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Originally Posted by civic-sense
I pre-ordered the Edge 20 in emerald green today as the silver one was not available. I hate that color, so am in half a mind to cancel. |
After about three weeks of waiting, the phone finally landed. I was in two minds till the last moment whether to cancel or not since although most reviews were positive there are a few issues which I was sure is going to nag me.
The color. God, the green looks gaudy. And the "traffic light" cameras are so big and in your face. The phone looks less like a smartphone and like some fancy curio bought from Safina plaza. Am sure going for an opaque case or a good skin or both. Can't stand that green color. Some YouTube videos give the impression that it is more blue than green. Actually, viewed in perpendicular, it is green; viewed at an angle it is bluer. Kind of turquoise.
But my main beef is with the lack of HD video support in Prime Video. I first read about this in the GSM Arena review which came out a day before. The videos are restricted to 480p and this seems to be a compatibility setting issue with Prime, but there is no guarantee that Amazon will fix it. I watched a few videos in 480p in an old phone to make sure I won't be missing much. Although I watch a lot of shows on the phone for serious viewing I usually take to the TV. Now fingers crossed that Amazon will fix the issue.
It has only one speaker which is not a big deal, but after hearing sound that is balanced in my OnePlus 7, the single speaker blaring at my right ear is difficult to tolerate. Thankfully almost always I use a headphone.
From the under display fingerprint sensor in the OP7 to the side mounted sensor is not an easy switch especially since it is integrated into the on-off button rather than a separate sensor like in rear mounted sensors. But utility wise I think both the rear and side sensors trump the under display sensors as the under display needs two steps to unlock while this one requires only one.
The phone is huge and will need some getting used to which am sure I will with time. When I started with my iPhone 1, it felt big. Then came the HD2 which was enormous by the then standards. Next was the Galaxy S3 which was so huge that I put a folio case in it. Then I bought the gigantic OnePlus One which really took some time to get used to. I even switch back to a smaller Mi 4i for some time. My last wo phones were the Nokia 7 plus and OnePlus 7 which did not add much to the size, but was a tad heavy for my liking. The 163g of the Edge 20 is very lightweight and a welcome relief from the 182g OP7. Notably it does not sag the pocket of my Jockey shorts that I wear to work.
Yet, with all the heft, the phone I enjoyed using most was the Nokia 7 plus with it's Android One. With the Edge 20 am back to those days. The industrial design (minus the color), Clean UI, no junk, smaller fonts, it's a bliss. But as usual the Google branded bloatware is there. A lot of them - some can be uninstalled, others can be disabled so no complaints. The only third party app is Netflix that can be uninstalled unlike OnePlus phones where you can only disable.
Developer options are enabled by default. But OEM unlocking is greyed out with a message "connect to the internet or contact your operator". Don't know what that means.
I haven't used the camera much, but I saw a YouTube video that said that the night mode shots are crap - and it is, absolutely. I hope they fix this in a later update. And there is no GCam yet for the Edge 20. Anyway I don't care much about camera quality as I have relegated the photography tasks to my wife which her iPhone 12 mini handles with ease.
The display is very colorful which is not really to my liking so I changed the setting from saturated to natural. But "natural" looks more like "washed out", so I switched back to saturated. Also I switched from 144hz (auto) HRR to 60hz as I did not really see any utility in HRR. Yes, the scroll is smooth - but that's about it. You appreciate it and move on to save some battery juice.
Speaking about battery life 4000mAh does not sound too low as mainstream ones come with 4500mAh which like 10% more. My OnePlus has 3700mAh, so hope 4000 would cover me for a day. Also since I mostly stay at home a charger is always somewhere nearby. A bigger battery would have anyway made it heavier which I didn't want.
Weight should be one of the reasons they left out stereo speakers so I am okay with some compromises. But there are other compromises made that make me feel that I am doing a real downgrade from the OnePlus 7. I do not understand why they provide gimmicks like 144hz display and 576 touch sampling rate and 3 proper cameras yet not give UFS 3. Also no aptX HD in Bluetooth. Well, I know this is no flagship and can't provide flagship level features in a midranger. But I think they can provide things that matter than things that don't matter much.
Speaking of it being a mid ranger Motorola does not pretend it to be otherwise though. A case come pre-applied and feels cheap and no screen protector pre-applied. That's sort of a bummer as I can't apply protectors without bubbles. They all comes in a rather unimaginative low quality box and things inside looks stuffed in rather hurriedly. Manufacturing month on the box reads September, so yes, they manufactured it after taking the pre-order.
I had bought a Mi 11 lite in June because I desperately wanted a lightweight phone. I knew it would be a compromise but I wasn't prepared for the abomination called MIUI. My 6 year old is playing his games in it now. The Edge 20 ticks the two boxes at the top of my list - light weight and stock android. Wish it had a headphone jack but then its better to have some things left out so that you can keep looking out for new phones.