Motorola Edge S Launch Set for January 26, Will Sport Snapdragon 870 SoC

Motorola Edge S is all set to launch in China on January 26. Motorola took to Weibo to confirm this development and also revealed the chipset that the phone will be powered by. The Motorola Edge S will have the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 SoC, which is built on the 7nm processor architecture and has a clock speed of 3.2GHz. This new handset will be Motorola's first to feature a new Snapdragon 800 series chipset. Recent leaks suggest that the Motorola Edge S has been codenamed ‘Nio' internally.

The company took to its Weibo account to confirm that the Motorola Edge S will launch in the region on January 26. The launch event will begin at 7.30pm local time (5pm IST) and will be livestreamed. But the poster shared by the company with the launch event details doesn't reveal the phone's design.

Motorola has confirmed that the Motorola Edge S will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 SoC — the first Motorola smartphone to feature a Snapdragon 800 series SoC. There is no clarity on whether this phone will arrive in markets outside China or not.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 SoC, announced just hours ago, is an upgrade to last year's Snapdragon 865 SoC and a slightly toned-down version of this year's flagship SoC Snapdragon 888. It is built on the 7nm processor architecture and has a peak clock speed of 3.2GHz. The Snapdragon 870 features the Adreno 650 GPU, supports Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth v5.2, and USB Type-C Gen 3.1. It also offers the Spectra 480 ISP for imaging. Apart from Motorola, OnePlus, Oppo, Xiaomi, and iQoo are also slated to release phones powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 SoC.

Design details of the Motorola Edge S still remain a mystery, and its other key specifications are also not known. If the phone is indeed internally called ‘Nio', past leaks suggest that it is likely to feature a quad rear camera setup with a 64-megapixel primary sensor and dual selfie cameras placed in hole-punch cut outs on the screen. We are just a few days away from the launch and Motorola should detail all the information at the event, including its price.

What will be the most exciting tech launch of 2021? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.