Curved not only for show. Motorola Edge - first impressions

I have such high expectations for this device that I am truly worried about the test verdict. However, the first days with Motorola Edge are very optimistic.

I've been waiting for a real Motorola flagship for years. Motorola Edge ... it is not. This position is occupied by Motorola Edge Plus , which is not in Poland yet and it is not known when it will reach us. So we have to settle for "the next best thing" - Motorola Edge, with which I have already spent several days.

I can say one thing now - whoever decides to buy Motorola Edge will be delighted with it. The problem is that you have to first convince customers that it's worth it.

First things first.

The curved screen is also a huge advantage and a huge disadvantage of Motorola Edge.

The new Motorola owes its name to the display, curved on both sides at an angle of almost 90 degrees, spreading to the side edges.

This solution is nothing new. It happened with Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Plus, was copied by many rivals and finally it was abandoned by Samsung, which in the latest Galaxy S20 decided to completely flatten the screens, which met with general approval.

Motorola took a lot of risk, deciding on a solution from which the leading manufacturer just turned away - and for good reason. Curved screens are usually nothing but trouble. The curvature interferes with everyday use. It's easy to accidentally touch something by grabbing the phone in your hand. Not to mention the fact that the curved screen of the phone becomes unbelievably slippery and much more susceptible to screen damage than in the case of flat displays.

What is the situation with Motorola Edge? Well, it looks phenomenal. Visually, the Motorola Edge screen looks absolutely phenomenal. It is an 6.7 "OLED panel with FHD + resolution, HDR support and 90 Hz refresh rate. In addition, the display has an unusual 2: 1 aspect ratio, which I personally think is its great advantage.

Motorola Edge is not a small smartphone, but thanks to the 2: 1 screen, it is very easy to hold it in your hand and navigate the interface. When you put Motorola Edge next to the iPhone 11, it turns out that although the iPhone has a smaller screen (6.1 "), it is wider than the Motorola panel and Motorola is more convenient to operate. Not to mention that the Motorola Edge screen of the iPhone 11 looks incredibly poor ...

Amazingly, the curvature of the screen was also well thought out from the usable side. "Edge" at Motorola Edge is not just for show.

First of all - for the first time I meet with such excellent resistance to accidental touches. Even in OnePlus 8 Pro or last year's Galaxy S10 + the screen curvature responded to being touched by the palm of the hand. This is not the case here, and the curved edge has not disturbed my phone operation even once.

What's more, Motorola has found several ways to use the edges creatively. One of them is the auxiliary shortcuts panel, where we can display up to six icons, leading to applications, tools or favorite contacts. I honestly admit - I usually turn off such panels because they are annoying and get in the way in everyday use. Here, however, the eject button is so cleverly hidden on the edge that you can even forget that it is there.

Another edge function is highlighting. When the phone lies face down (which I do not recommend), the edges will light up to let you know about the notification.

The edges can also be highlighted during an incoming call and during an alarm. After all, there is also my favorite feature, i.e. the edge lighting when charging. Depending on the degree of charge, the edges illuminate in red or blue, and the height of the backlight indicates the level of charge. Bajer, but a nice bajer.

Edges can also be used in games where, after turning the phone to landscape orientation, virtual triggers will be displayed on the upper edge.

After all, edge operation can also be ... turned off. A quick double tap of the edge is enough to turn them off in selected applications. For example, if you do not want the video to overlap, you can turn off the edge action and get a flat image.

These ocher and achy, however, do not mean that the curved edges on Motorola Edge are the perfect solution. On the contrary, I think that the phone could do without them and would not lose much. Meanwhile, it loses a lot when applying edges. First of all, Motorola Edge is very difficult to hold securely in your hand. The metal frame is so thin that there is really nothing to grab.

I am also afraid for edge life, because having experience with other phones with similar curvature, I know that this element likes to draw the most. So a decent case could be useful and I hope that Motorola will make sure that the cases appear a bit more solid and elegant than the included piece of silicone.

For comfort I will add that for such a big phone, the Motorola Edge seems much lighter than indicated by the weight of 188 g. The design is also perfectly balanced, so despite the slippery edges the phone does not constantly try to slip out of our hands. A nice touch is also the characteristic, ribbed screen lock button. This is a trifle, used by Motorola since probably 2013, but in everyday use is extremely useful.

Motorola makes the best Android.

A new version of the Motorola overlay, called My UX, debuted with Motorola Edge.

At first glance, it has not changed at all from Motorola's previous variation on Android. And yet it introduces some very important news that made Motorola appear in my private ranking of overlays even before OnePlus.

First of all, we can now customize the appearance of the system directly from the settings. Themes came to Motorola, but they are not candy, indulgence themes we know from other smartphones. Motorola approached the subject in a slightly more ... sophisticated way? We can change the font, type of icons and leading theme color. The changes are so subtle that even choosing pink as the leading color is not we will puke with a rainbow we'll get nystagmus.

The second change is the introduction of the game mode, which works similarly to other smartphones. It redirects the computing power of the smartphone to the current game and can also block notifications and incoming calls during the game.

The always-on display mode has also changed a bit, which now works great with a pretty good fingerprint reader. Motorola does the AOD mode best.

Just touch the notification icon on the dim screen to preview it, and to react to it with one swipe of your finger. This means that we don't have to unlock the screen to do anything with notification. And if you want to go from the notification directly to the application, just hold down your finger and drag it down to the fingerprint reader. It works really great.

AOD is part of the Moto add-ons, which, as usual, do not disappoint. Just twist your wrist twice to start the camera. Swipe your hand twice to turn on the flashlight. They even enjoy such small things as the animation of the multifunctional widget on the home screen, which appears when the content displayed on it changes. Revelation.

The "Moto Sound" application also deserves great praise. When I took Motorola Edge out of the box, one of the first tests was the speaker test, because Motorola strongly praises it in its marketing materials. At the first listening I was disappointed.

The speakers sounded dry and expressionless. They were quite loud and detailed, but lacked bass and overall depth. It was similar with the headphone jack - it's nice, but straight from the box it sounds very average.

And then I entered the Moto Sound app, I messed up in the settings for the speakers and headphone jack, and suddenly everything changed. Just move the bass boost slider slightly and expand the surround sound a bit to make average speakers phenomenal speakers.

In the A / B test with the iPhone 11 Motorola wins by knockout - provided that we spend a moment changing the settings. The only slight minus of the built-in graphic equalizer is the inability to make specific settings yourself. We only have a few presets to choose from, and you would like more.

The specification is not worthy of a flagship. But it's not bad either.

If someone when choosing a smartphone is guided only by the numbers, probably snort with disgust. Motorola Edge will cost PLN 2999 in Poland.

For 2999 PLN you can expect top specifications. Poco F2 Pro has Snapdragon 865. Oppo Reno 3 Pro has 12 GB of RAM. Meanwhile, Motorola Edge has ... Snapdragon 765 5G, 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of data space. The whole is powered by a 4500 mAh battery with a fast 15 W charging, without wireless charging.

Objectively, it is too weak a specification for this price, or too high a price for this specification. Of course, the price significantly increases the unlocked 5G modem. If the new Motorola hit the market without this functionality, which means the necessity of obtaining expensive certification , it would certainly be slightly cheaper.

In practice, fortunately, this specification is quite sufficient. For almost a week of use, it never happened that Snapdragon 765 was not enough for something, or that I ran out of working memory.

I used the phone all the time with the screen set "rigidly" at 90 Hz and I must say that at the beginning it caused some problems. Animations were stuck, page scrolling was not perfectly smooth. I thought that Snapdragon 765 could not cope, but it was enough to restore the phone to factory settings to get everything back to normal. Motorola was exemplary after this one-time problem.

I can't assess the battery performance yet, because I used the phone too short for definitive conclusions, but I can already see that it is a phone for more than one day. Can I get two full days out of it? I doubt it. But 100 percent of energy is enough for one whole day with a large supply for the next day.

I will refrain from reviewing the camera with a full review.

Since the phone came to me before the premiere, it works under the control of a non-genuine version of the software, which, unfortunately, is most visible in the camera application. This constantly causes problems, jams and "jerks" when trying to take a picture. However, I was assured that installing the new version of the software would eliminate the problem.

I hope that's true because the Motorola Edge has a pretty solid optical system:

• Main 64 Mpix sensor with f / 1.8 wide angle lens
• 16 Mpix sensor with ultrawide f / 2.2 lens and Macro Vision mode
• 8 megapixel sensor with f / 2.4 telephoto lens and 2x optical zoom
• ToF sensor for depth detection

In no case do I expect from Motorola Edge photos straight from the Galaxy S20 Ultra or iPhone 11, but I hope that it will maintain the level presented by at least Oppo Reno 3 Pro or Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Pro.

Motorola Edge makes a phenomenal first impression.

Maybe partly because I have a weakness for this brand, I really liked Motorola Edge. From the first contact you can see that somebody really contributed to this project and the company knows what the stake is at stake. Motorola realizes that entering the upper shelf you can not just drum up the correct smartphone and count on it to sell. You have to give something more.

Nevertheless, it's hard not to get the impression that Motorola Edge will not have a light market. The more powerful Poco F2 Pro costs PLN 2,500. Oppo Reno 3 - 2600 PLN. Even better OnePlus 8 - 3300 PLN. Not to mention how close the new Motorola 11 has been priced to the iPhone 11 and Galaxy S20.

This phone is objectively speaking too expensive and this will be the biggest difficulty it will face in the market.

Nevertheless ... Motorola Edge is great. Really great. And I am very happy that I will be able to use it for the next few weeks and then report on it.

Curved not only for show. Motorola Edge - first impressions