Motorola Edge Plus review: top-tier specs, good camera, solid battery life, but it's not waterproof, edge display has issues, and it's Verizon exclusive
When great just isn't good enough — After years mainly spent in the midrange phone market, Motorola burst back into the spotlight …
Context & Ripple Effects
This review marks Motorola's return to the top tier after years in the midrange, and it lands on familiar ground: the Moto Z2 Force's 2017 flagship attempt was dinged for the same missing water resistance. The Verizon exclusivity is the other half of the story — a carrier-locked launch that constrains who can even buy the phone.
The arc since then is instructive: Motorola kept iterating the Edge Plus line, and the flaws recur rather than get fixed — the 2023 Edge Plus review again flags a curved display hampering usability, and the Razr Plus ships only splash-resistant. Strong battery and performance are consistent across every generation; so are the compromises.
First-order effects
- Verizon gets a temporary flagship exclusive that differentiates its lineup, while buyers on other carriers are simply locked out of Motorola's best hardware at launch.
Second-order effects
- Competing flagships from Samsung and others become the default for any buyer who needs an IP rating or a flat display, pushing Motorola to compete on price and battery life instead of spec parity.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds across the Z2 Force, Edge Plus generations, and Razr Plus, Motorola's structural position is a value-flagship niche: excellent silicon and endurance paired with durability and design trade-offs rivals won't make — a lane rather than a ladder back to the top.
The trend: Motorola's flagship revivals keep trading water resistance and display ergonomics for battery life and price, leaving the premium tier to Samsung and Apple while carrier exclusives like Verizon's gate each comeback attempt.