Motorola Moto Edge 20 Pro Review | Worth the upgrade?

Motorola's fresh new Moto Edge 20 Pro is the most premium Motorola you can bag yourself in 2021, and at £650 it’s not as crazy expensive as those Apple, Samsung, Sony flagship smartphones either—although admittedly you couldn’t exactly describe it as cheap, not unless you’re as minted as that Jeff Bezos fella, in which case, let’s face it, you’re not gonna be wasting your time reading crappy phone reviews, you’re gonna be too busy cocking about in space. But anywho, the Moto Edge 20 Pro still costs as much as a OnePlus 9 or a Samsung S20 Fan Edition 5G, so has Motorola done enough to justify a splurge?

I’ve been using it as my full-time smartphone for over a week now; I’ve actually taken it on holiday with me to give it a thorough testing out. Here’s my in-depth Motorola Moto Edge 20 Pro review.

Design & Build

Motorola has definitely gone for an understated design with the Edge 20 Pro overall. It’s a bit of a Benedict Cumberbatch: certainly not one of the most attractive smartphones out there, but it probably does all right for itself. There’s nothing disagreeable about those looks—everything is in the right place, etc. That glass backing has definitely picked up a couple of teeny scratches and scuffs, though, over this past week, so if you want to keep it in pristine condition I definitely recommend slapping on the condom case that comes bundled in the box.

I definitely do like that matte finish with a subtle white pattern bleeding onto the surface right at the very edges. The matte finish does a respectable job of masking finger grease and other smudgy nastiness. You’ve got a Gorilla Glass 5 display around the front of the Moto Edge 20 Pro, but like the back end this has picked up again a couple of little scratches in the past week or so, so you might want to slap on a screen protector because there’s not one pre-installed.

Moto Edge 20 Pro is IP52 water-repellent as well, so fine in a bit of British drizzle—no worries whatsoever. It is a bit of a handful, though; it’s absolutely gargantuan, so it’s definitely not a one-handed effort—two hands at all times for maximum comfort. Also, that fingerprint sensor has been stuck away right up near the top of the right edge, so I did find that I occasionally missed it when blindly prodding around trying to find it, but I did find myself getting used to that positioning in the last couple of days.

While you do also have one of those annoying dedicated Google Assistant buttons tucked away on the left edge, that again is right up near the very top, and I found that only the one time that I accidentally hit it when trying to fumble the phone into my pocket.

Software & Updates

Motorola has promised to keep the Moto Edge 20 Pro software bang up to date for at least a couple of years—that’s two years of OS updates and a couple of years of bi-monthly security updates as well, so you can expect this blower to reach at least Android 13. Not quite as strong a commitment as some rivals such as OnePlus and Nokia are making, but it is a start, and so far the security updates are on track as well; I had the latest Android update hit it just last week.

I’m definitely still a fan of that stock Android experience that you get on all Motorola phones, and my only complaint with the Edge 20 Pro is that the swipe navigation gestures aren’t quite as responsive as I would have liked. Occasionally, when I’m in an app like checking my emails or something, it’ll take two or maybe even three swipes at that bottom edge in order to get back to the home screen; I’ll just end up scrolling rapidly through an email or a website instead. Besides that, I love the pleasingly clean UI as ever, and of course those bonus Moto features that are chucked on there, like the double karate chop to turn on that flash.

The Edge 20 Pro also supports Motorola’s fairly fresh Ready For feature, which basically means you can connect the phone to your telly box using a cable and turn it into a kind of a makeshift computery thingy. You can grab a supported cable direct from Motorola; it’s basically a Type-C DisplayPort to HDMI effort.

Storage & Display

This Pro phone is packed with a generous 256 GB of UFS 3.1 storage, which I’m not even close to filling despite shooting shag-loads of video on this thing and filling it with music, movies, all that good stuff. One week on, and with plenty of Netflix watching on this thing behind me, I’m still a big fan of that 6.7-inch OLED screen. Even if the Full HD+ resolution means that visuals aren’t quite as crisp as some premium rivals, colors really slap on the saturated setting, and you can also enjoy realistic images thanks to the 10-bit color support with HDR10+ support in apps that can handle it.

The selfie orifice is only teeny, so it barely intrudes at all in your movie-watching and game-playing sessions, while the top brightness is plenty powerful for sunny days when you’re rocking shades. You’ve got a 144 Hz maximum refresh here on the Moto Edge 20 Pro, and combined with that nice clean stock UI it means you get a super-smooth experience when you’re flipping around through your desktops, your menus, and all that good stuff. It’s also great news for any gamers who enjoy titles like Vainglory or Shadowgun Legends with that 144 fps support.

Unfortunately, the Moto Edge 20 Pro does fall into the usual folly of not having a headphone jack, so it’s dongles or Bluetooth all the way for your audio. Thankfully, I had no trouble streaming wirelessly to headphones, speakers, all that good stuff, in the past week or so. You’ve got full support for all of the core codecs—goodbye LDAC action—so you can enjoy some nice, crisp, clear, judder-free audio.

Performance & Connectivity

I was perfectly happy with the Snapdragon 870 chipset that runs the show here, backed by a trouser-filling 12 GB of DDR5 RAM. The Pro isn’t the most powerful premium handset around, for sure, but it is a clear step up from the standard Edge 20, and it can handle any app and game out there with no complaints while still pleasingly cool to boot—unlike some of those Snapdragon 888 smartphones. Games like Genshin Impact can be played on those higher detail settings without stumbling, even if you like to while away an entire afternoon hacking bouncy slimes into rotten chunks.

The dedicated gaming mode is a handy way to block notifications, record all of your shenanigans, and no worries when it comes to getting online either, because you’ve got full support for 5G as well as Wi-Fi 6 here as well, and I found that even when I was pretty much out in the wilderness I tended to get a decent signal.

Battery Life

Battery life is also perfectly respectable here on the Moto Edge 20 Pro. You’ve got a 4,500 mAh cell crammed in there—not the biggest around by any means—but I found that the only time I really struggled to have any juice left by the time I staggered into bed was with lots of screen-on time: I’m talking at least a couple of hours of sat-nav use, lots of camera play, gaming—absolutely everything you could possibly imagine. The fast-charging support isn’t particularly fast, though—30 W TurboCharge—it’s now been superseded under the likes of the G60s. Sadly, no wireless-charging support either, which is a bit of a shame considering the price point.

Cameras

The final feature that I thoroughly tested out these past few days is the Moto Edge 20 Pro’s 108-megapixel primary camera. This does struggle with up-close subjects; you’ll definitely want to put some distance between you and whatever you’re shooting. Besides that, I have very few complaints. Each of my test photos was packed with intricate detail, while moving subjects are cleanly picked up when shooting conditions are respectable. As long as the lighting is good, you won’t be plagued with blurry pics, and even harsh contrast doesn’t make the Moto mess its pants. The Pixel phones are still the champions here, but you will be able to see your family’s faces when you’re snapping them against bright skies, while scenery shots generally come out well at any time of the day.

At night you’ll still get reasonably bright and colourful pics, similar to what you’ll see with the naked eye, although the Moto Edge 20 Pro is also brought to its knees by subjects that simply refuse to pose like a statue whenever that lighting is dim—so good luck with kids and the like.

Telephoto & Ultra-Wide

An 8-megapixel telephoto lens is one of the final advantages that the Pro offers over the standard Moto Edge 20, offering a powerful 5× optical zoom for getting a much closer view of a distant subject. I did find that photos shot with the zoom lens occasionally appeared more saturated compared with the primary snapper, with less accurate colour reproduction, and if you attempt to pinch in beyond that 5× zoom level you’ll get a photo like a p***-poor watercolour picture painted by a bored, half-cut seaside artist.

Meanwhile, the ultra-wide-angle lens produces warmer colours than that primary lens, and you do get quite murky results at times when you’re shooting in low light and nighttime—you should definitely just avoid it.

Video & Selfie

You can shoot your home movies at 4K resolution, 30 or 60 frames per second, or even bump all the way up to 8K at 24 fps, like some rivals such as the Galaxy S21 smartphones. I mostly stuck to 4K, and I was plenty pleased with the visuals, which appeared crisp and bright, although colours are slightly boosted with warmer hues overall. You can’t swap between the different lenses when shooting Ultra HD video, so you will need to drop to Full HD if you want to make use of that telephoto shooter. The transition is a wee bit jarring, but the zoom lens does a decent job at this resolution, and overall those colours aren’t as in your face.

Of course, at nighttime or in low ambient light you are once again hampered with grainy, pixelated images that aren’t too attractive. Image stabilisation is… well, things are pretty shaky when you’re moving and shooting—let’s just leave it at that. Audio comes through fairly clear as well, unless there is a proper gale whipping up all around you.

The Moto Edge 20 Pro’s 32-megapixel selfie shooter can again capture quite decent pics, even with sharp contrast to contend with, complete with some sexy bokeh action just like the rear effort, although it does struggle a lot more in ambient light. Besides the obvious grain, I found that quite a few of these snaps came out blurry as I struggled to hold the phone steady—and that was only after a couple of pints and all.

Verdict

That right there, in a nutshell, is my full Motorola Moto Edge 20 Pro review, and I’ve gotta say there aren’t really that many standout reasons to buy this over rivals, although I do really like that stock Android experience and the camera tech is pleasingly flexible. I enjoyed my time with this smartphone, although it is missing a couple of key features like wireless charging, and overall I think I preferred something like the Samsung Galaxy S20 Fan Edition 5G. Of course, the Poco F3 as well offers similar levels of performance but at a much cheaper price point.

But anyway, that’s what I thought. What do you reckon about the Motorola Moto Edge 20 Pro?