Can the MediaTek SoC keep up with the Moto Edge’s lightning-fast display?
Motorola is competing against the Pixel 6a despite being the third-largest smartphone manufacturer in the US, behind Apple and Samsung. The Moto Edge 2022 was unveiled by the business (not to be confused with the $1,000 Edge+), and at $500, the mid-ranger directly competes with Google’s most recent smartphone. The two businesses are undoubtedly approaching the $500 price tag in different ways.
When compared to the Pixel 6a’s meagre 60 Hz display, Motorola’s eye-popping 6.6-inch, 24001080 display, which boasts 144 Hz, is a powerful spec-sheet line item. The phone includes 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, an in-screen fingerprint reader, a 5000 mAh battery, and 30 W charging. The SoC is the brand-new MediaTek Demensity 1050.
It’s a smart decision to choose that MediaTek SoC. It is not going to light the globe on fire because it is a 6 nm processor with two ARM Cortex A78 CPUs and six Cortex A55 CPUs. Although it hasn’t been released yet, pre-release Geekbench tests produced a score of 2142, which is significantly lower than the flagship-class Google Tensor SoC found in the Pixel 6a (about 2850 points). Ignoring the question of whether you really want a 144 Hz display in a low-cost phone, can this Mediatek SoC render Android at a consistent 144 frames per second? If you consider 144 Hz to be a selling advantage, Motorola’s history of pairing its fast displays with weak SoCs should be a huge issue.
The inclusion of 5G mmWave capability is yet another feature that begs the question, “Do you really want that in a mid-range phone?” The carriers aggressively promoted mmWave at the start of the 5G era in 2018, but it has been four years and mmWave is still prohibitively expensive to build out due to its low range and fussy signal characteristics. The majority of carriers have stated that mmWave coverage will never reach more than 1%. In addition to being an outdated technology, MmWave is also expensive to incorporate into a smartphone, with the additional antennae (at least those produced by Qualcomm) increasing the MSRP by between $50 and $100. Poor MediaTek, too The company’s first-ever mmWave-compatible chipset is the Demensity 1050, which was unveiled in May. When the development first began, I’m sure it was intended to be a glorious achievement.
Thank goodness, the phone supports Wi-Fi 6E and NFC. This is unfortunate because there is no discernible water resistance. A 50 MP primary camera, a 13 MP ultrawide camera, and a 2 MP “macro/depth” camera are the three rear cameras included with the phone. It also comes with Android 12. However, based on the company’s past performance, Motorola has pledged three years of OS upgrades and four years of bimonthly security updates.
The phone will be available “soon” through T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon in the US. The $499 price will eventually be increased to $599, according to Motorola, but there will also be an unlocked version available at Best Buy and Amazon.
