Motorola Edge review: a more affordable flagship phone

Earlier this year, Motorola returned to the world of flagship phones with the Motorola Edge Plus, a $ 999 smartphone designed to come face-to-face with premium phones like the Galaxy S20 Ultra or OnePlus 8 Pro. And now it’s Following that with the Motorola Edge, a less expensive and less powerful version that promises secondary features at a price of $ 699.

I’ve already talked a lot about the hardware on the Edge Plus in my review of that device earlier this year, so I’ll highly recommend it there, as the Edge’s design is identical across, but the color in which comes (a black gloss with a rainbow finish that aggressively picks up fingerprints) and plenty of cameras on the back. In short, though, it’s a well-made aluminum-glass slab that’s pretty unremarkable, and the “Endless Edge display”, which curves around the sides of the device, is more eye-catching than really useful.

However, there are six areas where the hardware on the Edge differs from the Edge Plus, all of which leave the Edge a little worse compared to its more expensive sibling:

1. The processor has been downgraded from a Snapdragon 865 to a Snapdragon 765.
2. The battery is a 4,500 mAh battery, compared to 5,000 mAh on the Edge Plus.
3. The Edge has 6GB of RAM, half of the 12GB on the Edge Plus.
4. Cameras are downgraded on the Edge, including a change from the 108-megapixel sensor to a 64-megapixel main camera.
5. The Edge lacks wireless charging support.
6. The Edge only supports 5G below 6GHz and not the faster version of mmWave.

Which leaves the only real question about Edge: Are those sacrifices worth the drastically reduced price?

The Snapdragon 765 on the Edge is Qualcomm’s second best processor, and overall, everyday use was not noticeably worse than using a flagship chip. Applications launch quickly, websites load quickly, and user interface navigation is quick. More demanding games, like Fortnite or Asphalt 9, runs well too.

I stumbled across the occasional stutter and lag, especially when starting the camera app or going back to a previously opened game, which may be due to the 6GB of RAM. It’s definitely the lowest I would want to buy a high-end Android phone in 2020, but even those minor drawbacks weren’t really enough to be a concern.

Similarly, the reduced battery size does not affect the experience. I was able to easily get to the promised two days, although it’s true that using my phone is a little different than normal thanks to working from home. (The Snapdragon 765, which has a built-in modem and is more energy efficient, is presumably a contributing factor in making up for the difference in battery size.)

The main 64-megapixel sensor that replaces the 108-megapixel camera on the Edge Plus holds up well. Like its more expensive sibling, the Motorola Edge uses four-pixel binning to produce lower-resolution images with better color and less image noise (which is why the Edge shoots 16-megapixel shots by default). You can shoot at full 64 megapixels, though like the Edge Plus those photos generally came out worse. And while it will lose the finer level of detail offered by the higher-resolution camera, the Edge’s camera pleasantly surprised me. It won’t reach the industry-leading level of hardware and software from Apple or Google, but it doesn’t drag the device down (a problem Motorola has had in the past).

The telephoto camera is also worse on the Edge: it only has a 2x optical zoom, instead of 3x, and lacks optical image stabilization. Since the telephoto lens was already the worst part of the Edge Plus, this is not a huge loss. The other two cameras haven’t changed since the Edge Plus: the 16-megapixel ultra-wide-angle / macro camera (which takes pleasantly fun shots in both wide-angle and macro mode) and the front-facing camera (which is … okay, except for extremely rough portrait mode).

The last two changes are the most drastic, as they are straightforward missing features that Edge doesn’t have (rather than shortened versions of the ones it does have). Lack of wireless charging is frustrating for any device in 2020 (as is the lack of actual waterproofing, something it shares with Edge Plus). And the sub-6GHz 5G it is Definitely slower, especially compared to Verizon. In my tests on T-Mobile’s 700MHz network, I saw speeds of around 70Mbps down and 35Mbps up, not bad, but nothing close to Verizon’s 250-300Mbps mmWave deals. The flip side, of course, is that you can use Edge on T-Mobile (or AT&T), as it’s not blocked as a Verizon-exclusive in the US.

There are two other differences, which are less straightforward about hardware: Edge costs $ 699 in retail, $ 300 less than the price of $ 999 in Edge Plus. And Motorola is offering a “limited time” promotional price of $ 499 on the Edge, making it half as expensive as the Edge Plus. The Edge can also be used for many more people, as it is sold unlocked, rather than limited to Verizon customers in the US only.

In many ways, it’s the flagship Motorola should probably have made from the start, one that offers an almost premium experience at a lower price than its competitors, in an unlocked form that works on any network, rather than trying to find them. in the current market of $ 1,000.

Motorola makes many phones at many different prices, to the point where the lineups begin to blur. As a $ 700 phone, the Edge is arguably a better deal than its full-priced sibling, offering nearly comparable features and performance at a significantly reduced price. The current price of $ 499 makes it an even better deal, one that begins to demand that it be taken seriously as one of the best mid-range phones.

Photograph by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge