Motorola Edge+ review

Promising triple camera hardware, odd behavior

The Motorola Edge+ is equipped with a triple camera system aided by an extra ToF pair. It's a fairly standard arrangement with a moderately wide primary cam, an ultra-wide one, and a short telephoto.

The main cam is based on a 108MP Samsung ISOCELL Bright HMX imager. It's the one found in the Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro as well, and it's a Tetracell type in Samsung speak, Quad Pixel in Motorola's book, or Quad Bayer if you prefer Sony's more publicized designation. That's not to be confused with the Nonacell sensor in the Galaxy S20 Ultra with the same nominal resolution - while both are the same size at 1/1.33" and have the same individual pixel pitch of 0.8µm, the HM1 on the Ultra groups nine pixels to form one in the resulting image (making 12MP shots), and the HMX goes the 4-in-1 route and the Edge+ takes 27MP images in its default mode.

The lens on the Moto's primary cam has an f/1.8 aperture and features OIS. The equivalent focal length isn't explicitly specified by Motorola, but the EXIF data in Manual mode says 26mm, and we're inclined to agree.

Moving on to the ultra wide. This one is shared with the Motorola Edge non-Plus and uses a 16MP sensor behind a 13mm equivalent f/2.2 lens that does have autofocus.

Which brings us to the telephoto. It has an 8MP OmniVision Type 1/4.4" sensor with 1.0µm pixels and is placed behind an f/2.4 aperture lens that gives it 3x optical zoom power when counted from the main cam's FoV. And here's one of the Edge+'s idiosyncrasies - when shooting in Auto mode, the 3x toggle gets you to a much further zoomed-in state than 3x, more like 6x in fact.

And that's on top of the fact that in Auto mode the phone spits 27MP images from all three cams - so both the ultra-wide and telephoto shots are upscaled by default. This is a strange limitation we've seen on several previous Moto phones but the upscaling facor here is huge. Imagine those 8MP shots that get upscaled more than three times to 27MP. Why would Motorola do that is beyond us.

You can access the native resolutions of the cameras by shooting in Manual mode and leaving all settings to auto. Here, the 3x toggle actually takes you to 3x, too. Only there's no AutoHDR in Manual mode so the dynamic range is less than stellar.

We can assume this inexplicable behavior is due to peculiarities of Motorola's custom camera app as it does have a handful of other peculiarities. If you always use two hands to take photos, you probably wouldn't notice, but otherwise, you'll be bugged to no end by the placement of the zoom selector on the viewfinder. It defaults to the left side of the viewfinder regardless of whether the phone is in portrait orientation or landscape and it makes accessing the zoom levels practically impossible with the right hand. Left-hand use is perfectly fine, right-hand use - not even remotely. True, sliding your right thumb along the edge does work as a zoom slider, but you don't get the pre-set magnifications that way. End of rant.

Other than that, the UI mostly doesn't get in the way and actually has a few neat touches. One of them is the memory slot of sorts for the last extra mode you've used - it's an icon that sits next to the always present photo and video modes. The toggle on the opposite end of the viewfinder for accessing Manual mode is neat too - it's always there in plain sight, as opposed to being in an extra modes panes somewhere. On the other hand, it is a two-option menu instead of a simple switch, meaning one additional tap is needed.

Manual mode is one of the more fully-featured ones, and on top of letting you access all three cameras (not all phones do that), it offers a live histogram. The basic photographic parameters are here as well - you can dial in your own ISO (100-3200), shutter speed (1/6000s-32s), or exposure compensation (-2EV to +2EV in 1/6EV increments), as well as pick a white balance by light temperature (with markings for common light types), and you can manually adjust focus - all pretty standard.

Camera app

Image quality

Image quality out of the Moto's main cam in daylight is excellent. You get a ton of detail in the 27MP shots and noise is practically non-existent. There's a very natural rendition of random textures like foliage too, which we rarely get, but really appreciate. Dynamic range is well worthy of the Edge+'s flagship stature, and the color rendition too leaves nothing to be desired.

Camera samples, main camera, 27MP

The 108MP images show more noise, and we couldn't spot meaningful increases in detail in real world shots. Dynamic range takes a hit, though it still remains fairly wide as these HDR-deprived full-res modes go, and color saturation suffers a bit as well.

Camera samples, main camera, 108MP

We already know from the Edge that the ultra-wide camera Motorola is using is a very capable performer. It comes as no surprise then that the images show excellent contrast and dynamic range and really likeable lively colors. The thing is though, on the Edge+, the ultra wide shots get upscaled to 27MP somewhat spoiling the result when you hit the 1:1 button - the detail is there, it's just that a certain softness shows in examining them up close. Still, properly good shots from this one.

Camera samples, ultra wide camera, 27MP

Now, you could get the 16MP images straight out of the ultra wide cam, but that means shooting with the Manual mode. This comes with a couple of negative implications. First up, there's no HDR, so dynamic range takes a dive as our overcast samples below clearly show. The other is that there's no distortion correction, meaning pronounced curvature to straight lines along the edges of the frame. There's a flipside though ,and that's a boost in central sharpness.

Camera samples, ultra wide camera: Auto (27MP) • Manual (16MP)

In Auto mode, the telephoto camera spits out 27MP images too, even though it's got an 8MP sensor. It would have been hard enough to make a usable image that way to begin with, but the phone also zooms in digitally a fair bit, as the field of view when engaging the 3x mode is more like 6x. Then it upscales to 27MP. Predictably these look just plain bad, and we can't really figure out why they would do it this way - it's not like they're advertising a 6x zoom, nor are they communicating it as such in the camera app. This one too may end up getting fixed with an update.

Camera samples, telephoto camera, 27MP

Here's how things would look if you opt for the Manual mode instead with side by side comparisons of 27MP and 8MP samples to illustrate both the difference in coverage and then the per-pixel detail. The 8MP Manual mode shots have the correct field of view of the 80-ish mm equivalent that is to be expected of this module. They are also sharp and detailed, to the best of what their 8MP resolution allows.

Camera samples, telephoto camera: Auto (27MP) • Manual (8MP)

Circling back from far to near, the ultra wide-angle camera of the Edge+ has autofocus and that lets it do some nice closeups.

Camera samples, ultra wide camera, macro mode, 16MP

It's not without its peculiarities - you try to take a close up shot with the ultra wide and it suggests you engage its macro mode at which point it goes into a slight crop but in the end will create a 16MP image. So to sum it up - in Auto mode the ultra-wide captures a full-width 27MP image, Manual mode captures a full-width 16MP image, whereas Macro mode captures a 16MP image with a cropped-in view. All from the same 16MP sensor. We can't even begin to untangle this mess.

Close ups: Auto mode, 27MP • Manual mode, 16MP • Macro mode 16MP

Portraits on the Moto Edge+ are taken with the primary camera at a slightly zoomed-in level around 2x, and are still 27MP in resolution. They show excellent subject detection and good blur quality.

Portrait samples

The Portrait mode works on non-human subjects too, with mostly the same high success rate, though straight lines in the background can have an abrupt edge on occasion.

Portrait mode samples, non-human subjects

The Moto Edge+ shares its selfie camera with the non-plus. It's a 25MP unit with a Quad Pixel sensor and defaults to 6.2MP images. The lens is a fixed-focus one and has an f/2.0 aperture. Selfies are quite nice coming out of the Edge+. They have excellent dynamic range and spot-on colors, and the focus distance is just right for arm's length shots.

Selfie samples, 6.2MP

Selfie samples, 25MP

Portrait mode isn't quite as capable as on the rear camera but gets the job done.

Selfie portrait samples, 6.2MP

Selfie portrait samples, 25MP

In low light, the Motorola Edge+ fails to impress. It holds on to color well, and does a great job with noise reduction plus it defines detail well in the reasonably well-lit areas of the scene. However, images are typically underexposed and dynamic range is on the narrow side of average.

Low-light camera samples, main camera, Auto mode, 27MP

Night mode (or Night Vision on the Motos) reigns in the highlights nicely and gives a minor boost to the lower midtones but images still feel dark and don't have that Night mode pop we're used to seeing. On a positive note, the Night mode benefits in dynamic range don't come with a penalty in resolved detail, which is nice.

Low-light camera samples, main camera, Night mode, 27MP

You can't really win if you try to shoot with the Edge+'s telephoto at night. One of two things will happen in Auto mode - either it will do the 6x from the tele cam on you if it's not quite as dark, or it will respect the 3x toggle in the viewfinder but the image will be digitally zoomed in from the main cam. Sure enough, all the shots will be 27MP.

Low-light camera samples, telephoto camera, Auto mode, 27MP

Go into manual mode, and you'll be getting the 8MP native images at the native zoom level, but these will be noisy and lacking in dynamic range - it is a tiny sensor after all. Ah, there's no Night mode on the telephoto camera.

Low-light camera samples, telephoto camera, Manual mode, 8MP

There is no Night mode for the ultra wide-angle module either. The Auto mode shots are barely usable - badly underexposed, soft, noisy. That's very often the case with ultra wides, but we've been getting Night modes on these from other makers, and the multi-image stacking does make wonders for exposure to at least make the images pleasing at fit to screen magnifications. Not on the Edge+, though.

Low-light camera samples, ultra wide angle camera, Auto mode, 27MP

Low-light camera samples, ultra wide angle camera, Manual mode, 16MP

Once you're done with the real world samples, head over to our Photo compare tool to see how the Motorola Edge+ stacks up against the competition.

Motorola Edge+ against the Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro and the OnePlus 8 Pro in our Photo compare tool

Video recording

The Motorola Edge+ can record video up to 6K resolution (6016x3384px) at 30fps with its main cam. While that's hardly a standard resolution, it allows you to do lossless zoom or pans within an otherwise static 6K frame and use that footage in a 4K timeline, which can be really handy.

As for native 4K recording, only 30fps frame rate is supported, which some may find limiting. 1080p does have both 30fps and 60fps options.

Even more limiting is the selection of modes on the ultra wide and telephoto cameras - basically it's just 1080p at 30fps - no 60fps, and no 4K.

You do get to choose between the h.264 and h.265 codecs, which is nice.

6K footage gets a generous 78Mbps bitrate when using the h.264 codec which drops to 54Mbps if you opt for h.265. It has comparable levels of per-pixel detail to the 4K30 capture, so you should be able to use portions of it in a 4K timeline shot on the Edge+ as well. You'd need to up the contrast and sharpening a bit on those chunks, as 6K has less of both when looking at clips in the resolutions side by side. Colors are the same between the two and are nicely accurate. Dynamic range is easily wide enough for our liking with our test scene having well developed detail in both the white clouds and the shadows underneath the trees.

1080p footage out of the main cam (15Mbps bitrate) has good detail at 30fps, but with a distinctly gritty overprocessed rendition. The dynamic range and color reproduction maintain the same properties as in 4K and 6K. 1080p at 60fps (20Mbps) comes with a significant drop in sharpness.

The ultra wide cam's 1080p footage manages to capture decent detail. Saturation gets a minor boost, compared to the main cam's vids but not enough to become objectionable. Dynamic range isn't as wide, but still plenty good for an ultra wide cam.

The telephoto cam's 1080p at 30fps videos are a bit soft and hazy, but usable if you need the extra reach.

Electronic stabilization is available on the Motorola Edge+ in all modes on all cams, except 6K on the main cam, where it's just the OIS in action. It's certainly better than nothing, and if you're going for the high resolution, it's probably logical that you'd have some type of support in mind. On the main and ultra-wide cameras, walking and filming is easily doable and you can expect very stable footage with only the occasional step making its way to the video as camera shake. The ultra wide may exhibit some hunting for focus as you walk. The telephoto's stabilization isn't quite as effective.

Here's a glimpse of how the Motorola Edge+ compares to rivals in our Video compare tool. Head over there for the complete picture.

Motorola Edge+ against the Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro and the OnePlus 8 Pro in our Video compare tool