Motorola Edge (2021) impressions: Redefining the budget flagship?

Motorola today announced the Motorola Edge, a successor flagship of the 2020 device of the same name and a companion to the recently introduced Moto Edge 20 family. Where the Edge 20 series is intended for overseas markets, the new Moto Edge is specifically aimed at North America. After the start, we got our hands on the phone for a short time. Read on for our first practical impressions.

Motorola said it listened to consumers in developing the Motorola Edge for 2021. It has digested last year’s phone customer issues and delivered a real step up in terms of features and experience.

The Motorola Edge is a great device with a long list of desirable features. It extends its hand, although it is comparatively easy. Motorola kept the weight down by using a polymer backing designed to mimic glass. This layered composite creates quite an effect when it catches the light. The midframe is also encased in a polymer, although aluminum forms the central chassis. It’s still in its infancy, but I wish Motorola had used more metal and glass, which would have given the device a higher quality feel.

In addition to the reflective back, the determining optical feature is the large 6.8-inch LCD screen. It offers Full HD + resolution with a refresh rate of 144 Hz and looked really good in person. I was happy with the overall effect and managed to get light enough to beat the afternoon sun. Although it is not an AMOLED panel, it still supports an always-on display function. Motorola said it limits the number of pixels that are turned on to save power.

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One thing should be emphasized: Motorola has done away with the “edge” of the display. Last year’s phone as well as the premium Motorola Edge Plus had a distinctive curved display. Motorola ditched the curved glass this year and used a flat panel display instead. That means there are some bezels around the edges of the screen, but they’re not too bad. It also means you shouldn’t experience the accidental touches that the 2020 Edge phones were prone to.

The phone has a standard set of ports, buttons and controls. I like that Motorola chose a side-mounted fingerprint reader. It took a second to train and I found it very quickly. The volume control nearby feels a bit plastic. The USB-C port is hidden in the lower edge, as is the downward-facing speaker connector. However, there is no headphone jack, which is a shame given the first-generation Edge series with 3.5mm ports.

The camera module on the back is important. The three lenses – standard, wide angle, depth – are large and protrude quite a bit from the chassis. The main sensor has 108 MP and is based on non-binning to create large, light-sensitive pixels in everyday recordings. All 108 MP are available if you want. The ultra-wide is an 8 MP job with a really wide field of view of 119 degrees. The depth sensor is designed to help make portraits look better. The selfie camera on the front is a punch-hole job, snapping 32 MP photos and shifting most of the pictures by a factor of four to 8 MP.

The phone ships with Android 11, and Motorola says it will receive at least two major operating system upgrades as well as bimonthly security updates for two years. As expected, the Motorola device includes My UX, a number of tasteful additions to Android designed to make the device easier to use. In the time we spent on the phone, it went clean and fast.

The equipment is rounded off by a Snapdragon 778G processor with 6/8 GB RAM and 128/256 GB non-expandable memory, 5G with sub-6 GHz and mmWave network support, a 5,000 mAh battery and 30 W turbo -Power charging.

The latest version from Motorola goes on sale on August 23rd in the US, with sales officially beginning on September 2nd. The Motorola Edge is priced at $ 699, though it will temporarily be available for $ 499 at launch. We’ll share more of our thoughts on the phone when we’ve fully tested it. For now, what do you think of the Motorola Edge (2021)?