Motorola is dipping their toes into the 5G market with two new “Edge” phones — Motorola Edge and Edge Plus — monikered after what the company calls “Endless Edge”, showcasing both phones’ waterfall screen. The two phones also share 5G connectivity and competent triple-camera sensors between them.
Motorola Edge Plus
The Motorola Edge Plus marks Moto’s entrance to the flagship market after a long time and it comes with some of the best features the brand could fit.
To start off, the 6.7-inch HDR10+ AMOLED screen on the phone is Motorola’s first with a 90Hz refresh rate. The 1080p+ resolution, it comes with, isn’t up to today’s “premium flagship” standard but on the contrary, it consumes less energy. The punch hole cut out at the top left corner creates space for a 23MP selfie sensor, whilst there’s an in-display fingerprint scanner just beneath the display.
On the camera side, the 108MP primary sensor is also the first of its kind on any Motorola device. It has an f/1.8 aperture and OIS. The insane sensor is much like what you would see on Xiaomi phones (not Galaxy S20 Ultra) which does 4-in-1 pixel binning to output 27MP photos.
Accompanying it is an 8MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom and OIS as well. Lastly, the triple-camera setup is completed by a 16MP ultrawide shooter with 117-degree FoV, which can capture macro shots, plus a ToF sensor. However, one strange thing is that despite the chipset [and sensor] being able to shoot 8K videos, the phone can only record up to 6K videos, period.
Under the helm of the phone sits a Snapdragon 865 chipset, basically, a norm for 2020 flagship, coupled up with 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.0 storage with no option for expansion.
On the other hand, you’ll be delighted to see the presence of a 3.5mm headphone jack on both Edge Plus and Edge.
For a phone of this size, Motorola has put a pretty big 5,000mAh battery with 18W charging via USB Type-C. Motorola says the battery can last up to 2 days of use. There’s also wireless charging support of up to 15W, plus reverse wireless charging at 5W for other Qi-compatible devices.
The Motorola Edge Plus will be exclusive to Verizon in the US and will support mmWave 5G with up to 4Gbps of download speed. As for the pricing, the phone will cost $1,000 and will go on sale starting May 14. The global version will launch in May for €1,199.
Motorola Edge
Aesthetically, the Motorola Edge is pretty similar to its “Plus” sibling, but speaking about the specs it’s not up to the mark. It still has the same 6.7-inch 90Hz screen with curves on the side, but the HDR10+ support is absent.
The chipset, though, is Snapdragon 765G, which has support for 5G but only for sub-6GHz networks. Likewise, the RAM is also limited to 6GB in the global version and just 4GB in North American. The storage sits at 128GB with an option for expansion, which is missing from the plus variant.
At the back of the phone is an identical triple-camera assembly, but the main sensor downgrades to 64-megapixel paired with a similar ultrawide and telephoto camera with a ToF sensor. The 25MP selfie shooter is also the same.
Albeit the phone with a similar screen size to its plus version, Motorola has fitted a smaller 4,500mAh battery but it retains the 18W fast charging. Wireless charging, on the other hand, is nowhere to be seen.
The presence of a 3.5mm headphone jack is well accounted for, plus you get a powerful stereo speaker, something which the plus version also has. Both phones will run on Android 10 out of the box and the company promises to update them to at least upcoming version 11.
The Motorola Edge is launching in Europe, Latin America, and the Asia Pacific in May, with the US market getting it later on. The phone will carry a price tag of €599 and will come in Midnight Magenta and Solar Black color options.
