5 Cheaper Android Phones You Should Try Instead Of The Motorola Edge 70 Max

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The Motorola Edge 70 Max is one of the latest additions to the company's smartphone portfolio and its current flagship. It has a lot of exciting features, particularly on the battery and charging fronts. For example, it packs a massive 7,100 mAh silicon-carbon battery and supports up to 90 W wired charging. The phone also supports 25 W Qi2 wireless charging, a feature that's pretty rare on most Android phones.

As Motorola is yet to launch the phone in the U.S., there is no official way to purchase it right now. However, if you don't want to wait for a phone that might or might not make it to the U.S., you can consider several notable alternatives, which cost less than £700 (~$940). Major Android manufacturers like Samsung, Google, and Nothing, all make competitive smartphones around this price point. We've picked some alternatives to Motorola's flagship after comparing raw specifications, initial reviews, and expert opinions for each phone on the list.

If you want a Motorola Edge 70 Max alternative that boasts an impressive battery capacity, the RedMagic 11S Pro is worth considering. The phone packs a massive 7,500 mAh silicon-carbon battery that supports 80 W wired and equally fast wireless charging. More importantly, the battery isn't the only exciting thing about this gaming phone. It also houses Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which should easily handle gaming, multitasking, and other everyday tasks. The company has paired the processor with 12 GB of RAM in the base model, which should be plenty for most use cases.

Other highlights of the RedMagic 11S Pro include a 6.85-inch OLED display with a 1,216 x 2,688 resolution, Wi-Fi 7 support, and an under-display fingerprint sensor. You also get Android 16 with the company's user interface layer on top. The company promised two Android updates and three years of security updates, which isn't as great as some other brands. 

Experts have mostly good things to say about the phone and appreciate the phone's liquid cooling that allows it to get the most out of the Qualcomm chip. However, the camera performance is one drawback of the phone, and it captures average-quality shots. It's also important to keep in mind that the phone has a gamer aesthetic that not everyone will appreciate. The RedMagic 11S Pro will cost you $799 for the base model and can be purchased from the company's website in two color options.

If you can do without the large display and the massive battery of the Edge 70 Max, the Galaxy S26 is one of the best alternatives to the Edge 70 Max, and it'll cost you less. Although it has a list price of $900 for the base model, you can often find it selling for less than $800. The Galaxy S26 comes with a 6.3-inch LTPO OLED display with a 120 Hz refresh rate, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, and 12 GB of RAM. You also get an under-display fingerprint sensor, a 4,300 mAh battery with 25 W fast charging, and a triple rear camera setup.

Not only does the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 have higher clock speeds and a more powerful Adreno 840 GPU than the Edge 70 Max's Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chip, but the Galaxy S26 also has a telephoto shooter, which you don't get in the Motorola phone. Samsung is also shipping the S26 with Android 16 and seven years of promised OS updates; the Edge 70 Max will only get three OS updates.

We found Samsung's compact flagship to be an excellent phone in our Galaxy S26 review, thanks to its good design, gorgeous display, and solid build quality. Other experts have similar feelings, but point out that it has relatively slow charging and lacks any major upgrades over its predecessor, the Galaxy S25. 

Another excellent Android phone that you can consider is Google's Pixel 10. Again, it doesn't have a big display or battery like the Edge 70 Max, but it certainly does a lot of things better than the Motorola phone. For example, it's set to receive seven years of OS updates and packs a triple rear camera setup featuring a telephoto shooter. The overall camera performance of the Pixel 10 is also something that's a major highlight.

Other Pixel 10 features include a 6.3-inch OLED display, the Tensor G5 chip, 12 GB of RAM, and a 4,970 mAh battery. We appreciated the overall performance of the phone as well as the Pixelsnap support in our Pixel 10 review. Similar sentiments are echoed by several other experts, with the only claimed downsides being Tensor G5's inability to catch up to Qualcomm's flagship chips and the slow charging speeds. The Pixel 10 currently starts at $799 on Amazon for the 128 GB storage variant.

The Nothing Phone (3) has gotten a bit old, but if you want a well-rounded premium mid-range smartphone, it still has a lot to offer. Like other Nothing brand products, design is the highlight of the Phone (3); however, as we noted in our Nothing Phone 3 review, it's a bit sillier than its predecessor. Beyond the design, the Phone (3) has a lot of what you would expect from a mid-range phone, such as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8S Gen 4 chip, up to 16 GB of RAM, a 6.67-inch OLED display with a 120 Hz refresh rate, and an under-display fingerprint sensor.

The phone also comes with Android 15; however, it has already received the Android 16 update and will get four more major OS updates. Connectivity options are solid, with support for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. While it doesn't have a battery capacity comparable to the Motorola Edge 70 Max, the phone houses a decent 5,150 mAh silicon-carbon battery that supports 65 W wired charging and 15 W wireless charging. Nothing has also included a triple rear camera setup, which does a good job, and even includes a 50 MP telephoto shooter with 3x optical zoom, something that you don't get on the Motorola Edge 70 Max.

Experts are happy with its software and overall performance. They say that it's a pretty good option for its price, but the Glyph Matrix feels gimmicky and there is limited support for Verizon. It has a starting list price of $799 for the base variant; however, it's often discounted to under $699. 

Motorola may not have revealed whether it plans to bring the Edge 70 Max to the U.S., but it offers the 2026 model of the Edge. The phone is not only significantly cheaper than the Edge 70 Max but is also more compact, lightweight, and has at least one more advantage in the form of the built-in telephoto shooter. The phone features a 6.3-inch OLED display with a 120 Hz refresh rate and is powered by a Mediatek Dimensity 7450 SoC. It also houses 8 GB of RAM, 128 GB of storage, and has a 5,000 mAh battery with support for up to 68 W fast wired charging and 15 W wireless charging. Moreover, the camera setup includes a 50 MP primary shooter, a 10 MP telephoto camera, and a 50 MP ultrawide shooter.

Experts have offered positive feedback about the Edge (2026), with its design being one of the highlights. It's also said to deliver solid battery life. Unfortunately, it will only get two major OS updates and three years of security patches. The phone will set you back by $600.

While selecting alternatives to the Motorola Edge 70 Max, we considered well-rated Android phones that you can actually buy in the U.S. We refined our search to focus on phones that offer one or more features that are better than the Motorola offering but cost less. We looked at our own reviews as well as opinions of other experts to choose the final recommendations, which deliver a generally well-rounded performance.