This year has been especially eventful for Motorola, the company has released more than 30 smartphones covering practically all price ranges. It even updated the iconic Motorola Razr, so it got its hands on the foldable market as well.
But as is always the case with big tech companies, we see some good decisions and some bad. We rounded up the best and worst of Motorola in 2022.
Winner: Motorola Razr 2022
Motorola’s first two attempts at the foldable market had some great ideas, but ultimately fell short of expectations. The first Razr in 2019 and the updated version in 2020 were both a bit disappointing.
The 2022 Razr, by contrast, is a story of lessons learned. A true flagship SoC, with bigger and better displays, a more capable camera setup, a bigger battery with faster charging, and a set of stereo speakers. We particularly liked how thin the fold of the foldable display is compared to other solutions on the market.
Sure, it might not be the cheapest phone out there, nor did it sell by the bucketful. The future of folding is still a future, but everyone who has had the chance to play with the Razr 2022 was undoubtedly convinced that sooner or later we will get there.
Losers: Moto G series
While Motorola has made a comeback thanks to its successful mid-range phones, the company has gotten a little too conservative with this year’s edition of its most popular range. It wasn’t long ago that we could recommend the Moto Gs as arguably the best value for money in the mid-range and now every recommendation comes with a long list of prerequisites.
It appears that several bad decisions were made in the product planning stage, causing most Moto G phones to trail behind the competition. IPS LCDs are the default choice, while many rivals have switched to OLEDs. The camera experience also often comes with major trade-offs.
Often the choice of SoCs means no 4K recording. And last but not least, some features are missing from Motorola Edge smartphones with similar hardware. Market segmentation is cool and all, but it only makes sense if you end up with a competitive product anyway.
Don’t get us wrong: Moto G phones still have good battery life and good performance, so you don’t need a full reboot to get back to top, but a course correction is still needed.
Winner: Motorola Edge series
Motorola definitely isn’t making the same mistakes with its flagship line as it does with the Moto G range. The company spares no expense and tries to deliver the best possible experience with its Edge smartphones.
That’s why the Edge family makes sense as an alternative to other higher-tier smartphones. They have great screens, nice designs, an excellent camera experience, even from the budget Edge 30 Neo, fast charging and a nice set of software features. And that includes the “Ready For” feature, which is a great alternative to Samsung’s highly underrated DeX feature.
Loser: Motorola’s software updates
For a company that installs nearly barebones Android on its phones, it’s gotten slower and slower as they’ve updated to the latest version of Android. Even high-end Motorola phones like the Edge and Razr series are still running Android 12, and the first batch of phones to get Android 13 will be “early 2023.”
And the list of phones getting Android 13 is not that long in the first place. Most of the devices are from 2022 and the 2021 Moto G series is completely overlooked.
Winner: US Market
While Motorola isn’t one of the most popular brands in the world, it’s certainly killing it on domestic soil. The US market is very limited when it comes to present brands and definitely hungry in terms of budget smartphones.
And that’s why Motorola thrives there. The company offers excellent value for money in the context of the US market, with many of its China-based rivals lacking. Not that Motorola isn’t Chinese-owned, but you get the idea.
In fact, Motorola often offers US-exclusive models that we wish we had in Europe or Asia.
Looking to 2023, we hope that Motorola will try to offer more competitive mid-range phones and solve the problem of software updates.
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