Sounds great…but no SD card slot.
Motorola was one of the last still putting them in every phone up till a few years ago. That plus the unlockable bootloaders kept me coming back. No SD card slot, no sale.
Check out the oneplus n30 - it’s the closest to perfect that I’ve seen in a long time. SD card slot, headphone jack, screen with no pwm, huge amount of RAM, and lots more. It’s the best phone out there.
https://www.oneplus.com/us/n30-5g
8GB or RAM isn’t ‘huge’. And you didn’t mention whether it had custom ROM support, if it doesn’t, it’s no better than the Moto G73, which also has those other features. https://www.motorola.co.uk/smartphones-moto-g-73-5g/p?skuId=628
Can anyone speak of the software quality and support of Motorola? Also the support of custom ROM after the official support/updates ended.
I can’t directly, but most of my coworkers are on Motorola phones, and they all seem to at least like them.
Edit: like them as in not get frustrated with their phone being stupid, and enough to buy a new Motorola phone when they need to chage their phone. No idea about custom ROMs or software support…in fact I probably should have just kept this whole thing in my head…
My experience is dated, but figured I’d share it in case no one else has any input.
I owned a few Motorola Android phones before and after the Google involvement. I think my most recent purchase was 2015.
At that time, they were extremely “pure android” with very few additions beyond the stock experience. The things they added were way ahead of their time - I still think those devices had the best “always on” display implementation to this day, and they did it way before it became a norm.
Their software and update support was rivaling Google at the time, and most other manufacturers were still in the days of 2 years of updates if you’re lucky.
They just stopped making phones it seemed like. I ended up moving towards Pixels over the years, but Moto is the one company that would tempt me to switch back. That or maybe HTC but they’re dead.
Hope you get a more recent answer - I didn’t even realize they were still making phones to be honest.
I had a motorola z3 play a few years ago.
Software quality was pretty good. Security updates were sometimes 3-4 months behind and would combine a few monts when they did get released. When I contacted them about it I was told that not all security patches google issues apply to them. I don’t have a way of verifying that.
With “normal” updates to different Android versions they where also slow, but I guess that’s normal with most Android vendors.
The biggest bummer with that phone was that they killed the module-feature halfway trough it’s livecycle in some regions. (You could snap modules to the back that would add additional stuff like a 360° Camera or a bigger Speaker)
There is an official lineageos build for the z3 play which still gets updated I believe. Even very recent motorola phones get lineageos pretty soon after release. (Not shure tho if that includes all or just the flagships)
Very stock Android, but they use older hardware for these phones and it shows. I had a moto g power, at one point it had to install updates and when it rebooted it sat at a blank home screen for ten minutes before showing any icons. I ditched Android altogether and went iPhone, but I heard really good things about pixel phones, so I switched back and gave my old phones to my kids.
My only Motorola phone is a razr 40 which I’ve had for 4 months now, so not a ton of experience but I’ll share it anyway. The quality of the sofrware has been pretty good. It’s close to what reviewers used to call “stock” Android, in that it hasn’t received any significant UI modifications and doesn’t come with many proprietary apps. There are very few bugs or performance issues. You also don’t need a Motorola account to access any important software features.
However the software support is absolutely awful considering the RRP of the phone, its age and the promises made by Motorola. It was supposed to receive at least bi-monthly security updates but by January had already fallen behind that. The most recent update had been the November security patch, so I expected an update in January. Instead I received a February security update towards the end of March - nearly a 5 month update gap on a mid-range phone still less than a year old. Personally I think that is an absolute joke and I’m now considering selling it and either going back to an older phone with LineageOS or buying a Samsung flip since I know that will actually receive updates.
Software quality is great. Very near stock with a few great tweaks. Moto gestures are amazing, I use the chop-flashlight constantly and I know lots of people do too.
The updates suck honestly though. Security updates 1-2 months behind and you’ll get 2 version upgrades… eventually. Edit: their higher end phones get two, reportedly their budget line gets 1 usually…
Still though I like their phones. But as a techy guy I also know I won’t stick with a phone more than 2 years anyhow.
Some of their phones are guaranteed to get 1 OS update. 1.
Sony seems to be a king in the mid range recently. More expensive than Motos and Xiaomis - sure.
Sony Xperia 10 V
- 5Ah battery.
" Sd card slot. - headphone jack.
- SD 695 and not some Exynos or Mediateks in Motos
- decent camera.(sideloading a gcam may improve results)
- No Glass back(almost all Motos have this BS).
- No curved edges.
- 1 month back with security updates.
- Some phones, even mid range, get 3 OS updates.
Almost Pixel at home
Sony lists software updates history. Some devices get proper updates like Pixels or Samsungs.
Which to me was really surprising. Japan can be really weird about software.
Oh hell yeah, another phone 2% better than the last one with the same storage capacity as the last one for more money, probably no micro SD support still, lousy stock os, and waive your warranty for the right to install alternate os.
Probably. I didn’t verify any of that but it’s likely since nothing ever changes for the better anymore.
Looks like it’s a lot cheaper than the previous one but it’s a regional release right now (India only)
Being wrong comes with the territory of being a bitter old man longing for the old days of rapid and huge improvements I guess…
Games, apps, music, media and all that need storage. I can make do with 256gb if it’s expandable. Otherwise, I need high internal storage space to make it work.
Not even better, it’s actually a downgrade from its predecessor in terms of refresh rate and SoC, going from 165 Hz to 144 Hz, and from a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 to a Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 (which also means it drops AV1 hardware decoding, which its predecessor had).
Tbf it is cheaper than the Edge 40 Pro, they messed up their naming. This phone is the successor to the Edge 40 not the Pro. Mind you there are still some downgrades as they downgraded the storage to UFS 2.2.
This phone is the successor to the Edge 40 not the Pro
Not really, it’s closer to the Edge 40 Pro than to the Edge 40 in price. And the Edge 50 Ultra looks like it’s gonna be way more expensive than the 40 Pro, whle also having a lower refresh-rate screen.
Can it run Lineage OS? Probably not. I also need the headphone jack.
Motorola generally supports unlocking bootloaders, unless you buy a specifically locked one from vendors (like AT&T, Verizon, Amazon Prime + Ads versions). Given it hasn’t even launched yet, its probably not support yet though?
Documented hardware and mainline kernel or is it like every unownable other phone with an orphan kernel to steal ownership from the consumer? Orphaned kernels mean rental phone you can never own. This is the depreciation mechanism in Android. This is the only question that really matters in the big picture grand scheme.
If it has a mainline kernel, and hardware documentation, it will last decades even as a spare backup you never actually use. It will run any Linux, or find a second life in dozens of ways. It will even have long term value.
