspired) materials, curved edges, and inviting Pantone-approved colors.
In short, Motorola phones have a strong and distinctive identity that most of their rivals regularly miss. It also makes some interesting accessories, wearables, and audio products, even if we don’t endorse all of them here at Tech Advisor.
Sticks like a magnet
It looks like Motorola will continue to push the rest of the pack hard in other areas as well.
The Motorola Edge 70 Max is known to be in the works and recently appeared in the Wireless Power Consortium’s certification database. The WPC is the company responsible for setting new wireless charging standards, so any appearance here of a new phone is as good as an official confirmation.
What’s interesting is that this listing reveals that the Motorola Edge 70 Max will offer Qi2 charging support – and the faster 25W Qi 2.2 standard at that.
Jon Mundy / Foundry
Magnetic wireless charging has been an attractive part of the iPhone package for years (MagSafe is almost the ubiquitous name for it, after all), but only the Google Pixel 10 series has adopted it among mainstream Android company.
Samsung eschewed (and possibly abandoned) Qi2 support in its Galaxy S26 range in favor of a half-baked Qi2 case approach, while Xiaomi, Oppo and Honor have also dropped such a specification.
Motorola already has one of the most extensive and impressive smartphone series on the market. There is every indication that the company will continue to push things forward as we head towards 2027, which should be a concern for an otherwise stagnant field.
