Motorola Edge 20 review

Sometimes, the Edge 20 goes beyond just nice – such as the super crisp 6.7” OLED display that can handle refresh rates of up to 144Hz, a 108-megapixel camera setup and a no-fuss Android experience that maintains a snappy performance.

Yet despite a few flagship-worthy features, it rarely thrills. The Edge 20 smartphone is ultimately reliable, attractive and inoffensive – which are all perfectly fine traits. To personify this device further: it would show you a good time but always have you home before dark. It would play things safe. Your parents would approve.

We spent roughly a week testing the Edge 20, so read on to learn more about the handset and whether it deserves a place on our best mid-range phone list. Unsure which device to buy? Don’t miss our full guide to the best Motorola phones of 2021.

Jump to:

• Motorola Edge 20 summary
• What is Motorola Edge 20?
• How much is Motorola Edge 20?
• Motorola Edge 20 features
• Motorola Edge 20 battery
• Motorola Edge 20 camera
• Motorola Edge 20 design and set-up
• Our verdict
• Where to buy

Motorola Edge 20 review: summary

The Motorola Edge 20 has a lot to offer if you are in the market for an Android phone with a few flagship-worthy features that won’t destroy your bank account in the same way as, say, the new Apple iPhone 13. The screen is a standout, with a crisp OLED panel and up to 144Hz refresh rate – using the phone is consistently smooth.

The handset fits well in the hand and is lightweight at just 163g, while the camera is surprisingly solid, too, with a 108 megapixel (MP) sensor and two other lenses – an 8 MP telephoto and a 16 MP ultra-wide-angle – providing nice versatility.

But it’s not perfect, of course. The camera module itself is particularly annoying as it protrudes to the point that the handset wobbles when placed on a flat surface, there is no support for wireless charging, and while the battery life will comfortably last for a day of use, there are cheaper phones that easily beat its 4000mAh capacity.

Price: The Motorola Edge 20 has an RRP of £429.99. It can be bought via Amazon for £414.78. It’s also available via contract at multiple UK phone retailers, including Currys, where it is currently listed as £23.99 per month with no upfront cost.

Key features:

• 6.7-inch OLED display (2400 x 1080)
• Android 11 without any bloat
• 108 MP triple camera system

Pros:

• A lovely OLED screen
• Lightweight and thin
• Solid camera options

Cons:

• Annoying camera module
• Battery could be better
• No wireless charging

What is the Motorola Edge 20?

The Motorola Edge 20 is the mid-spec handset in the company’s latest phone series. Unlike the models before it, which were named after their curved edges, the Edge 20 has flat edges. It comes in two colours: frosted white and frosted grey and is priced at just under £430, meaning it’s definitely a mid-range phone. The Edge 20 Lite, which retains curved sides, costs £299.99, while the Edge 20 Pro costs £649.99. All have a 6.7-inch OLED screen and run on the Android 11 mobile operating system.

What does the Motorola Edge 20 do?

While not a flagship handset like the Apple iPhone 13 or the upcoming Google Pixel 6 phones, the Motorola Edge 20 has some standout specs and features:

• Offers a clean Android 11 experience out of the box
• Has a crisp high-res screen that’s great for watching content
• Provides smooth scrolling with up to 144Hz refresh rate
• Has a battery that will last a full day of use
• Lets you unlock using power button fingerprint sensor
• Supports connections with 5G networks for fast speeds

How much is the Motorola Edge 20?

The Edge 20 has an RRP of £429.99, and it can be bought outright via Currys, John Lewis and mobiles.co.uk. The handset is available on Amazon for £414.79.

Is the Edge 20 good value for money?

While it’s not always the most exciting phone out there, the Edge 20 does represent good value for money in the mid-range category. At £429.99, the OLED screen and fast refresh rates mean that it’s a compelling option for anyone hunting for a new Android phone. But competition in this category is increasingly tough.

While its spec-sheet does justify the price, the Motorola Edge 20 has two problems: the Apple iPhone SE (£389) and Google Pixel 4 5G (£499).

For anyone who is tempted by Apple, the iPhone SE will be an obvious choice – and it’s more affordable than the Edge 20. While the Pixel 4a 5G is more expensive, we find it’s still the benchmark for a clean Android experience with a stunning camera. For anyone who doesn’t care about 5G, the Pixel 4 is just £299.

Motorola Edge 20 features

The attraction of the Edge 20 is the display. While 6.7-inches may be fairly standard for modern smartphones, the OLED panel is not only great to look at but smooth to use thanks to the high refresh rate, which goes up to 144Hz. For comparison, the Apple iPhone 13 tops out at 120Hz and the Pixel 5 maxes out at 90Hz.

The refresh rate is how many times per second the screen can display a new image – measured in Hertz (Hz) – so 144Hz means it can refresh the image 144 times per second. Essentially, the higher that number, the smoother experience you will have while using the phone’s touchscreen – with minimal lag or stuttering.

Not everyone will care (or even notice the difference) between 90Hz and more, but anyone who spends a lot of time scrolling should appreciate the spec.

During testing, we used an “auto” option that changes the refresh rate based on how the phone is being used, but there’s also an option to lower it to 60Hz. That will give you longer battery life. The 144Hz is the smoothest but will drain more power.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G isn’t the most powerful chipset to ever be used in a smartphone, but we didn’t have any issues with the performance during our time with the Edge 20. Apps were quick to boot up, and the handset was able to run the games Call of Duty Mobile and Asphalt 9 without any slowdown or crashing.

Audio is loud and clear, but we feel that the bass could be stronger. The placement on the bottom right of the handset also means that if you are holding each side while gaming, it is very easy to block out some of the audio output by mistake.

We appreciated the inclusion of a fingerprint scanner built into the power button, and it worked well in our testing. In general, security options were good. There’s also an option to use face unlocking alongside a swipe pattern, pin code or password.

Motorola’s “ready for” mode lets you connect the phone to a PC monitor so you can access apps or games on the larger screen – or even use the handset as a remote for your TV. It’s easy to set up and works well – especially handy for sharing files or documents quickly – but it was a feature that we didn’t use much day-to-day. That’s not the phone’s fault, of course, and others will appreciate the connectivity.

The Edge 20’s Android experience is thankfully free of bloatware – and we found it to be pleasant to use as a result. It’s personal preference, but the OS is minimalist, and the smartphone doesn’t come bundled with too many apps you will never open.

Motorola Edge 20 battery

The Edge 20 has a 4000mAh battery, which provides more than enough juice for a full day of use: Twitter scrolling, checking emails and watching YouTube.

We found that not using the phone as heavily meant the battery life was extended and would last closer to a day-and-a-half – especially with 144Hz mode off.

That battery life is fine but not brilliant by modern standards. Many phones that are much cheaper – such as the £179 Xiaomi Poco M3 Pro 5G – come with capacities of 5000mAh or more that will last closer to 48 hours from a full charge.

The Edge 20 has 30-watt fast charging that provides up to eight hours of battery in 10 minutes, but unfortunately, there’s no wireless charging – and that’s a big shame for a mid-range phone. Both the iPhone SE and Pixel 4a 5G come with the ability to top up their batteries using any of the best wireless chargers with the Qi standard.

Still, it comes with the 30W USB-C charger – and it’s fast. In one morning of testing, the phone had a drained battery at 9:22 a.m., but that got to 50% full by 9:44 a.m. – just 22 minutes.

Motorola Edge 20 camera

The Edge 20 boasts a triple camera setup: a 108MP main camera sensor (12MP output resolution), an 8MP telephoto and a 16MP ultra-wide angle. The “selfie” camera is a 32MP lens that sits inside a pinhole-style notch in the middle of the screen.

There is a variety of shooting modes, including a macro mode to take pictures up close, a night mode to help take photos in darker conditions. The selfie camera has a filter that lets you smooth your skin – but it can thankfully be turned off.

By default, the phone will save your photos at 12MP, but there is an “ultra-res” mode that lets you take advantage of that 108MP sensor. We were pleasantly surprised with the results from the main camera – especially in brighter conditions. Colours were accurate, and the images were sharp – with very little noise levels when zoomed out. As expected, the image becomes more unusable the more you zoom in. The camera has filters that change the hue of your images in real-time, and they worked well.

The Edge 20 can shoot 4K video at 30 frames-per-second, and it comes with a mode to stabilise the shot. One neat feature that worked surprisingly well was the “quick capture” mode that opens the rear or front lenses if you twist the phone while holding it in your hand. Doing so will automatically – and quickly – open the camera.

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Motorola Edge 20 design and set-up

The Edge 20 has a flat-edged design that’s quite boxy in hand – but the back of the frame is made from aluminium alloy that keeps fingerprints to a minimum. We tested the Frosted Grey colour – it was not flashy, but still really nice. However, it’s not a design that will stand out from the crowd, and we expect some may find it to be a little bland, especially compared to the aesthetics of the upcoming Pixel 6.

Weighing in at just 163g, the Edge 20 is also extremely lightweight, especially when directly compared to the OnePlus 8T we were previously using. We liked that and found the handset to be comfortable when used for longer periods of time.

Like most Androids, the Edge 20’s setup was simple – with a step-by-step guide that walks you through language, security and data transfer options when the phone is launched. From there, customisation was easy, such as changing the icon shape of widgets, the background image, and using gestures for navigation.

The layout of the phone itself is fairly standard – with the power button and volume to the right and a dedicated Google Assistant button on the left. The bottom of the handset is where you will find the speakers and USB-C charging port. There is no 3.5 mm jack, but the phone has Bluetooth 5.2 for strong wireless connections.

We liked the placement overall, and they all had a nice clicky-ness and vibration feedback when pressure was applied. It’s all personal preference, but we didn’t find ourselves relying on the voice assistant much, so it may have been more useful to remove that – and instead put the volume switches in its place, further down. The volume buttons are currently on the top right of the phone – and can sometimes be a little awkward to use because they are always just ever so slightly out of reach.

But the biggest annoyance of the Edge 20’s design is the camera module itself – which protrudes from the back of the frame to the point that it constantly wobbles when on a desk or any horizontal surface. The issue is (mostly) solved by using the bundled case, but not everyone will want to do that, so it’s important to note.

Our verdict: should you buy the Edge 20?

Thanks to Google and Apple selling handsets that fall into the mid-range category, competition is tough in the space these days – and smartphones have to work very hard to justify why they are a better option than the iPhone SE and Pixel 4.

Aside from Motorola fans, the Edge 20 is best suited for those who need a reliable and no-fuss Android handset with a great screen and an industry-leading refresh rate. It would be great for anyone on a budget due to its sub £500 price tag.

There are plenty of other plus sides: the Edge 20 has a thin and lightweight frame – while also offering 5G connectivity for faster speeds. Performance is also snappy – so it’s a great handset for anyone who is constantly switching between apps.

With its muted frosted colours and minimalist design, the Edge 20 isn’t particularly flashy – and it lacks the brand appeal of the iPhone or Pixel, but it’s well-made, has some solid specs and is pleasant to use day-to-day. In the end, the Edge 20 isn’t our new favourite smartphone, but there’s no question about it: it’s still very nice.

Our rating:

• Features: 3.5/5
• Battery: 3/5
• Camera: 3.5/5
• Design/set-up: 4/5

Overall: 3.5/5

Where to buy the Motorola Edge 20

The Motorola Edge 20 is available to buy outright from Amazon, Currys and John Lewis, priced at £429.99. There are also some options for phone contracts:

• Available via iD | £23.99 per month, £9.99 upfront
• Available via Currys | £23.99 per month, £0 upfront

For the latest news, reviews and deals, check out the RadioTimes.com Technology section. Still unsure what new handset to buy, don’t miss our in-depth guide to the best Android phones and this list of the best 5G phones of the year so far.