Motorola ThinkPhone

Verdict

The Motorola ThinkPhone is a high quality no-nonsense telephone, however you do find yourself paying fairly a bit for the Lenovo ThinkPad hyperlink, with out big advantages for many patrons.

Introduction

The Motorola ThinkPhone is one thing you may need predicted manner again in 2014. 

In that yr Lenovo acquired Motorola. Lenovo’s iconic laptop computer model is Thinkpad. Motorola was, maybe nonetheless is, an iconic telephone model by itself. Slap the 2 collectively and what do you get? This telephone, apparently. 

It’s a considerably business-focused telephone that makes use of considerably higher-end tech than a lot of the Motorola telephones I see. 

The Motorola ThinkPhone is an efficient smartphone. Nonetheless, Androids are usually not in a position to distinguish themselves as enterprise units as clearly as of late as they may within the BlackBerry period. And at £899 that raises the query of whether or not it’s definitely worth the pretty substantial outlay when a couple of of the ending touches aren’t nearly as good as these of Samsung, Google or Apple. 

Design

• Again panel impressed by Lenovo ThinkPad laptops
• A mid-size telephone
• Excessive water resistance ranking (IP68)

The Motorola ThinkPhone pairs very properly with a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon. They’ve an analogous end on the again, meant to appear like carbon fibre. 

In each instances, it’s strengthened plastic, however that doesn’t imply it’s low cost to supply. The place some laptops use a carbon fibre weave for this type of end, the ThinkPhone has an “aramid” layer. A little bit of digging suggests that is similar to Kevlar. And it’s a way more appropriate materials than carbon fibre, because it received’t block telephone reception or the wi-fi charging characteristic of the Motorola ThinkPhone.

Glide a finger throughout the telephone’s again and it looks like a barely comfortable contact plastic. Nonetheless, I’d advise simply placing on the marginally harder-feeling plastic case bundled within the field. It provides quite a bit much less bulk than the essential silicone instances provided with 90% of Motorola telephones. 

This telephone sits in an inoffensive middle-ground when it comes to dimension. Not an enormous. Not tiny. And the lithe case maintains this crowd-pleaser form.

It additionally lacks the built-in display screen protector Motorola often slaps on its telephones. My take is Motorola feels a plastic protector would undermine the sense high quality a bit, and glass protectors usually intrude with in-screen fingerprint scanners. The Motorola ThinkPhone has one. It’s quick and responsive.

There’s additionally a pink accented shortcut button on the aspect. This, fortunately, doesn’t simply launch Google Assistant. You possibly can select an app to load upon a press, or double press, or make it play/pause music. 

Like nearly each telephone on this class, the Motorola ThinkPhone doesn’t have a headphone jack. Its stereo audio system are strong, although. Most quantity is sweet and the tone is just not skinny, though the perfect have higher bass. 

This telephone does have wonderful water resistance, with an IP68 ranking. It’s one of the best you’ll discover in a “regular” telephone. IP68 connotes one thing is dustproof, and has been examined to face up to immersion in water at a depth of 1.5m or higher. 

Display screen

• Shiny OLED panel
• Pure flat show
• Dynamic refresh charge as commonplace

The Motorola ThinkPhone has a 1080p OLED display screen with nearly all of the traits you’d count on of a high-end telephone display screen bar, seen in some telephones of the worth, a curved panel. And that type arguably wouldn’t go well with a enterprise telephone anyway. 

Color is nice, distinction is the same old hit anticipated from an OLED telephone. Its most refresh is greater than many top-tier telephones too, at 144Hz. 

You received’t see that prime refresh charge except you choose it manually, although. By default the Motorola ThinkPhone sticks to its Auto mode, which cycles between 60Hz, 90Hz and 120Hz based mostly on what’s occurring on-screen. I haven’t seen it drop under 60Hz, based mostly on the read-out you possibly can entry in Android’s developer mode. 

This can be a display screen by LG Show, because it’s a P-OLED. These can generally tackle a slight blue tint when seen from an angle, in comparison with Samsung panels, however there’s little-to-none of that right here. 

Most brightness is sweet too. The Motorola ThinkPhone will max out at 480 nits indoors, however the excessive brightness mode reaches 900 nits. 923 nits was the best I measured when taking part in again HDR video. It’s a manner under the claimed 1200 nits, however this determine could also be doable when not filling the show with white.

For the cash you will get a a lot greater decision display screen. The OnePlus 11 is £170 much less, however has way more pixels packed into its show. They aren’t significantly impactful pixels, however do put the worth of the ThinkPhone up for debate.

Software program and efficiency

• Good efficiency, however not fairly 2023 flagship tier
• Little or no thermal throttling
• Clear software program with a couple of business-relevant extras

Motorola is understood in tech circles for having a light-touch method to Android. It retains the feel and appear near vanilla, including just some neat touches like Motorola’s signature lock display screen. 

This tactic has labored for a decade, however the Motorola ThinkPhone sees the corporate lay on the extras just a bit thicker. It is sensible – it’s a “professional” telephone, so it must show that one way or the other. 

There are further security measures, like the choice to scramble your keypad everytime you unlock your telephone, as a way to cease folks seeing the sample you hint from a look. Good, but additionally considerably irritating. There’s the safe folder operate, the place you possibly can retailer stuff behind a password too. 

Motorola packages these up, alongside present Android protections, in a Moto Safe app. I don’t assume it quantities to a lot, if solely as a result of encrypted folder apps are widespread anyway. And I don’t wish to scramble my keypad, thanks. 

The ThinkPhone additionally has Prepared For, which exhibits you how one can entry your telephone apps in your Home windows laptop computer/PC display screen. Nonetheless, that is additionally accessible on latest Motorola Edge-series telephones. That is actually no extra of a perfect enterprise telephone than most different top-end Androids in most respects – however then folks have been incorporating telephones into their work lives lengthy earlier than the iPhone existed, so are we shocked?

Utilizing a ThinkPhone largely looks like utilizing one other high-end Motorola to me, and there’s nothing improper with that. The extra substantive stuff for enterprise patrons is Lenovo’s fleet administration tech, permitting IT groups to have some management over a complete military of ThinkPhones used throughout. However that doesn’t affect the expertise of an strange particular person reviewing the telephone solo, and isn’t one thing I can take a look at. 

The telephone has Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 CPU, a flagship processor a technology behind the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 used within the Samsung Galaxy S23. 

That is not a chart-topping chipset, even amongst Androids, however it’s loads highly effective. There’s a stunning zippiness to leaping round Android on the ThinkPhone, lacking from the final couple of mid-range telephones I’ve reviewed. 

I’ve additionally seen no worrying moments of the telephone getting scorching when simply shopping or taking pictures, which has occurred with a couple of of those Snapdragon 8-series telephones. 

A 3DMark Wild Life benchmark exhibits how properly the telephone handles strain. A 20-minute gaming-style stress take a look at sees simply slight thermal throttling, efficiency dropping to 92% of its most. 

Given I’ve seen loads of Qualcomm-powered telephones lose 55-60% of their efficiency by way of throttling over the past yr or so, the Lenovo ThinkPhone will get an enthusiastic thumbs up. This telephone is fairly useful for gaming, when you’re carried out with the spreadsheets and whatnot. 

Digicam

• Honest important digicam
• OK ultra-wide
• No zoom

The Motorola ThinkPhone doesn’t have an instantly compelling digicam array, contemplating how a lot this telephone prices. It makes use of a 50MP main digicam, a 13MP ultra-wide and a 2MP macro. A filler macro digicam on a top-end telephone? It’s not an amazing look. 

This structure seems to be similar to that of the Motorola Edge 30 Fusion, a 2022 mid-range Android. It consists of an Omnivision OV50A (50MP) sensor and a SK Hynix HI1336 (13MP). The 2MP macro is one other Omnivision joint. Motorola clearly has confidence in that 50MP Omnivision chip, although, because it’s used within the Motorola Edge 40 Professional too. 

Is it deserved? The Motorola ThinkPhone’s important digicam is just not going to fret the iPhone 14 Professional or Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus, however it will possibly take pleasing photographs in all conditions. 

In daylight you get strong dynamic vary and a superb impression of element, if not fairly the pixel-level confidence with tough textures of the perfect. The ThinkPhone usually holds up fairly properly at night time, with some caveats. 

I took the telephone on a few nights out. It did properly for a little bit of late-night road pictures and for taking some footage at a gig. Nonetheless, in one other even decrease mild scene, the picture seemed a lot noisier and fewer detailed than I’d count on from a Google Pixel 7 or Samsung Galaxy S23. 

That is no nice shock. I’ve by no means thought Motorola had bleeding-edge processing, extra like simply sufficient to get by. Regular low-light? Good. Excessive low mild? efficiency is simply OK while you zoom proper into the pics.

I do discover color to be a constant weak spot of the ThinkPhone’s main digicam. Daytime photographs can look only a contact oversaturated, and the tonality simply isn’t at all times spot on.

My pickiness right here is elevated by the very fact you’d count on a ThinkPhone’s digicam to be further sober and measured. More often than not, although, pics look straight-up beautiful.

The 13MP ultra-wide digicam holds up properly contemplating its decrease decision. It might probably even take respectable pics in considerably dingy indoors situations. Nonetheless, on the value you possibly can after all do higher. Loads of telephones at this degree even have a zoom.

Video is a little bit of a shock, because the ThinkPhone can shoot at as much as 8K decision, 30 frames per second. I don’t assume most ought to trouble with this mode past experimentation, although. 

The rolling shutter impact is so unhealthy at 8K; geometry seems all wobbly and slanted as quickly as you begin quick panning. It’s not a stabilised mode both. 4K/60 and under is a lot better, and 4K/30 capturing is especially smooth-looking and forgiving – within the sense of utilizing digital stabilisation, not frame-rate-related smoothness. 

The Motorola ThinkPhone’s 32MP selfie digicam may be very succesful too. It might probably pick a great deal of element in good mild, and leans closely on pixel binning and low-light processing to make facial options look moderately assured and sharp, even in unhealthy lighting. It might probably additionally use the telephone display screen as a fill flash, for a lot better outcomes. 

Battery life

• Good one-day battery life
• Respectable quick charging, however outclassed by loads of rivals
• 15W wi-fi charging

The Motorola ThinkPhone has a 5000mAh battery, one somewhat bigger than the extra style-driven 4600mAh Motorola Edge 40 Professional. Its stamina is pretty just like that of the cheaper Motorola telephones with 5000mAh batteries, maybe somewhat worse. 

At occasions I’ve drained the battery fully in a day, however on lighter days you possibly can count on to have 30% left by the top of the day. 

The ThinkPhone has a 68W charger that front-loads its energy curve. No high-wattage telephone sticks at its claimed watts the entire manner by way of the charging course of, however this Motorola holds onto a excessive degree for a superb whereas. It reaches 50% cost in simply 13 minutes, and 85% in half an hour. 

It nonetheless takes 44 minutes to achieve 100%, although, which is much from the quickest I’ve seen in a 60-something watt charging system. This telephone additionally helps 15W wi-fi charging, which is neat. 

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