Moto Edge Plus 2023 hands-on review: 165Hz of goodness
The new Moto Edge Plus pushes the boundaries of immersive experiences thanks to its 165Hz refresh rate and gaming prowess.
Motorola is well-known for its Moto G and other affordable segments, but the company’s Moto Edge range offers a valuable alternative to Google, Samsung, OnePlus and Apple in the US market. Blending the latest premium features with a compelling price point, the new Moto Edge Plus has one outstanding party trick: a gorgeous 6.7-inch pOLED display with a 165Hz refresh rate.
Its timing is no mistake. Lenovo, which owns Motorola, recently gave up on its own Legion-branded gaming phones and instead is focusing on making Motorola phones better for gaming. The result is the Moto Edge Plus, which is a tweaked version of the Moto Edge 40 Pro that was launched outside the US last month. This could just be the best Android phone for gaming, according to our early tests.
➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: 165Hz silky smooth display
📱 Stunning 6.7-inch pOLED display with 165Hz refresh rate
🔋 5,100mAh battery, 68W fast charging, 15W fast wireless charging
📸 Triple rear camera: 50MP main, 50MP ultrawide, 12MP telephoto
🔊 Dual stereo speakers tuned by Dolby Atmos and four mics
🔦 Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor and Adreno 740 graphics
Design
Motorola went to great lengths to discuss the design with us, specifically focusing on the quad-curved display with an “endless edge.” The topic of bezels dominates all conversations around phones, but the Edge Plus is interesting as it’s fairly comfortable to hold in the hand despite the smallest bezels possible.
This is also due to the textured finish on the back of the Moto Edge Plus, which Motorola calls a non-glass glass finish. I absolutely love this finish and it makes it very comfortable to hold. It probably also makes it less perceptible for slipping off a table, although we’ll reserve judgment on its durability and practicality for the full Moto Edge Plus review. With Gorilla Glass Victus on both the front and the back, we don’t have any durability concerns, though, as seen in our Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra review, Gorilla Glass Victus 2 is slightly more durable on incoming higher-priced phones.
To provide contrast between the back and the camera housing, the latter uses a glass finish which provides welcome contrast and serves to highlight the camera module. The buttons along the left side provided enough tactile feedback and the new Edge Plus feels very different from other gaming phones.
The Edge Plus is designed for casual gamers who want a great mobile gaming experience, but don’t need the bulkier designs found in more traditional gaming phones (as these usually feature additional cooling, hardware features, and more). Here, Motorola may have found the perfect niche and the Edge Plus could be a replacement for Lenovo’s now-defunct Legion gaming phone range.
Display
The highlight of the Edge Plus is the display. The plastic OLED display is stunning and vibrant, and colors really pop off the display. Combined with Motorola’s clean software experience and the outstanding 165Hz display, you have a visual experience that’s up there with the best of the best.
While gaming is one very likely target market, this phone is also great for anyone who loves to consume TV shows and movies on the go. The display supports pretty much every display protocol you could need, including HDR10+, Dolby Vision, Amazon HDR Playback, and YouTube HDR playback.
Not all phones are created equal, and neither is the video experience on all of them. Based on my brief time with the Edge Plus, I’m excited to put this 165Hz display through its paces. Our OnePlus Pad review just tested a 144Hz display on an Android tablet, so Motorola is cracking up the competition among smartphones.
Camera
Where companies giveth, they have to sometimes taketh away and that’s what Motorola did with the camera on the Edge Plus. Two years ago, the Moto Edge 20 came with a 108MP main camera and was clearly focused on photography. The new Edge Plus has a 50MP camera in a triple-camera array. This is not a direct comparison, however, as last year’s Edge Plus also had a 50MP camera.
There’s good news about this year’s camera. The 50MP main camera offers f/1.8 aperture with quad-pixel binning technology that combines four pixels into one pixel with much larger individual pixels at 2.0 microns. So the 108MP-touting Edge 20 with its pixels measuring 0.7 microns doesn’t seem so fancy. This sensor also supports optical image stabilization (OIS), but the telephoto and ultra-wide cameras are left out of the OIS perk.
The ultra-wide camera, which also doubles as the macro camera, uses a 50MP sensor with a 114° field-of-view and f/2.2 aperture. Like the main camera, it also supports quad pixel-binning, although the combined pixels result in a worse aperture and smaller pixel size. The net result is that it lets in less light, and won’t perform as well as the main camera in low-light conditions.
The third camera in the rear array is the 12MP telephoto portrait lens offering up to 2x zoom and f/1.6 aperture. The front camera is an impressive 60MP sensor that is - sadly - fixed focus, but nonetheless should result in good enough selfies in most conditions. It’s too early to say the quality of the pictures taken, but in our brief testing, the vibrant display certainly made them look appealing.
The camera has a really nifty way of showing the equivalent focal length of each lens in the viewfinder, versus the unoriginal 1x, 2x, etc. found when switching between lenses on every other phone. Stay tuned for the full Moto Edge Plus 2023 review to see how the camera actually performs in more tests.
Hardware & Performance
To be a true gaming phone and offer the best experience, Motorola turned to the latest chipset by Qualcomm: the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. We’ve already seen it power devices like the Galaxy S23 Ultra – albeit that phone used a tweaked version of the chipset – and most other Android flagships right now, and it’s a fantastic chipset.
By the numbers, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is considerably improved over last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, offering 35% faster CPU speed, 25% greater GPU performance, and 40% more power efficiency. These numbers stack up with the experience of any other Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 device, and the Edge Plus also lived up to these numbers in my brief time with it. Everything felt smooth, snappy, and a joy to use.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 comes with the outstanding Adreno 740 GPU, and Motorola paired it with 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage. Conventional wisdom says that it would have been nice to see this phone get at least 12GB of RAM, but it’s not really needed, especially with how efficient the processor is. The rest of the specs list includes everything a flagship needs including Wi-Fi 6E, USB Type-C, and Bluetooth 5.3.
The whole package is powered by a 5,100mAh battery with 68W TurboPower charging and 15W fast wireless charging. There’s IP68 dust and water resistance (up to 1.5m for 30 minutes), NFC, support for every 5G band used in the US (except for mmWave), and an optical under-screen fingerprint sensor that is blazingly fast.
What about the Motorola Edge 40 Pro?
The Moto Edge Plus is clearly a tweaked version of the Moto Edge 40 Pro which the company launched in Europe last month. Built for the US market, the Edge Plus features many of the same features as the Edge 40 Pro but makes a few changes.
First the same things: the 165Hz display, the chipset, the cameras, and the sensors.
Now the differences: Moto Edge Plus has a larger 5,100mAh battery (vs 4,600mAh), but charges at about half the speed of the 125W charging in the Moto Edge 40 Pro. The Edge Plus has 8GB RAM and 512GB of storage, while the Edge 40 Pro comes with 12GB of RAM and either 256GB or 512GB of storage.
Both phones are almost identical, but the key difference comes down to the charging speeds and battery size, as well as tweaks to the amount of RAM. Oh, and it’ll cost you much more to buy the Moto Edge Plus.
Moto Edge Plus release date and price
Moto Edge Plus 2023 colors consist of… Interstellar Black in the US and that’s it. It’s a shame because the comparable Moto Edge 40 Pro comes in a nice Lunar Blue color and looks fantastic.
It’ll launch for $799.99 on May 9 at Boost Infinite and Boost Mobile, but if you want to buy Moto Edge Plus unlocked, you’ll need to wait until May 19 for pre-orders with the first delivery date being May 25 through Amazon, Best Buy and Motorola.com.
Should you buy this year’s Moto Edge Plus? If you’re a casual gamer who wants a great mobile gaming experience but doesn’t like the other gaming phones for sale right now, then the Edge Plus is shaping up to be a worthy contender with its 165Hz screen. However, we’ll have to reserve our final judgment until we spend more time with Motorola’s latest Edge smartphone.