Motorola has been on a rollercoaster of a ride in the smartphone world for the past decade and a half. Motorola was the king of phones in its early days, with its revolutionary flip phone, and other models like the Droid and Droid X. Motorola then for about a decade has never released a proper flagship device. The company solely focused on mid-range and budget devices, and was pretty darn good at it, with phones like the Moto G6 being really popular amongst users for their price. The G6 was even on top of the Amazon phone lists for a long time a year or two ago. That shows how much the company was loved in the mid-range world. However, with the newly released Edge+, Motorola has taken a completely different route and has tried to penetrate the flagship segment of the smartphone market, and gain some ground in that regard. Should Motorola release more flagships in the future, or stick to doing what they do best which are mid-rangers and budget phones?
Design and Display
The back side of the phone is also made of glass, and again it serves up looks, but it ends up making the phone extremely slippery and adding on top of the fact that the paint on the phone chirps off rather easily, you will need to be extremely cautious while handling the phone. Apart from that, you’ll be glad to know that the Edge Plus does come with a headphone jack – something that’s rarely seen in the 1000-dollar smartphone segment. A USB-C connector is also seen at the bottom. The phone also supports wireless charging but will heat up quickly if you do decide to charge it that way. Another bizarre downfall about tdge+ is that it has absolutely no IP rating for water protection at all. If you’re asking customers for a grand for your phone, at least assure them that they can use their phone in the rain without losing it forever.
Performance
When you spend a thousand dollars on a phone, you expect it to be buttery smooth, and the same can be said for the Edge+. You get top-tier performance on the phone thanks to the Snapdragon 865 chipset inside, paired with 12 gigs of RAM. This means, that your phone will glide through anything you throw at it, be it day-to-day tasks or heavy gaming sessions. On top of all that, you also get a 90Hz screen which will only enhance your phone experience further. You also get the usual stock Android to feel and user experience as you would expect with a Motorola device. However, one drawback is that the phone only comes with Verizon, and you’ll have to deal with a ton of bloatware from the phone carrier.
Battery
The battery life on the Motorola Edge+ is decent, with the unit being a 5000 mAh one. The phone will easily last you through the day and more, giving you around 7-8 hours of screen-on time, which is above-par in the price segment. You can even drag the battery to get 2 days of use if you’re not a heavy user and don’t put the phone through hours of gaming and video streaming. The charging speed isn’t that impressive, though, as wired charging support goes only up to 18W, which is significantly lower than its competitors. Moreover, wireless charging will also disappoint you if you have a 15W wireless charger because more often than not, it will overheat your phone to the point that it stops charging. That’s a strange thing to take place because Motorola clearly states that their flagship is capable of wirelessly charging at 15W.
One positive you can notice in the charging department is the reverse wireless charging capability that the Edge+ has, meaning it can wireless juice up other devices if you put their backs to each other.
Cameras
The Edge+ comes with a three-camera setup at the back, with an insane 108MP main shooter and the other two being the telephoto and the ultra-wide lens. The main shooter, as you’d expect, takes great photos with a lot of details thanks to its 108MP lens. The dynamic range is decent as well, and the colour reproduction is fairly accurate too. However, Motorola’s software image processing is its biggest enemy, as it leads to plenty of awkward glitches and over-softening of pictures at times which just doesn’t make sense. We do hope to see an improvement in this regard with a future software update.
Verdict
All in all, We don’t think that Motorola has done a good enough job to surpass the likes of OnePlus or Samsung in the flagship department, or even Huawei in that matter. The Edge+ only seems to be appealing, looks-wise but doesn’t look to provide functionality at the same level as well. It has a decent battery, a good screen, snappy performance and okay-ish cameras – you just have to set your bar a bit higher when asking customers for 1000 dollars for a phone.
