Motorola is making a super-thin phone, and I actually think that’s a huge deal

Motorola has revealed the Moto X70 Air
It’s a super thin phone that will compete with the iPhone Air and Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge
The phone measures less than 6mm and is expected to launch in Europe as the Edge 70

Motorola has revealed the Moto X70 Air, a super thin phone clearly designed to compete with the iPhone Air and Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge.

According to The Verge, the phone measures less than 6mm thick, though we don’t have any exact measurements at the time of writing. This wouldn’t be the thinnest smartphone Motorola ever made. The Moto Z, a modular phone launched in 2017, was 5.19mm thin without any accessories attached.

The phone is expected to come to Europe as the Motorola Edge 70, but we aren’t sure which countries this includes yet.

Motorola’s website says “something new is coming” on November 5, but we aren’t sure if this is a release date or simply the announcement date for the new phone. The website also contains a quiz to access a pre-launch deal

As well as a super-slim design and 6.7-inch display, the X70 Air comes with an impressively large battery. Motorola has equipped the phone with a 4,800mAh battery, which isn’t far off the battery capacity of a typical large flagship like the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

Motorola X70 Air side-on

(Image credit: Motorola / The Verge)

For comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge sports a 3,800mAh cell, while GSMArena lists the iPhone Air’s battery capacity at 3,149mAh. The X70 Air has both beat by quite some margin.

From Motorola’s renders, it seems the phone has three lenses, but one of these is greyed out. To my eye, this suggests the phone will ship with two full-fledged cameras and an additional depth or color sensor. The square camera housing is rounded out by a flash module.

The phone is also IP68 and IP69 rated against water and dust, meaning it’s submersion-proof and dust-sealed.

We don’t have a price on the Motorola X70 Air / Edge 70 at the time of writing, but regardless of cost I think this is a very meaningful development for the phone industry at large – let me explain.

Air pressure

Earlier this year, I wrote that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge could bring in a new age of thin and light phones, allowing powerful high-end Pro phones to develop into more performant devices without so much attention paid to ergonomics.

It seems that the engineers at Apple were on a similar wavelength, because this is exactly what we saw with the new iPhone 17 lineup: the new thin iPhone Air and the new iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max with huge camera ‘plateaus’.

But the top dogs of the tech industry experimenting isn’t enough to change the way we use tech every day – these new product ideas have to filter down to niche and accessible brands in order to gain a proper foothold.

That’s why the Motorola X70 Air is such an exciting prospect: to me, it suggests that the rest of the phone industry is waking up to the possibilities and portability that super-thin phones allow. If so, I’d expect to see thin phones from other phone makers in the next year, as a result of pressure from both the high-end and mid-tier of the industry.

Until then, our iPhone Air review and Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge review give a glimpse into what using a thin phone is really like. Be sure to let us know what you think of the Motorola X70 Air in the comments below.