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Mystery Motorola Edge Plus gets its first high-end specs 'confirmed' in new benchmark

Published: Jan 28, 2020, 4:46 AM

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The One Zoom is the closest thing Motorola has to a flagship right now

Well, that was quick. It was less than a week ago that mobile tech leaking legend Evan Blass revealed for the first time a mysterious phone named Motorola Edge+ is headed for Verizon, and already, the flagship model has become... a little less mysterious than before.

We still wouldn't go so far as to call this an open book, as many important questions continue to linger on the design, specifications, and availability of what's shaping up to be the first ultra-high-end Motorola handset in quite some time. But at least if we choose to believe the freshly disclosed information contained in multiple Geekbench listings, a bunch of other questions do get answers today, starting with the processor and RAM count of the "motorola motorola edge plus."

Snapdragon 865, 12GB memory, and presumably, 5G connectivity

Technically, Motorola joined forces with Verizon last year to offer the first smartphone capable of achieving those insane 5G download speeds on the nation's largest wireless network. But the Moto Z4 was a 5G-upgradeable device that needed a special Moto Mod to tap into Big Red's fledgling high-band mmWave technology, not to mention the handset itself packed a middling Snapdragon 675 processor rather than a top-shelf Snapdragon 855 silicon.

The Moto Z4 followed in the footsteps of a late 2018-released Z3 that was itself not on par with the best mobile devices of its time, featuring a state-of-the-art Snapdragon 835 SoC from 2017. Even 2017's Moto Z2 Force could be described as a somewhat underwhelming high-end effort, pairing a then-impressive Snapdragon 835 chipset with a beautiful OLED screen sporting a resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels but at the same time packing a teeny-tiny 2,730mAh battery.

Mystery Motorola Edge Plus gets its first high-end specs 'confirmed' in new benchmark

You can therefore imagine the joy of hardcore Motorola fans upon hearing last month the Lenovo-owned company plans to make a "premium flagship segment" comeback. The Edge Plus definitely fits that description with a Snapdragon 865 processor in tow, as well as a generous 12 gigs of memory and Android 10 already included on the pre-release prototype tested for its raw speed through popular benchmarking tool Geekbench.

If all that pans out, we fully expect the Motorola Edge Plus to support Verizon's slowly expanding 5G network without the need for the user to slap on a dedicated Moto Mod. In fact, because we don't expect this to be part of the modular Moto Z family, it might not be able to pair with the company's magnetic accessories at all.

Hole punch display and a whole lot of question marks

Unfortunately, benchmarking visits never reveal things about the design, camera, or battery specifications of an unreleased product. It's also important to keep in mind these are incredibly easy to fake or manipulate, so although the information disclosed by this particular file (and its duplicates) seems plausible, that doesn't mean it should be taken for granted. At least not yet.

The name is one of the few confirmed Motorola Edge+ details

What we can be pretty sure about is that the Motorola Edge Plus will come to Verizon... at some point with a "punch hole cam" in tow. That's what Evan Blass claimed last week, and he didn't seem very hesitant about the accuracy of these details.

The name is also a solid indicator of another key selling point, specifically a curved display "borrowed" from Samsung's flagship lineups these last few years. Everything else is up in the air, but if the mid-range Motorola One Zoom can accommodate four impressive shooters on its back including a 48MP main camera and 8MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom capabilities, we naturally have even higher photographic expectations from this Edge+ powerhouse.

Let's hope Motorola will also stick to its recent M.O. of squeezing massive batteries inside even the humblest phones rather than going back to the sad era of the aforementioned Moto Z2 Force. Overall, there's definitely a lot riding on the company's high-end comeback effort, but the first concrete signs of the handset's specs and features are certainly encouraging.

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Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.