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Motorola Edge 20 Fusion Review: Does it Have the Edge?

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Motorola Edge 20 Fusion Review: Does it Have the Edge?
The Motorola Edge 20 Fusion and Motorola Edge 20 have recently been launched in the sub-Rs. 30,000 segment in India. While the Edge 20 caters to the top half of this segment, the Edge 20 Fusion is in the lower half. I have the Edge 20 Fusion for review, and it boasts of some interesting specifications such as a Dimensity 800U processor and a 108-megapixel primary rear camera. Is this the mid-range smartphone we’ve all been waiting for, or does it make compromises that aren’t easy to ignore? I put the Edge 20 Fusion through our tests to find out.

Motorola Edge 20 Fusion price in India

The Motorola Edge 20 Fusion starts at Rs. 21,499 for the base variant which has 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The other variant, with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, is priced at Rs. 22,999. Motorola offers the Edge 20 Fusion in two colour options, Electric Graphite and Cyber Teal. I have the former for this review.

Motorola Edge 20 Fusion design

Motorola Edge 20 Fusion is physically bigger than the Edge 20, which it was launched alongside. The Edge 20 Fusion sports a 6.7-inch display with a centred camera hole and thin bezels on the sides. You get a tall display with a 20:9 aspect ratio. The smartphone has a plastic back and frame.

The Edge 20 Fusion has a side-mounted fingerprint scanner integrated into the power button. I found the placement of the scanner to be convenient enough to unlock the smartphone when holding it in either hand. The volume buttons are above the power button and need a stretch to reach. Motorola has placed a dedicated Google Assistant button on the left side, along with the SIM tray. The Edge 20 Fusion is IP52 rated and should handle splashes without any issues. At the bottom, you’ll find a 3.5mm headphone jack, USB Type-C port, primary microphone, and loudspeaker. There’s only a secondary microphone at the top.

The Edge 20 Fusion has a hole-punch selfie camera

Motorola has made the Edge 20 Fusion relatively slim at 8.25mm, and it weighs 185g. The back is made out of plastic and curves slightly along the sides, along with the frame. You get a triple camera module in the top-left corner, which protrudes significantly, causing the phone to rock about when placed on a flat surface. There are two more prominent lenses and one smaller one that sits above the flash. The rear panel of my Electric Graphite Motorola Edge 20 Fusion unit was a fingerprint magnet and needed constant wiping to keep smudges off. Motorola does offer a case in the box.

Motorola Edge 20 Fusion specifications

Motorola Edge 20 fusion sports a big 6.7-inch OLED display with full-HD+ resolution, 90Hz refresh rate, and support for HDR10. The display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3. It has good viewing angles and you can tweak colour modes as well as the colour temperature. Powering the Motorola Edge 20 Fusion is the MediaTek Dimensity 800U processor, with either 6GB or 8GB of RAM. Storage remains unchanged at 128GB for both variants, and you can increase this by up to 1TB using a microSD card in the hybrid dual-SIM tray.

The Motorola Edge 20 Fusion has support for dual 5G as well as dual 4G VoLTE. It also supports Bluetooth 5, dual-band WiFi, NFC, and six satellite navigation systems. The Edge 20 Fusion packs in a 5,000mAh battery and comes with a 30W TurboPower charger in the box. Motorola’s supplied charger has a USB Type-C output, and you get a Type-C to Type-C cable in the box.

motorola edge 20 fusion software Motorola Edge 20 Fusion Review

The Edge 20 Fusion runs near-stock Android

Motorola ships the Edge 20 Fusion with Android 11 and its lightly skinned MyUX interface on top. My unit was running the latest August Android security patch. Motorola has promised two Android version updates for the Edge 20 Fusion. The UI feels like stock Android but you can customise colours, fonts and icon shapes. Moto actions, which let you open some apps or perform tasks using gestures, are also available on the Moto Edge 20 Fusion. You won’t find preinstalled apps on this phone apart from Facebook and the usual Google apps, and you can uninstall the former easily.

Motorola’s Ready For feature comes pre-baked with the Motorola Edge 20 series. This allows you to connect your smartphone to an external display to use all your apps and games on a bigger screen. Ready For PC lets you connect your Edge 20 Fusion to a Windows PC via a companion app, and reminded me of Samsung’s Dex. This feature is limited to Windows only and you won’t be able to use this with a Mac. The Edge 20 Fusion did connect to my Windows laptop wirelessly after I had set up the companion app. All the apps on the smartphone could be accessed via the desktop, and I could also check incoming notifications and reply to messages. Alternatively, you can mirror the Edge 20 Fusion’s display.

Motorola Edge 20 Fusion performance

The Motorola Edge 20 Fusion gave me no reason to complain during the review period. It was quick to load apps, and my 6GB RAM unit had no issues multitasking. Motorola has implemented a RAM boost feature which can use some of the phone storage as additional RAM. On my unit, it was using 1.5GB of storage to extend the RAM to 7.5GB. This feature was enabled by default but I could disable it.

Speaking of things enabled by default, the refresh rate on the Edge 20 Fusion is set to 90Hz, and that makes scrolling smooth. The side-mounted fingerprint scanner is quick to unlock the device, and face recognition didn’t take too long either. I particularly enjoyed watching videos on the crisp OLED panel but I did feel that this phone needs slightly better speakers.

motorola edge 20 fusion fingerprintscanner Motorola Edge 20 Fusion Review

The side-mounted fingerprint scanner is quite responsive

The Motorola Edge 20 Fusion managed to score 369,120 points in AnTuTu. In Geekbench 5’s single-core and multi-core tests respectively, the phone managed 585 and 1,741 points. The Edge 20 Fusion managed 69fps and 17fps in GFXBench’s T-Rex and Car Chase benchmarks respectively. These scores were slightly lower than those of the OnePlus Nord CE 5G (Review), which I reviewed earlier and which competes in the same segment.

I played Battleground Mobile India (BGMI) on this smartphone and it defaulted to HD graphics and High frame rate settings. I could play the game without any lag or stutter. It defaulted to HD graphics and High frame rate settings. I played without any form of lag or stutter. After playing the game for 21 minutes, I noticed a 4 percent drop in battery levels but the Edge 20 was barely warm to the touch. Motorola’s Gametime feature lets you block incoming calls and notifications while gaming and you can also quickly access your favourite apps easily.

I found the Edge 20 Fusion to be good for daily use and it managed to run about a day and a half on a single charge. In our HD video loop test, the phone managed to run for 15 hours and 26 minutes with the display refresh rate set at 90Hz. In similar conditions, the OnePlus Nord CE 5G managed a runtime of 19 hours, 59 minutes. Charging the Edge 20 Fusion using the included 30W TurboPower charger got it to 52 percent in 30 minutes and 88 percent in an hour.

Motorola Edge 20 Fusion Cameras

The Motorola Edge 20 Fusion sports a triple camera setup consisting of a 108-megapixel primary camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. The ultra-wide-angle camera has autofocus and is also capable of taking macro shots. For selfies, this phone has a 32-megapixel front camera. You won’t find the camera app overwhelming to use; it shows the Photo and Video modes by default while all the others are tucked away inside a menu.

motorola edge 20 fusion camera Motorola Edge 20 Fusion Review

The Edge 20 Fusion has a triple rear camera setup

Shooting modes are split between photo and video, which makes it easy to pick exactly the one you want. Motorola offers modes such as Spot Colour which lets you capture a black-and-white image with only one colour that you choose filtering through. Dual Capture lets you shoot photos or videos with the primary and the selfie cameras simultaneously.

The 64-megapixel primary camera captures pixel-binned 16-megapixel shots by default. Daylight photos taken with the Motorola edge 20 Fusion in overcast conditions were good. Objects at a distance had good detail and text was legible. However, darker areas lacked definition. The ultra-wide angle-camera offers a wider field of view with a slightly different colour tone compared to the primary sensor. These photos weren’t as detailed as those taken with the primary camera.

Motorola Edge 20 Fusion daylight camera sample (tap to see full size)

Motorola Edge 20 Fusion ultra-wide-angle camera sample (tap to see full size)

The Edge 20 Fusion managed close-up shots quite well. Objects were crisp with well defined edges and the phone did add a soft depth effect for the background. You can take 8-megapixel macro shots as well using the ultra-wide-angle camera, and these have good detail. Portrait shots had good edge detection and the subject was separated from the background quite well. It also let me set the level of blur before taking the shot.

Motorola Edge 20 Fusion close-up camera sample (tap to see full size)

Motorola Edge 20 Fusion portrait camera sample (tap to see full size)

Low-light photos had low noise but appeared to be smoothened. With Night Mode, the output was slightly brighter with better details in the shadows.

Motorola Edge 20 Fusion low-light camera sample (tap to see full size)

Motorola Edge 20 Fusion Night camera sample (tap to see full size)

Selfies taken with the 32-megapixel front shooter are pixel-binned so you get 8-megapixel shots. These had good detail and looked natural, but weren’t consistent with colour reproduction.. While shooting in Portrait mode, the phone did let me set the level of background blur. Lowlight selfies also had good detail.

Motorola Edge 20 Fusion selfie portrait camera sample (tap to see full size)

Video recording tops out at 4K for the primary camera and 1080p for the selfie shooter. Video stabilisation is available but it was disabled by default. The Motorola Edge 20 Fusion stabilised footage shot at 1080p well, but footage shot at 4K had occasional shakes. Low-light footage had a shimmer effect in the output when walking around.

Verdict

The sub-Rs. 25,000 segment is quite popular among consumers who want better features and performance. This segment earlier consisted of older smartphones at discounted prices but things have changed now with recent models such as the OnePlus Nord CE 5G (Review), Samsung Galaxy F62 (Review), and Realme X7 5G (Review).

The Motorola Edge 20 Fusion is now a contender here too, and its Rs. 21,499 starting price makes it accessible to even those who are willing to stretch a little bit over an initial Rs 20,000 budget. This smartphone packs in powerful hardware plus a clean near-stock Android UI which will appeal to purists. Motorola has also managed to undercut the OnePlus Nord CE 5G by Rs. 2,000, making the Edge 20 Fusion an easy smartphone to recommend for this price.

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Microsoft Partners With Inworld to Bring AI Game Development Tools to Xbox

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Microsoft Partners With Inworld to Bring AI Game Development Tools to Xbox


Microsoft is teaming up with Inworld AI to create game development tools for Xbox, enabling developers to create characters, generate entire scripts and quests, and more. The multi-year deal brings an AI design copilot and an AI character runtime engine to the forefront, both of them being totally optional to use and to varying degrees. Of course, the use of AI in art has been criticised by many for simply lacking originality, in addition to running the risk of fewer jobs for artists — a growing fear among many considering the alarming number of layoffs seen at game studios this year in an attempt to cut costs.

“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”

The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.

Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.

Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.


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BSNL Offers Free 4G SIM Upgrade: Here’s How to Get It

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BSNL Offers Free 4G SIM Upgrade: Here’s How to Get It


BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) is a state-owned telecommunication company in India. Earlier this year in May, the government said that the firm started rolling out 4G services in the country. By December, the networks were said to be upgraded to 5G. However, at the India Mobile Congress, BSNL chairman P K Purwar said that the company will launch 4G services in December and then roll it across the country by June 2024. The chairman added that the 5G upgrades will take place after June next year.

In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.

To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.

Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.

The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.


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Realme GT 5 Pro Teased to Feature 3,000 Nits Display; More Details Revealed

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Realme GT 5 Pro Teased to Feature 3,000 Nits Display; More Details Revealed


Realme GT 5 Pro’s launch date is not far away. The Chinese smartphone brand on Tuesday (November 7) confirmed the arrival of the new GT series smartphone in its home country. The Realme GT 5 Pro is teased to come with a display with over 3000 nits of peak brightness. It is also confirmed to pack a larger heat dissipation area for thermal management. The handset will ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come as a successor to the Realme GT 5 that debuted in China in August.

Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.

The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.

For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.

The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.


The Motorola Edge 40 recently made its debut in the country as the successor to the Edge 30 that was launched last year. Should you buy this phone instead of the Nothing Phone 1 or the Realme Pro+? We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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