Motorola just launched a new Android phone to take on the Pixel 8
Get ready for another new Android phone! Motorola just announced its Edge (2023) handset, and it's even cheaper than the new Google Pixel 8.
No word on how long it will get software support though. With everyone else going to 5 or 7 years of updates, Motorola's typical 2 year support cycle is a huge negative.
Lmao 2 years?
My ex back in like.. 2015? Bought a Motorola phone. It PROMISED the next version of Android, aka, 1 singular update. It never got it.
Everyone was so pissed, Motorola made an announcement that it was going to stick to their word, and then over a year went by and I think they released a beta to a certain country, and then never actually fully released it.
So they didn't even give 1 year of updates that they promised on all of the marketing material. Good luck with 2.
Haha this happened to me almost verbatim except it was an LG phone.
Big "we already got their money, fuck 'em" energy. Made me decide to aggressively avoid all LG products going forward.
Best part was there was a bug in the version of their Android I was stuck with that would cause the phone to randomly shut off if charging overnight. I think I eventually installed a custom ROM which fixed it.
Hell, I dealt with that all the way back in 2010/2011 with the Cliq XT. It was supposed to get Android 1.6, and Moto kept stringing everyone along until after Android 2.0 came out, when they quietly stopped saying an update would come. Worst part is, IIRC the Cliq (same exact phone hardware wise, except with a physical keyboard) received the promised update.
Ever since then, I've sworn off Moto aside from the Z2 Force which I managed to get new for like $250, and even that one became my rooted plaything until the charging port fried itself last year.
Moto, aside from the brief time they were part of Google, has always been awful about software updates, unfortunately.
Yeah, the Moto E. I remember buying it just for that...
Absolutely, I would prefer a 700$ phone with 5-7 years of update vs a 600$ one with 2 years...
And that's a shame because their phones are otherwise great. (Or great for the money)
Remember when Google owned Motorola and they released two of the best Android phones that had ever been made (Moto X)?
Man, that was great. I miss my Moto X 2014. I wish Motorola still made phones that good. I have a G30 spare phone, and it's... well it's a phone.
The Moto X (2014)/(2nd gen) was such an awesome phone with a solid build.
I bought it in 2015 at a huge discount instead of the One Plus 1. I used it till the end of 2019 until the battery gave in & the USB port became useless.
Except for the smaller battery size & ok-ish camera, everyone had praises for that phone. My favourite part was it's shape & software.
It received the Android 5 & 6 updates even before summer Nexus phones. And the updates were stable. Times were wild back then.
Sure, yeah, taking on the Pixel without specifying the number of years of OS and feature updates and without GrapheneOS support. Pretty good title for the post
Motorola Releases Phone Around the Same Time As Another Even More Popular Phone
Just add back the headphone jack and SD card slot if you want to take on the Pixel
Is there something special about an audio jack that USB-C can't do? And my past experience with SD cards has been consistently poor; prone to corruption and slow-ass writes.
Is there something special about an audio jack that USB-C can’t do?
You can use your headphones without carrying around another adapter.
And my past experience with SD cards has been consistently poor
Get better SD cards?
In addition to what others have mentioned, you also can't use USBC adapter for the headphones and charge it the same time, without getting another weird, likely flaky, and definitely more bulky adapter.
Slow writes are generally true, I suspect for similar reasons that most usb sticks suck: trade off between price, capacity, longevity, and thermals. I've used a 1TB sd card for years withoutany issues, but now have everything on a NAS instead, so the slot sits unused.
USB-C audio isn't simple. Does the phone have built in DAC with usb pass through (most dont or its poor quality), or do you need usb DAC? Also, not all usb DACs will work on every device.
Taking on the pixel 8 without actual software support or hardware features like expandable storage to back them up. Why would you not get the pixel 8, which would get 7 years of support and replacement parts, unlike Motorola. Not wise of the author to make the comparison to the pixel.
Motorola is available in a lot more markets than the pixel 8.
I had a motorola phone once and it didn't have a compass. Yes, I mean the type that shows you where North is. It was a Moto G4. A lot of apps just had seizures because what phone lacks a compass
Curious what apps? Aside from mapping applications. What else do you need a compass for?
One thing I really missed was Star Chart, an astronomy app. Some games like Pokémon Go and Ingress also needed it.
How do you compete with the pixel if Google locks you out of features.
And lineage will support it for the next few-.... And they dropped support.
The worst thing IMO is the apparent lack of custom Rom support. The latest to still support it would be the Edge 30. Using an Edge 20, it's more than enough for me. It took a long time to roll out Android 13, but for that they integrated their (non intrusive and actually useful) apps very well.
In true mediatek fashion
Grow up bro. You can't store apps on SD cards anyways, get an external SSD for photos. Headphone jacks usually sounds worse than most external USB dongle DACs anyways.