Motorola - moto edge 5G 256GB (Unlocked) 2020 - Solar Black

I am an IT Admin for a medium-sized company (200-300 employees) and have been an iPhone user since the first one, now use a 12 Pro Max as my daily driver. As a tech enthusiast, I have owned a few Android devices along the way as well, most recently a Galaxy Note 20 Ultra (lost to theft, 10.2020). Recently at my company we decided to replace our biometric door access systems across all 12 offices with an application that must be installed on a smartphone and uses Bluetooth to authenticate employee door access. I already had spare iPhones on hand to test the software, so I needed an Android device to test as well. As the phone would not be used as my personal phone, I did not want to spend a ton of money on it, having spent over a grand on the Note 20 Ultra which was only used for me to personally test cellular network quality in my region and was stolen. After much searching, I found the Edge 5G and the price was right… got it as an open-box item at Best Buy for less than $400. The Edge 5G came with Android 10 out of the box and sports some premium features usually only found in flagship phones- face unlock, under screen fingerprint sensor and a gorgeous 6.7” OLED screen with a respectable 90Hz refresh rate. It feels premium beyond it's $400 cost when held in the hand and as the owner of many $1000+ flagship smartphones, I feel that the screen on this $400 Edge 5G is equally as gorgeous as those vastly more expensive phones. Also, the Edge 5G is considerably lighter than the Note and iPhone, and the screen is a bit narrower than those phones which makes it much more comfortable to hold and use with one hand. It plays my games and movies just as well as my Note and iPhone, but I find that navigating the OS can be a little less smooth, transitions are more abrupt and not as smooth as my flagships, but this is more of an aesthetic nitpick rather than a functional problem. Now for the few ‘negatives’ I have found with the phone…. First, compared to my Note and most definitely compared to my iPhone, the Edge’s face unlock is clunky at best and nearly useless. It fails most of the time, does not work well in the dark and will not work at all if I’m wearing sunglasses where my iPhone’s face ID works almost flawlessly with or without sunglasses. The under screen fingerprint sensor on the Edge is good, though not as fast as the Note's and iPhone is missing this feature altogether! Second, the curved edges of the screen are a beautiful effect, really make this phone perfect for watching movies, but make some other things exceedingly difficult to do. Moving icons between screens is tricky with the curved edges and I am constantly engaging gesture shortcuts by accidentally touching the sides when trying to swipe through pages of a website. Finally, the back of this phone shows fingerprints easily and can really look disgusting, you should get a case for it BUT… be warned, there is a VERY LIMITED selection of cases for this phone which was surprising to me having only ever ordered cases for flagship phones. Beyond those minor annoyances, I would certainly recommend this phone to anyone who needs an Android phone with a large, gorgeous screen but doesn’t want to spend a month’s rent to get it. Overall, I would say a great value and nice offering on the part of Motorola!

+ is a pro leaning, - is a con leaning. I've had this phone for about two months now and I can give you a good rundown of all the features and quirks. MKBHD does a decent review of the Verizon only version of this phone, the Edge +, but he is a little harsh on it imo. Display: + So I want to say that this phone has an amazing display. It's not the leader of the market but really good for a mid-ranger. The waterfall display is going away due to the accidental touch problems but I hardly ever get an accidental touch on this phone. It also has these awesome little graphics specifically for the edge. Like plugging it in or getting a notif. All in all the Trademark of this phone. Also I would say this beats the Samsung Galaxy that had the waterfall display. Battery: + At 4500Mah, the phone will last you all day. I'm definitely a heavy user at more than 6+ hours of screentime. I have about 25% at the end of the day. If you need to charge it tho, the rapid charger (18W+/-)does supply a somewhat fast charge but not as fast as their HyperOne(65W). Also, the charger is a USB male port to USB-C, which is aggravating since almost all phones I think now come with dbl sided USB-C. Camera: + Just because this is pro leaning, doesn't mean it's like an Iphone or Samsung. But overall this camera has amazing Lowlight capability. The telephoto is clear enough if you want something like 50 yards away any further and it's blurry. And the macro is good but the focus is hard to grab. The few gripes is that, for the price without a sale on it, it needs to be more crisp and a more natural color. The bokeh is ok but needs some work. And then they need to have a image stabilization for both the photos and video. I means it's 2020, this should be standard. But other than that the video is real nice in 60fps. Not to mention the transfer to other viewers like a PC or to Facebook, it's about the same with what you see. Consistency: - I don't have to money to buy a lot of nice phones, but I will say is that before I bought this phone. I did some research on it but they did a good job at hiding the negative news on it. Which is that, the phones had a ton of display issues. The one I received, worked perfectly fine for about 5 days until a dead pixel on the edge scrambled my phone and left a weird glitch that would burn what I was viewing onto the screen. Also had just black spots and green hues everywhere. It degraded the quality of the display too. It was awful, luckily it was before 7 days and Best Buy came in with the Clutch and replaced the phone for free. This phone now is all good and no problems at all. So far. Service and 5G: + Now... All I gotta say is.... Holy cow. This is fast with the 5G. And even when not in 5G coverage the 4G is improved dramatically. Even working in buildings where it usually doesn't work. Also in low coverage areas have improved. The only downside is that sometimes I have to restart the phone because it loses service altogether for idk what reason but a quick reset does the job. Bluetooth and devices: - So... The bluetooth is fast and easy to find devices fast however the multiple devices support is kinda iffy. When it connects to my smartwatch while also connected to my headphones. It sometimes disconnects my watch but not my headphones, I'm guessing giving my headphones priorities. That was annoying but I'm sure software updates can help that out. Overall: + Solid phone. Solid Specs. Fast and reliable as long as its not a defective one. I want to mention that I got this phone on sale on Black Friday for literally 300$ off... It was a steal. If I bought the phone full price, then I might've left a harsher review but you can't beat the price for how good this phone is.

Amazing phone, fantastic price, great value! Simple stock Android, and a beautiful screen. The CPU and memory are plentiful, and play my games with no hiccups. However.....there's a screen issue that's starting to pop up as a common problem of this model that shares its screen with the Moto Edge+ that also had the same problem. Moto released a software update that partially fixed the issue for the Edge+, but some were deemed un-fixable and required a swap. For the Edge 5G, Moto has not announced a similar plan. If you start to see purple blotches along the edges, a green tint on the screen, or a burned image around fingerprint reader area, make sure you get it replaced or dealt with before your return policy is up. Search the web and the Moto support forums and you'll find all the others with same issues.

Like many other people here, this model has pretty bad screen issues that would appear when the phone moderatly heated up. Something as simple as watching a youtube video would trigger it. Mines developed within 3 days of owning. Went to best buy and exchanged it for a Samsung Galaxy A71

After 3 days of buying this the screen started acting up black spots mostly on both sides of the screen so we returned it and exchanged it thinking maybe this is just a defective phone. Then after 2 days same thing happened I looked it up online then realized that its very common problem for this phone so I don’t recommend buying this phone.

Love it best buy yet. Would highly recommend. Easy to use.

Very good phone and the treatment of the employees is very good.

Green, purple and black tint appears on the screen after 4days. I decided to return it.