Global smartphone maker Motorola proves that you don’t need to spend thousands on a premium, good-looking, fast, dual-SIM 5G premium Android 10 phone.
Motorola’s latest flagship phone hits the nail on the head, delivering an impressive and deliciously eye-catching communications device, entertainment engine, productivity gadget, multimedia machine and more. It’s 5G to boot, and Motorola’s first 5G smartphone in Australia.
The history of mobile phones is empty without Motorola’s contributions starting with the world’s first mobile phone and base station. Motorola released the first flip phone, the StarTAC, and its iconic, ultra-thin RAZR phone was the right phone until the advent of the era of touchscreen smartphones. Motorola launched the experimental Motorola Atrix and, in my opinion, ahead of its time, which saw the phone become the center of your computing and multimedia environments. One dock turned the Atrix into a desktop PC, another into a laptop, another into a multimedia center. It was Continuum and Dex long before Microsoft and Sony. Google bought and then sold Motorola’s mobile arm, but retained its patents in a deal ultimately valued at around US $ 4 billion. In a world dominated by Nokia at one time, now Apple and Samsung, whenever mobile phone technology has advanced, Motorola has been involved in one way or another.
Fast forward to today and while Motorola’s attempt to bring back a modernized smartphone version of the RAZR has met with less fanfare than the company hoped, its latest flagship smartphone is a sure-fire victory.
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The Motorola Edge is great to hold and use. This is a 6GB DDR4 RAM, 128GB ROM dual nanoSIM device powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 octa-core processor and Adreno 620 GPU. It can take microSD cards up to 1TB. It runs a near-stock Android 10 with custom features in the preinstalled Moto app for customizing styles, wallpapers, layouts, and fingerprint animation.
It’s constructed of 6000 series aluminum with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on the front and plastic on the back. It weighs 188.3g and measures 161.64mm x 71.1mm x 9.29mm. The display is a brilliantly crisp 6.7 “Endless Edge OLED display with 90Hz refresh rate and HDR10 +. It’s available in black only, which Henry Ford will love.
The edge display is, of course, where it gets its name from – the Motorola edge -. The screen literally wraps almost 90 degrees around the curvature of the unit and you can use that extra screen space for apps or to display lighting for alerts and notifications and other personalized purposes. Let your phone convey all kinds of details in subtle ways without having to type it in. In fact, the edge screen provides new side gestures to manage your most commonly used features. In a marvel of engineering, the entire front of the phone is almost entirely displayed except for a small pinhole for the front camera.
The Edge has a 4,500mAh non-removable battery that lasts over a day and an 18W TurboPower charger is included. Note that wireless charging is not supported. It has a USB-C jack and yes it also has a 3.5mm headphone jack, although Bluetooth 5.1 is also available as well as 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac Wi-Fi.
It has two stereo speakers powered by Waves, NFC, GPS, A-GPS, LTEPP, SUPL, GLONASS and Galileo. There’s a fingerprint reader under the display, along with proximity, accelerometer, ambient light, and gyroscope sensors.
It is water repellent to IPX2 standard and supports 5G NR Sub-6GHz with 4G LTE, 3G UMTS and HSPA + and 2G GSM and EDGE (if ever you are in such an area).
The rear camera brings a 64MP sensor with UHD video recording at 30fps and FHD at 60 and 30fps. The front camera is a 25MP sensor with FHD and HD video at 30fps. The camera’s photo modes offer portrait, crop, macro, spot color, night vision, cinema graphics, panorama, ultra-resolution and live filter. Video modes feature macro, slow motion, fast motion, and AR stickers.
Specifications are one thing. They tell you, on paper, that the phone has the right hardware to meet demanding needs and to deliver media, information, communications and entertainment on a beautifully sized screen. However, holding the phone and using it brings a different kind of magic. The screen is wonderfully bright and crisp; the audio is an unparalleled advanced sound experience, the photography is breathtaking, the battery gives and gives, and all you do is swift speed and responsiveness.
The beautiful display, long battery life, and 5G power are huge – sure enough – and while they don’t disappoint, these are the advancements you’d expect in major devices. What came as a big surprise when we experienced the edge for ourselves were the surprisingly loud and powerful stereo speakers. They have to be heard to be believed with unjust words. The audio technology comes from Waves, the recipient of a Technical GRAMMY Award, and makes phone calls, music and videos sound bold, loud and clear.
What’s also lovely is the purity of the Android experience. You don’t have to go through weird software experiences that slow down your device and cloud the waters on what’s Android and what isn’t, and no vendor duplicate apps. It’s just Android 10 almost in stock with some Motorola improvements available in the built-in Moto app. This also provides great convenience for future availability of updates.
The motorola edge is available for purchase starting today from JB Hi-Fi, The Good Guys, Officeworks (online only), Mobileciti, and the Motorola online store for a suggested retail price of $ 999.
If you’re looking for a modern, fast, and shiny Android smartphone, the Motorola Edge must be a serious contender for your money. It’s future-proof with 5G – yet to be rolled out across most of Australia, it comes with Android 10, a big battery, a wonderful display, amazing sound and much more. Use it wirelessly with Bluetooth or with a headset – this phone gives you that choice – but whatever you choose to do, the Motorola Edge lets you do it right, do it fast, and most certainly do it in style.
