The Motorola Edge 2021 is Motorola’s new smartphone announced in the United States. The handset comes after the company launches the Edge 20 series in Europe and India.

This new phone is a direct successor to the Motorola Edge released last year. It features a nice body design and an infrared high-resolution triple camera.

Motorola Edge 2021 Review

Design

The Motorola Edge 2021 is blessed with a premium body featuring plastic panels and windshields. The phone has a sleek body with curved edges that results in a repellent design.

Display

On the front is a 6.7-inch display with an 8-bit LCD panel with a resolution of 1080 x 2460 pixels. It maintains a 576Hz touch response rate and a 144Hz refresh rate that is 60% faster than the first-generation Edge and Edge+. It also has HDR10 support, 401 PPI density, and an 83.4% screen-to-body ratio.

Camera

The Motorola Edge 2021 central punch hole features a 32MP front-facing camera for selfies and video calls. The phone’s main cameras include a 108MP f/1.9 sensor, an 8MP f/2.2 119° ultra-wide camera capable of recording macro images, and a 2MP f/2.4 depth camera.

The camera is paired with dual-LED dual-tone flash, HDR, and Panorama, and promises to shoot 4K video quality.

Audio quality

The Edge has a single bottom speaker with a maximum volume of 90dB. The audio quality is overwhelming. The speakers push the mids forward and the soundstage is unbalanced. The Verizon version supports Verizon Adaptive Audio, which uses AI to improve the audio quality of any Bluetooth or wired audio peripherals you connect with your phone speakers.

In our tests, Adaptive Audio slightly improved the speaker and brought some balance to the sound signature, but the software can only do that.

Processor

The Motorola Edge 2021 has a Snapdragon 778G SOC based on a 6nm process node with an octa-core processor clocked at 1×2.4GHz speeds. It has an Adreno 642L graphics card and runs out of the box on Android 11 OS.

Storage

It combines 256 GB of internal memory and 8 GB of RAM but lacks support for micro SD cards.

Security

The device fingerprint scanner is on the side for security. Motorola Edge 2021 runs on My UX based on Android 11.

Connection

We are reviewing a version of Verizon Edge tuned to work on Verizon’s mmWave network. The unlocked version brings LTE and sub-6GHz 5G coverage to all major carriers. Both models have a C-band connection.

We tested Edge on Verizon’s 5G (mostly mmWave) network and recorded excellent results. After completing more than a dozen tests in Chicago, the average speeds were 448.5 Mbps and 126.4 Mbps.

The call quality is stable. The maximum earpiece volume clock is 87 dB, which is large enough for calls on busy streets to not be a problem. Calls were clear and noise cancellation on the phone worked well.

Other connectivity options such as Bluetooth 5.2, NFC, Wi-Fi 6E, mmWave, and NFC.