Technologies

Motorola Edge 70 Is Ultrathin in Design, but Super Big on Battery

The new phone packs a battery capacity that outdoes the iPhone Air and Galaxy S25 Edge.

A new ultrathin phone has arrived on the scene. On Wednesday, Motorola unveiled the Edge 70. It’s slightly thicker than the iPhone Air and Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, but it also features a significantly larger battery capacity.

The announcement confirms earlier leaks about Motorola, which is entering a challenging market for ultrathins. Sales for the slim iPhone Air have reportedly been weak, and Samsung may consider ditching thin phones altogether due to declining interest in the Galaxy S25 Edge.

European consumers will have first crack at the Edge 70, as will phone shoppers in China (where it’s branded as the X70 Air). Motorola did not specify when it will be available in the US.

Typically, international phone models come with higher-end features, such as better cameras, more powerful processors and premium materials. The US edition of the Edge is often a more midrange phone. A look at the international model, however, does provide a hint about the eventual US-bound Edge.

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Motorola Edge 70 weight and battery life

The Edge 70 is 5.99mm thick and weighs about 159 grams. For comparison, the iPhone Air measures 5.6mm thick at 165 grams, while the Samsung S25 Edge is 5.8mm thick and weighs 163 grams.

It’s among the lighter phones in Motorola’s Edge line: The 2025 model released in the US weighed in at 181 grams, although it also included an additional telephoto camera. The 2023 US model comes closer at 168 grams.

Motorola’s model surpasses its competitors in terms of battery capacity. The Edge 70 features a 4,800-mAh battery, compared to the Galaxy S25 Edge’s 3,900-mAh battery and the iPhone Air’s 3,149-mAh battery. Motorola’s battery is also built from silicon-carbon, which has a higher energy density than the traditional lithium-ion batteries used by its rivals.

Edge 70 owners can watch 29 straight hours of video with a full charge, Motorola says, and 38 hours of mixed usage. As for recharging, the device supports 68-watt fast-wired charging, compared with 25 watts for both the Galaxy S25 Edge and iPhone Air. It also supports 15-watt wireless charging.

Motorola Edge 70 cameras

The Edge 70 has three high-resolution cameras:

A 50-megapixel main camera with 4K video recording
A 50-megapixel ultrawide, which doubles as a macro lens with a 120-degree field of view
A 50-megapixel front camera

It also has a dedicated 3-in-1 light sensor for light sensitivity and exposure.

AI assistance

The Edge 70 comes with Moto AI, an array of AI tools integrated into Motorola phones. Among the AI features is Next Move, which first appeared on Motorola’s Razr phone line. This feature provides proactive suggestions based on the content on the screen.

The phone also features other Moto AI capabilities introduced with the Razr and showcased on the 2025 Edge, including Playlist Studio, Catch Me Up for summarizing notifications, and Pay Attention, as well as the Remember This feature for saving information.

Resistance to water and dust

The Motorola Edge has IP68 and IP69 ratings for protection against dust and water intrusion. That is comparable to the Samsung Galaxy S25 series, Apple iPhone 16 series, and Google Pixel 10 series, all of which have IP68 ratings.

There are three colors available: pantone bronze green, pantone lily pad, pantone gadget gray.

How ‘in’ is thin?

CNET phone expert Abrar Al-Heeti says she started as a thin-phone skeptic but was sold on the concept after reviewing the Oppo Find N5, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge and the iPhone Air.

«It’s refreshing to use something that feels innovative, and I’m surprised at how much more comfortable it is to use a lightweight phone,» Al-Heeti said. «With all the thin phones I’ve tested, it’s that feather-light feel that stands out to me.»

However, it remains unclear whether ultrathin phones will have lasting appeal. There are trade-offs to slimmer phones, such as shorter battery life and reduced camera capabilities.

«The challenge for phone makers is to limit those compromises, so that thin phones can be more appealing to a wider range of people,» said Al-Heeti.

Technologies

Google, Meta and Amazon Join Global Pact to Fight Rising Online Scams

The companies will share fraud intelligence and coordinate responses as AI makes scams faster, cheaper and harder to detect.

Modern online scams operate across multiple platforms, perhaps spanning social media, messaging apps, email and online marketplaces. Google, Meta and Amazon are among 11 tech, retail and payments companies that have signed a new agreement to combat online scams by sharing threat intelligence across platforms, Axios first reported Monday.

The initiative, called the Industry Accord Against Online Scams & Fraud, is designed to improve how companies detect and respond to fraud that spans multiple services. Participants say they will exchange signals, such as scam-linked accounts and fraudulent domains, and coordinate enforcement actions.

By sharing intelligence in near real time, companies hope to identify these scams earlier and stop them before they spread.

The effort reflects how modern scams operate. A victim might encounter a fake celebrity investment ad on social media, move to a messaging app where the scammer builds trust, then faces prompts to send money through a fraudulent website, payment app or crypto wallet — spanning multiple companies’ ecosystems.

Google said it now blocks hundreds of millions of scam-related results every day using AI, underscoring how both attackers and defenders are increasingly relying on the same technology. Meta removed more than 159 million scam ads in 2025 and is expanding AI tools to detect impersonation and warn users.

Online scams are growing rapidly, in part because generative AI has lowered the barrier to entry. AI can be used not only to produce realistic phishing emails but also to clone voices and deepfake videos that impersonate executives, public figures and even family members.

The agreement is voluntary and doesn’t create new legal obligations, but it comes after regulators’ increased pressure on tech platforms to address fraud more aggressively. The companies say they will begin building frameworks for reporting and intelligence-sharing, though it’s not yet clear how quickly those systems will be deployed or how effective they will be in practice.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Wednesday, March 18

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for March 18.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? I thought it was a fairly easy one, but read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Word before «card,» flood» or «photography»
Answer: FLASH

6A clue: Joust weapon
Answer: LANCE

7A clue: Brain, heart or lungs
Answer: ORGAN

8A clue: «Frozen» reindeer
Answer: SVEN

9A clue: What can be found on frozen roads or frozen margaritas
Answer: SALT

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Follow a dentist’s recommendation
Answer: FLOSS

2D clue: Baby bug
Answer: LARVA

3D clue: Shape made in the snow
Answer: ANGEL

4D clue: Very little
Answer: SCANT

5D clue: Egg layer
Answer: HEN

Technologies

Amazon Speeds Up Delivery Even More With 1- and 3-Hour Options

The retailer says the one-hour option is available in hundreds of cities, with discounted shipping for Prime members.

Same-day delivery apparently isn’t fast enough for some Amazon shoppers. The retail giant said on Tuesday it’s adding new shipping options that will get products to front doors within a one- or three-hour window.

The company said in its announcement that the one-hour option is available in hundreds of cities across the US, while the three-hour option is now live in more than 2,000 areas. Amazon’s web page at amazon.com/getitfast shows whether those options are available to shoppers for their location. More than 90,000 products will be available for those shipping windows, the company said.

For those who can’t get those services (including the author of this post, who lives between Austin and San Antonio in Texas), a message will display: «3-hour delivery is currently unavailable. Check back at a later time or shop products with Same-Day delivery below.»

Pricing for the faster delivery options is not cheap: It’ll cost you $20 for one-hour delivery and $15 for three-hour delivery for those without an Amazon Prime account, or $10 and $5 for customers who subscribe to Prime.

Last year, the company rolled out faster Amazon delivery options to 4,000 additional areas.

In a video of the podcast Learn and Be Curious with Doug Herrington, hosted by Amazon’s CEO of worldwide stores, Kandace Kapps, the director of the company’s same-day strategy team, spoke in more detail about the challenges of fast shipping. Kapps discussed shifts in customer buying habits over the last few years, such as more people buying household essentials like toilet paper on Amazon.

She said that Amazon can deliver so quickly by placing same-day delivery hubs close to customers in metro areas and by getting products ready to ship within 15 minutes, aided by warehouse robots.

«I think customers are going to continue to get magically surprised by how fast we can deliver to their doorstop,» Kapps said.

Herrington said fast shipping increases sales: «When we speed up the service, the probability that somebody buys a product from us goes up.»

Other retailers, including Walmart, have been adding same-day delivery options or exploring other ways to speed up shipping times to compete with Amazon.

Removing buyers’ moments of hesitation

Part of Amazon’s strategy, which has involved a massive buildout of locations, deployment of thousands of trucks, deals with other delivery services and investment in logistics software, is actually pretty simple: being there when people need last-minute items or make impulse buys.

«It’s about removing the last moment where you would’ve reconsidered the purchase,» said Stephanie Carls, retail insights expert at coupon and promotional-code website RetailMeNot, a sibling site of CNET. «It changes how you shop, not just how fast you get things.»

Carls said that Amazon’s super-fast delivery is removing the timeframe when people might change their minds about a purchase.

«There used to be a gap between deciding to buy something and actually having it. That’s when you’d price check, rethink it, or decide you didn’t need it after all,» she said. «This closes that gap.»

The retail expert said that competitors, including Walmart and Target, have been speeding up delivery times in some markets. Still, they’re not matching Amazon’s scale or product range at those speeds or levels of consistency.

«And that’s what starts to make everyone else feel slow,» Carls said. «Amazon’s advantage is how tightly connected its technology, inventory and delivery networks are, which makes this level of speed more repeatable.»