Motorola Edge unboxing and first impressions By Neowin

Hey guys, I'm rich from Edwin today we're unboxing the Motorola edge. So this is pretty cool um a couple of months ago I would say, I don't know Aprils, I reviewed the Motorola edge plus, so this is the edge and that was announced along. They were announced together. The edge came much later. The edge plus represented Motorola's return to the flagship space in phones, the edge, not quite so much. But I'm going to tell you why? That's okay! In a moment, this one has a snapdragon 765 that had a snapdragon 865.

In fact, the edge plus was a beast along with the 865. It had 12 gigs of ram 108 megapixel camera. It had top end specs that really didn't cut any corners, and it was pretty cool so the edge now the edge plus was 9.99 this one's 6.99, and you get a snapdragon 765. You get 6 gigs of ram. Instead of 108 megapixel camera, you get 64 megapixels, but here's the thing right.

They actually bumped that up too, it was originally supposed to come with four gigs of ram, and I remember looking at that original spec sheet and seeing 12 gigs on the edge plus four gigs on the edge I'm like seriously like, like that's a big plus but yeah, so they ended up changing that to six gigs and also, if you order it now, it's not 6.99 it's 4.99. So that's pretty solid and the other thing that's cool is that I've been using. I actually have it in my pocket. I have been using the lg lancet for a couple of weeks now and that's another one. That's kind of snapdragon 765.

And I found that the snapdragon 765 is perfect. I've been saying in reviews for like a couple of years now that the 8 series, it really gives you a lot more than you need well, unless you're like mobile gaming stuff like that, but for most people the 8 series is a lot more than what you need, but the only problem was the six series for many, for many of those people is less than what you need so like there was no in between and like using. This like, there was no point in using the lg velvet where I was like man. I really wish this thing came with an 865 like that. Just didn't happen.

The snapdragon 765 is good, and I don't think you'd regret this, and I'm starting to think that there's no reason to spend a thousand dollars on a phone unless you want those premium, camera features or sometimes premium wireless charging features stuff like that, but not to say they did. They sent this little spec sheet along with it. So I could just tell you a little about it. Um, like I said, 64 megapixel uh, it is a triple camera. One of them is a macro lens, though, which doesn't really count.

I should start calling them like dual cameras. If there's a macro lens, this doesn't even count as a lens but um 5g, of course, and that's a big uh, oh by the way, 256 gigs of storage did I say, 128 before 256. Um yeah loudest most powerful stereo sound from waves, uh up to two days of battery with 4 500 William hours. I believe it was 5 000 in the edge plus um universally unlocked. So that's a big deal because um, like I said it does have 5g all snapdragon 765 devices have 5g, but it's sub 6.

Only on this device, now the edge plus was millimeter wave and sub six because of course, the edge plus was exclusive to Verizon. Now, that's. Why that's why I was excited about this because I really like the edge plus would have been nice if I could use it on my own carrier with my own phone number, but no it's a Verizon exclusive, so um! This is the one that most people will actually be able to use. So that's the thing that kind of has me excited about that. It is substance.

Only most phones are subjects only the only phones outside the ones that Verizon sells. That support both subjects and millimeter wave are the Samsung Galaxy, s20 plus and the s20 ultra so um. So that's fine, immersive, 90, hertz endless edge, display hdr10 plus picture quality on a gorgeous 6.7 inch, OLED display with a 90 hertz, refresh rate, so gotta say it's pretty nice, and you know how I know it's nice when I haven't even opened the box yet is because it's the exact same display that we had on the edge plus. So that is the one thing that is unchanged. The color that they sent me seems to be solar black according to the label um.

For some reason, Motorola does not like um sending the pretty colors. I don't know um same thing with the edge plus they had a gray one and like um. I think they called it burgundy or something and uh they sent the gray one and this one they have black. They also have some kind of um, maybe a magenta. It looks similar to that that burgundy type of color and uh that one looks like the winner and then, of course, they sent the solar black.

So let's take this out right now, looking at the devices themselves, they look. Oh, I take it back all right. This is pretty um. It's its Blackfoot, but you can see like you notice, the rainbow-colored reflections on here for a black phone gotta say: Motorola pulled that off wow yeah. That's that's! Quite nice, um yeah that I'm I'm surprised at how nice the black color looks, and I can see why they seated it too, because if they didn't see it to reviewers, then it's just black but um yeah.

We got our turbo power charger here, uh it's 15 watts, but it's an USB type, a to type c, and that's our that's our charger. I'm going to set this up and get right back all right there it is. I did find one other thing in the box while I was setting it up. Furthermore, I assume that we're going to find a case in here, and this is not just a clear case. Is if it's a sort of uh, a tinted, smoky colored case? I don't, I don't love it, but we could just try it on right here notice.

It doesn't block the edges of the phone and those edges. Are I don't like this case? It's got a weird feel to it, but um yeah, you know a lot of phones. These days are coming with cases and that's that's part of having you know. A lot of companies are focusing on design they're, making prettier and prettier phones, and so people are buying cases and putting them on there. So what they're doing is they're just putting clear cases in the box, but um yeah.

So we have this uh waterfall display, which I love it a lot of people. Don't a lot of people like curved edges like this are going out of style kind of, and generally I don't like them, but what I like is um. I like the way they did it here. I like the way that Huawei did it with the mate 30 pro, because it's really um it's its as if the display just kind of fades off with that sharp angle there. It's like the display just fades away, rather than actually seeing a bezel at all.

So I like it a lot. I think it's one of the prettiest things that we're seeing on phones and like by the way a lot of phones have curved displays, and I'm specifically talking about the ones on the um, mate 30 pro and the edge series. I think they just both look fantastic. So a few other things that we could look at here like um, you see, there's some uh, there's some stuff from the motor app in there and by the way the motor app is pretty cool. So, let's, let's finish this up.

Let's finish, setting up Motorola edge setup, and I assume that I can alright we'll set it up, we'll set it up later, but um the motor app um. So Motorola has a pretty stock version of android that they use, and it's pretty cool because a lot of other companies they put a huge customization layer on android. That's not what Motorola does what they do. Are they put a motor a motor app in there, and this is where all your customization features go, and so it's its pretty separated from the OS? So we have motor actions, motor display, motor, game time and um, so they're always improving this motor display one is called peak display. That's that's my uh favorite, where, where you can just kind of um pick up the phone, see the display, or it'll just kind of fade in and out, and then you could also interact with notifications, so you can um like double tap or hold the notification or something, and it'll, it'll open it.

Um attentive display is not something I use where that keeps the screen on. If you're looking at it, we also have edge lights. This is something that, if we learn more, it should show us right. Well, it's giving us a diagram there, but notifications see how it lights up like that and also while it's charging, so that's handy, um edge touch. That's I that's that's not for me, uh, double tap or swipe on the action bar for quick notifications.

You could use that to like launch an app or something it's its not for me, but um, but we also have um uh motor actions. So this is a lot of this has been here for a while three fingers. Screenshot fast flashlight um pick up the silence, um lift, lift the phone and look at the screen unlocked. I don't remember if that was there, but yeah. So there's a lot of customization stuff here.

Remember this! The motor app has been there since, like the original Moto X, when it was motor voice, and that was google's voice assistant when google owned Motorola and then obviously uh Google Assistant came along and kind of killed that off which, by the way, motor voice was awesome, don't get me started on it, but yeah um, so anyway, motor game time, uh tools that help you focus on gaming. We should, I guess I'll- have to click, learn more um, easy access to tools and settings to enhance your gaming experience all right. I guess that's all it's going to tell me there we go this um, you can block notifications. You can block calls all stuff that I find super useful when playing a game on my phone like who wants a notification banner while you're playing games even if you're not playing a competitive game, you know like pub g or something by the way they have that animation. In the background, which is meant to show off the smooth, 90 hertz display, which I love this um the screen on this- you know I always enjoy Motorola's OLED displays they're pretty um, so you know, 90 hertz is something that we're seeing a lot of or 120 hertz.

Obviously so something we're seeing a lot of this year is higher refresh rates and honestly, it makes for a great experience and, to be honest, if you haven't tried um, if you haven't tried a 90, hertz screen or 120 hertz screen, you should because it doesn't sound like it's going to make a difference until you try it, and you realize that wow it really does make a difference. Um also take a look at tons of fingerprints just from holding it, but you can see those uh rainbow-colored reflections, it's awesome, and now it's a little cleaner, but um yeah. So we have the camera module up here. Uh the main sensor, 64 megapixels. We have an ultra-wide.

We have a macro lens, so you know good stuff. By the way the camera is going to be fine too um. You know uh power, button volume rocker on this side on the bottom. We have an USB type c port for charging, and we have a 3.5 millimeter, audio jack. So yeah you do get a headphone jack with the Motorola edge.

Oh, by the way you get it with the edge plus 2, which is one of the few flagship phones at all, aside from lg, that that has a headphone jack hole, punch, cutout for the front-facing camera and then the sim card slots on top and that's about it all right, that's it! That's the motor edge um! I like it. I like that. Furthermore, I like that Motorola is getting back into regular phones. You know for a while for a while they weren't doing flagships because uh, obviously we had the Moto X back in the day and that's a classic. You know that was from the Google own days, and they did a lot of innovative stuff for the day, and it was almost a mid-range phone that would that worked like a flag.

Almost like pixels are now or are going to be, but um. So that was the original Moto X, and then they did, I think, the x2 and probably even a x3 and by by the time they got to the third generation uh they were owned by Lenovo. Remember they had motor maker. You could customize the buttons in the back and get all these different kinds of Moto X's and what they did after the Moto X was the motor z. Motor z was the new flagship.

It was meant to be modular. Remember when modular phones were going to be a thing and um. I never actually believed it either because it's so stupid to think that people want to carry around an extra accessory with their phone. You know um unless they can use it all the time and if they're going to use it all the time, then why not just have it be built into the phone but anyway, so that was gonna. It was gonna, be modular and remember.

The lg g5 was going to have modular accessories, and then there was that um project uh something started with an from Google and um. You know that never really materialized. So um yeah, so motor z, it was a very flat, very thin phone. You know and if you used it without a motor mod, it felt like it was half a phone like it was built to be used with a motor, mod and um, but that was a flagship phone that was their new flagship. Motor x2 is a motor.

Z2 was a flagship and then came the motor z3 and that's where they started to change their ways, because the motor z3 was a motor z2. It was a motor z2 force, but without the um the forced display it had a longer display and probably a different camera with the main glass. But you know same chipset um snapdragon 835. So it did snap during 835 two years in a row. The only reason that they made the z3 that way was one they wanted to price it cheap, and they did price it cheap, and they wanted it to be 5g upgradable so because that was also when they announced the 5g motor mod, your modular accessory for 5g.

So that phone came out, and it was exclusive to Verizon, of course, because Motorola loves Verizon and then they know, then the 5g motor mod, also exclusive to Verizon came out later, and they had their 5g upgradable phone and then eventually that motor mod was available for older models but anyway, and then the motor g4 motor z4 was just like a snapdragon 600, something series, so it wasn't even a flagship anymore. So, like the z2 force, was the last real flagship and then finally they came back with real phones. You know it's not it's! It's not meant to be used with modular accessories, um! There's! No, there's no gimmick about it. It's just a really great phone. You know with the edge series and by the way, I'm I'm tempted to call this a flagship as well, even though the edge plus is the actual flagship, because I've used the snapdragon 765, I'm very happy with it, and I'm a guy that walks around with the best phone that you can get.

Because it's what I do you know it's my job. So when I say I'm happy to use the snapdragon 765 phones and that I don't miss the 865 at all, you could be happy buying this. You know and um. You know JU, like the only thing that you have to look for is, like you know, a 765 phone versus an 865 phone or maybe um. Furthermore, you might get a better screen on the 865 phone or a better camera.

Furthermore, you know, and in the case of the edge you don't get a better screen. The screens are exactly the same, so um yeah anyway I'll have a review on this in about two weeks, and it'll be two weeks because Motorola only lets reviewers keep phones for about two weeks. That's why they disappear from the conversation like a month after they've been out because you know, like people stop talking about them, because it's not on a reviewer's desk anymore. So, like it's, just gone, we're on to the next thing, because we can't compare the next thing to the old thing. If we don't still have the old thing, so that's it anyway, guys I'm Richard Edwin have a great night.

Source : Neowin