[Exclusive] Motorola 2022, Part I: Revealed Edge Roadmap

 Here are some details on Motorola's next Edge devices that aren't available anywhere else.

HIGHLIGHTS

• The rumoured Motorola Edge 30 Pro Ultra, codenamed Frontier, is expected to include a 200MP main camera and a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1+ CPU.
• Later this year, the business is likely to deliver two Edge-branded handsets, codenamed Dubai and Dubai+.
• The Edge 30 Lite, a handset codenamed Miami, is likely to be introduced.

It's not unexpected that Motorola's fortunes have improved in recent years, given that it was once a US-based corporation that is now owned by Chinese investors and has significant ties to other countries such as Europe and South America. Since its brief period as a Google subsidiary and the strategic reboot that saw it release only a few Moto + [letter]-branded models per year, the company has steadily grown its portfolio under Lenovo's leadership – to the point where we should expect no fewer than 19 unique handsets this calendar year, distributed across the manufacturer's nearly global market footprint. While these reports should not be regarded as the final word on the company's lineup, due to changes in plans and uncontrollable circumstances such as supply chain concerns, they should provide a pretty thorough picture of what Moto has planned for 2022.

First, a quick recap of where we've gotten thus far. The Edge 30 Pro, the company's most well-spec'ed flagship of the year, has already been released (codenamed Rogue, and sold as the Edge X30 in China from late last year). It also unveiled two mid-range devices, the Moto G Stylus 2022 4G (codenamed Milan) and the Moto G22 (codenamed Hawaii+), both of which will be followed by their 5G counterparts soon. You may recall that beginning in 2020, in order to support a large growth of its lower and mid-tier services, the company announced that it would be raising its prices. Motorola stopped naming its Moto E and G phones in a year-by-year sequence and instead used a nomenclature more akin to Samsung's A-series and its roughly ten versions.

Motorola's Edge subbrand, which has replaced the modular Moto Z devices atop its roster, is obviously starting to flesh out its high-end, flagship, and flagship-adjacent lines, just like the rest of its portfolio. Last year, depending on location, three or four variations of the Edge 20 were released (normal, Lite, Pro, and Fusion), and this year will be no different, with the 30 Pro / Rogue being followed by the Frontier, Dubai, and Miami Edge variants.

Frontier — which will be released as the Edge 30 Ultra in the United States and the Edge X30 Pro in China — has already generated a lot of buzz thanks to its beefy main camera, which will have a resolution of 200 megapixels, making it one of the highest resolution cameras ever included in a smartphone (other cameras include a 50MP wide-angle, 12MP, 2x telephoto, and hole-punch-mounted 60MP front-facing selfie cam). Furthermore, it will be powered by Qualcomm's yet-to-be-announced top-of-the-line system-on-chip, the SM8475, or Snapdragon 8 Gen 1+. A curved 6.67-inch POLED display with FHD+ resolution, multiple memory configurations consisting of either 8GB or 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM, and 128GB or 256GB of UFS 3.1-compliant storage are among the other features. Add in a 4,500mAh battery with 125W wired charging, and you've got yourself a winner. the latest wireless data standards, and of course, Android 12.

While Frontier isn't expected until the third quarter, its younger sibling, codenamed Dubai and planned to be released as the vanilla Motorola Edge 30, might arrive much sooner, possibly as early as next month. It's believed to be a 6.55-inch device with 2.5D glass and FHD+ resolution, as well as a 144Hz refresh rate and POLED display technology. Dubai will be available in three different memory configurations: 6GB/128GB, 8GB/128GB, and 8GB/256GB. In terms of image capturing, it's likely to include a 50MP, f/1.88 primary camera, as well as a second 50MP wide-angle and 2MP depth-sensing sensor, as well as a 32MP module up front. With a battery capacity of only 4,020mAh, it will be on the lesser side for this phone's category.

Dubai will be joined by a Mediatek-powered, Edge-branded handset dubbed Dubai+ later this year, in the third quarter. The processor in question, codenamed MT6879, is an octa-core variant with two A78 cores operating at 2.6GHz and six A55 cores running at 2.0GHz, and it's paired with a Mali G79 GPU. It has the same display as Dubai and similar — but not identical — cameras, so the main distinctions are a considerably larger, 5,000mAh battery and the same stylus functionality as the Edge 30 Pro.

Finally, the Miami model, initially planned to come between the two Dubai versions, appears to be the least well-equipped of the three — essentially an Edge 30 Lite, though that branding isn't set in stone. It features a 6.28-inch FHD+ POLED display with 120Hz refresh rate, as well as a Snapdragon 695 5G CPU and memory options of 6GB or 8GB LPDDR4x RAM with 128GB or 256GB of storage. The main and wide-angle cameras on the back are 64 and 13 megapixels, respectively, while the selfie camera is 32 megapixels. Miami appears to have a 4020mAh battery, however that may be excused in part due to Motorola's physical goals of a thickness of less than seven millimetres.