Moto Edge 20 Fusion Review: Edges out the competition

Motorola has launched two new phones in India namely the Moto Edge 20 and Moto Edge 20 Fusion. Now, Edge as you may know showcases the brand’s better camp of phones. The newcomers might not be pricey, but do bring some good premium features to the table. And now a month since their debut, the Edge 20 series is finally here. Out of the two models, we at Smartprix have the Edge 20 Fusion in for a review. [हिंदी में पढ़ें]

So, let’s begin with a glance at what all we get for the starting price of ₹21,499:

And well, here’s the device:

Moto Edge 20 Fusion comes in two colors viz. Electric Graphite and Cyber Teal. Mine is the former and it has got a frosted finish in look and a soft feel to touch. I like the in-hand feel it offers, partly due to the aforesaid tactility, but also because of its lightness. At 185 grams, it is pretty handy.

Rest, while operating it in one hand, you might notice its flatness and the seams connecting the base, frame, and the top display. And some of you might even notice the absence of Moto dimple. The logo is there only, subtly visible under the camera bump. Yes, it is a hump indeed and without a case, the phone won’t sit flat on the floor. So, you may apply the bundled TPU case.

The case will also keep smudges at bay and give some shield against accidental drops to an extent. The company hasn’t mentioned the protection given on the screen. Fret not, I will try to get more detail about this.

Anyhoo, the Edge 20 Fusion is IP52 rated for dust and water resistance. This should grant limited protection against water spillage, drizzle, and dust contact.

Before moving to the next section, here are the stayers on the sides — volume rockers (right), power cum fingerprint key (right), SIM slot (left), Google Assistant button (left), USB-C 2.0 port (bottom), dual-mics (top and bottom), and speaker grille (bottom). The buttons are responsive and reachable albeit with some stretch (for my hands at least).

Unlocking with face and fingers is quick, although facial recognition needs some light. Once you unlock, you interact on this —

Moto Edge 20 Fusion flaunts a 6.7-inch OLED screen with a 20:9 aspect ratio. It is tall and broad for visual consumption. And you’d enjoy doing so as it is a 10-bit panel with FHD+ resolution, HDR10 contrasts, and color reproduction. Moto claims this display covers the DCI-P3 color gamut. And the presence of a 90Hz refresh rate makes the frame rate appear smoother.

Although HDR works on YouTube, the same wasn’t the case with Netflix. But there is DRM L1 support so, you can stream HD content on these popular OTT platforms.

In the display settings, you can lower the refresh rate to 60Hz (for better battery life), turn on Dark Theme, Night Light, Adaptive Brightness, Peek Display, color profile (Saturated vs Natural), and temperature, among various other things. We will address some of these things in the software part.

Now the only quibble I have for this display is the black border around it. I think Moto could’ve shaved a few millimeters off of it. Anyway, the margins are good for holding the device in landscape orientation.

While resting your index finger on the base of the phone for landscape gaming/usage, a few slits of the speaker grille is likely to get blocked. But that aside, the sound from it is fairly loud. If not that, then wire in an earphone to the 3.5mm jack or go wireless.

That brings us to —

You can listen over wireless gear thanks to Bluetooth 5.0 support. There is also dual-band WiFi, NFC, GPS, and slots for dual SIMs with 4G (Carrier Aggregation supported) as well as 5G connections. The compatible 5G bands (NR sub-6GHz) are n1/n3/n5/n7/n8/n20/n28/n38/n40/n41/n77/n78/n66.

From the connectivity standpoint, the device is future-ready. And at present, calls out of my Airtel VoLTE SIM and VoWiFi worked fine and clear.

Besides components for the aforementioned connectivity solutions, the insides of Edge 20 Fusion also comprises of —

Motorola has armed the Edge 20 Fusion with Mediatek Dimensity 800U chipset. This is a 7nm chip comprising two Cortex A-76 (up to 2.4 GHz) performance cores and six Cortex A-55 (up to 2.0 GHz) efficiency cores. The internal hardware setup also includes Arm Mali-G57 GPU, up to 8GB of LPDDR4x RAM, and 128GB of UFS 2.2 storage. There is an expandable micro-SD option up to 1TB.

Here are the synthetic test results:

Moto Edge 20 Fusion Benchmark	Scores
Antutu	420946
Geekbench 5 Single | Multi	562 | 1734
PCMark Work 2.0	8624
3DMark Wild Life Extreme | Wild Life | Sling Shot Extreme (OpenGL ES 3.1)	476 | 1602 | 3340
Androbench Sequential R/W (MB/s)	948.22 | 476.18
Androbench Random R/W (MB/s)	153.38 | 184.2
GFXBench Aztec Ruins Open GL (High Tier) | Car Chase | Manhattan 3.1	12 FPS | 17 FPS | 31 FPS
Conversion of 2:35min 1080p 60fps MP4 video to MKV using Video Transcoder app	6 mins

These scores are on par with expectations. The CPU fared well in the throttling test too. So, you could get a good sustained performance out of this phone.

I’ll be putting it through its paces before the final review, but for now, know that the phone has been smooth for the most part. Well, it had to be ’cause it’s running on nearly stock Android 11. I call it nearly as there are some Moto goodies tacked on top of the base software. This includes stuff like the newly announced Ready For feature. This is Motorola’s attempt at bridging the gap between a phone and a big screen (PC or TV) by wirelessly sharing the screen or any content in particular. As per the company’s description, Ready For could be used for accessing your phone apps on the big PC screen. I tried attending phone video calls but the experience wasn’t all that good. You can play small games like Hill Climb Racing fine but couldn’t get the controls running on high-end titles like COD Mobile or BGMI. You could try controlling the phone apps using a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

Further, there are some rudimentary theming options, useful Peek Display, Chat bubbles, Screenshot toolkit, a few gestures for quickly opening flashlight, camera, etc, and Gametime toolbox. I wish this toolbox had an FPS counter for games.

As for gaming on the phone, BGMI runs at up to HD Graphics and High Frame Rate while the COD Mobile maxes at Medium Graphics and High Frame Rate. Half-an-hour gameplay dipped the battery level by 9%. The phone stayed comfortably cool during this entire stretch.

Moving on…

The camera setup stands out for its 108MP primary snapper by the back. The rear trio consists of an 8MP ultrawide camera with macro shooting ability and a 2MP depth-sensing module for portraits. On the flip side, the selfie camera houses a 32MP sensor.

Here are the real-world results:

In natural light, the photos come out okay. But, I didn’t find any wow-worthy results. There is a toggle called AI scene optimization which will try to make the photos appear more appealing although at times I felt the color temperature was tuned warmer than actual. The dynamic range was also wonky with not enough details in the shadows and highlights. Look at those white skies for instance.

There is no color parity between regular and ultrawide shots. The latter also suffers from standard issues like distortions and fewer details by the edges.

You also get party tricks like macro shots and Spot Color mode.

Coming to human subjects, the results were saturated than the actual subject. Edge detection in portrait shots was alright.

When the night sets, the Night Vision mode can come in handy. It ups the exposure and details are more apparent.

For videography, you get up to 4K 30fps by the back and 1080P films from the front, also at 30 frames per sec. There is no OIS in recording on either end.

Motorola has stuffed in a stack of modes like Pro, Dual Capture (Stills and Videos), Slow Motion, Time Lapse, etc. Some of these would be fun to try.

And while I do so, I feel the battery should stay long. Because —

There is a 5000mAh battery within the Edge 20 Fusion which clocked a highly impressive 16 Hr 37 Mins runtime on PCMark 10 test. And it comes backed by a 30W charger which takes about an hour to fill the tank full. The USB Cable is Type-C on both ends and supports PD charging which was handy in charging up the Galaxy Z Fold 3 (review) too.

Since the device is running on ad-free and bloat-free Android, there would be relatively fewer background processes drinking up the juice. In addition, Motorola has also added some nifty features like Optimized Charging and Overcharge protection, lending more assurance.

And finally, it is time for —

Motorola’s new phone brings ever-so-familiar Moto traits like the plain-vanilla design, interface, and ease of use. There are also things like a 10-bit 90Hz FHD+ AMOLED screen, great battery life with 30W charging, cool cum capable performance, clean stock Android 11 software, and support for several 5G bands, all of which could be considered its Edge factors. I am only reticent about the camera performance. For a 108MP primary camera and a pack of other features, the results were just serviceable. But besides that, Moto has done a great job here and for the starting price of Rs. 21,499, you may very well consider this phone.

Moto Edge 20 Fusion FAQ

Q. Does Moto Edge 20 Fusion has a dedicated microSD slot?

A. No, Moto Edge 20 Fusion has a hybrid SIM + SD Card slot. You can use either two SIMs or One SIM + One SD Card expandable up to 512GB.

Q. What is the SAR value of Moto Edge 20 Fusion?

A. Moto Edge 20 Fusion SAR values are: 1.28 W/kg @ 1gm (Head) & 1.30 W/kg @ 1gm (Body)

Q. Does Moto Edge 20 Fusion feature Gorilla Glass Protection?

A. Moto Edge 20 Fusion doesn’t come with Gorilla Glass.

Q. What are the 5G bands supported by Moto Edge 20 Fusion?

A. Moto Edge 20 Fusion supports the following bands: n1/n3/n5/n7/n8/n20/n28/n38/n40/n41/n77/n78/n66

Q. Does Moto Edge 20 Fusion support Compas?

A. Yes, Moto Edge 20 Fusion does support a compass sensor.

Q. Does Moto Edge 20 Fusion have Gorilla Glass Protection?

A. No Moto Edge 20 Fusion doesn’t have Gorilla Glass protection. Instead, it has a NEG glass shield.

Q. Does Moto Edge 20 Fusion support FM Radio?

A. Yes, Moto Edge 20 Fusion comes with FM Radio support.

Q. Does Moto Edge 20 Fusion support dual-band WiFi?

A, Yes, Moto Edge 20 Fusion supports dual-band WiFi 6 (2.4GHz + 5GHz).

Q. Does Moto Edge 20 Fusion support VoWiFi or WiFi calling?

A. Yes, Moto Edge 20 Fusion does feature VoWiFi.

Q. How many microphones are on the Moto Edge 20 Fusion?

A. Moto Edge 20 Fusion comes with two microphones.

Q. Which is the Android update on Moto Edge 20 Fusion?

A. Moto Edge 20 Fusion ships with Android 11 software. At the time of writing, it has the June 05 2021 security update. The Google Play System update is also dated June 01, 2021. Motorola promises two years of platform updates which means you should get up to Android 13 on this device.

Q. Does Moto Edge 20 Fusion feature 4K60 FPS?

A. The maximum video quality supported by Moto Edge 20 Fusion is 4K30 FPS. So, no 60 frames per second here.

Q. Does Moto Edge 20 Fusion support HD stream on Netflix and Amazon Prime?

A. Moto Edge 20 Fusion has DRM L1 certification and I did HD streaming on Prime Video and Netflix. There is no HDR support though.

Q. Does Moto Edge 20 Fusion support GCam or Camera2API?

A. Moto Edge 20 Fusion comes with Full Camera2API support for GCam. However, if there is a GCam build for the MediaTek Dimensity 800U chip is something to be seen.

Q. Does the Dimensity 800U SoC within Moto Edge 20 Fusion get hot?

A. In my usage, I didn’t come across anything which would worry me.

Q. Does Moto Edge 20 Fusion feature OIS?

A. No, Moto Edge 20 Fusion doesn’t feature OIS.