Motorola’s first Edge 60 phone feels like canvas

Motorola announced the first phone in its midrange Edge 60 series, which ships with a novel twist: a faux-canvas finish. The Edge 60 Fusion looks the part otherwise, with its molded camera module and surprisingly slim body, but the basic specs match the low price tag — just £299.99 (around $390) in the UK.

The canvas-effect finish might be one of the phone’s main draws, but it’s only available on the “amazonite” (read: teal) version of the phone. It’s also launching in blue and pink colors, but these use a faux leather finish instead. Every version has IP68 and 69 ratings, meaning the phone is fully protected against dust, immersion in water, and high-pressure sprays.

There’s some international variation in the Edge 60 Fusion’s specs, but the model launching in the UK is slim for its size, at less than 8mm thick, despite fitting in a fairly large 5,200mAh battery behind its 6.67-inch OLED screen. Models elsewhere pack an even bigger 5,500mAh cell, but run a touch thicker.

The Fusion comes with up to 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, but is likely to be held back by the relatively basic MediaTek Dimensity chipset used — either a 7300 or 7400, depending on the market, but there’s not much difference between them. Cameras are limited too — it may look like four on the back, but one is the flash and another a flicker sensor, so you only really get a 50 megapixel main lens and a 13 megapixel ultrawide.

The Fusion is expected to be the first in a series of Edge 60 phones — there were five models across last year’s Edge 50 line. None of those launched in the US, and this year’s phones likely won’t either, so American buyers will have to make do with January’s $299.99 Moto G Power, which lacks the Fusion’s OLED display and canvas feel, but has wireless charging. Motorola is expected to announce its updated Razr flip phones soon, with rumors predicting a wooden finish, in a throwback to 2014’s wood-backed Moto X.