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Peter Griffin’s consumer tech columns appear fortnightly on listener.co.nz
When it comes to smartphones, Apple and Samsung have dominated the New Zealand market for more than a decade, claiming the lion’s share of sales between them.
Apple had about 46% of the market in 2023, according to Statista, and Samsung took 35%. The rest of the market is made up of Android phone makers eking out single-digit slices of the pie.
It’s not an ideal situation for us as mobile phone users. We’ve never had access to Google’s highly-regarded Pixel line-up of smartphones and a third big player, like Google, could shake up the market.
Chinese phone maker Huawei was shaping up to be exactly that in 2020 when it claimed nearly 20% of the market. Its P20 and P30 Pro phones had exceptional camera quality and great battery life.
Filling the Huawei void
That stellar run was derailed when Huawei, by then one of the world’s largest providers of telecommunications infrastructure, was banned from featuring the full set of Google apps or the Play store on its phones because of a trade dispute between the US and China. That effectively killed Huawei’s phone business in western nations, as consumers were wary of relying on Huawei’s own AppGallery platform.
But it’s not entirely a two-horse race here and smartphone makers’ fortunes can change quickly. Oppo, a Chinese phone maker, is now New Zealand’s third-largest smartphone brand with around 5% of the market.
It made a name for itself with fast charging technology, and its high-end Find X phones showcased some slick design. Xiaomi has 1.7% market share and Lenovo, Nokia and Motorola each claim around 0.5%.
Apple unveils the iPhone 16 line-up next month with a heavy focus on Apple Intelligence, the AI-features that it debuted as part of the iOS software that powers the phones. Apple users will weigh up whether the new features justify an upgrade.
In the Android camp, a couple of recent releases from Oppo and Motorola show there’s life beyond the big two when it comes to phones at what could be described as the low end of the premium phone market.
The revival of Motorola
Remember the Motorola Razr, the cool flip phone that was all the rage in the early 2000s? It was the high point for Motorola, one of the pioneers of mobile phones, but the company failed to respond to the 2007 debut of the iPhone and the arrival of the Apple App Store the following year.
Motorola was bought by Chinese computer maker Lenovo in 2014 and tried to revive its past glory in 2019 by releasing a Razr model in the US and some other markets. The updated flip phone didn’t set the market alight but Matthew Zielinski, executive vice-president for Lenovo, nevertheless has big ambitions for the Motorola brand.
“I would bet a pay-cheque that in three years we will be number three around the world,” he told CNBC in January.
Motorola has stuck to selling nondescript low- to mid-tier smartphones in New Zealand but has failed to make much headway. The phones had little to differentiate them in the design department but change is on the way.
Motorola Edge 50 Pro
Motorola’s latest flagship smartphone is the Edge 50 Pro and on the face of it, it doesn’t bring much of note to the party. Its minimalist design and curved glass edges remind me of the Huawei P30 Pro from a few years ago. The back of the Edge 50 Pro has a camera housing similar to Oppo’s Find X5 Pro.
But the Edge comes with a soft “vegan leather” black coating that serves the useful purpose of making it grippy on surfaces. It’s also light and streamlined in the hand, a nice contrast to some of the larger Pro-model Android handsets out there. Here’s what I liked and didn’t like about the Edge 50 Pro:
Pros:
Display: A bright, crisp 6.7inch pOLED (Plastic Organic Light Emitting Diode) display with a high 144Hz refresh rate offers smooth visuals and a peak brightness of 2000 nits (those are units of brightness, rather than the pesty lice that are the bane of many parents’ lives). That’s great for browsing apps, watching YouTube videos and playing mobile games.
Camera: I was pleasantly surprised at the performance of the Edge 50 Pro’s camera set-up, which consists of a 50MP (megapixel) main camera, a 50MP selfie camera, 13MP ultra-wide, and a 10MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom. In particular, I found the optical zoom to be very good. Night mode, the video performance and slo-mo function were a big step up from my ageing Find X 5 Pro. The addition of Adobe Scan makes taking scans of documents really easy.
Charging: The Edge 50 Pro Supports 125W (watt) wired fast charging, which certainly lives up to the description. I went from around 45% to fully charged in less than 15 minutes. There’s a decent fast-charging power pack included. I just wish they included a longer cable with it. There’s also 50W wireless charging, and 10W reverse wireless charging (where you can use the Edge 50 Pro to charge other phones), allowing for rapid cable-free power-ups.
Build quality: It’s unlikely to win any design awards but I like the gimmick-free, no-nonsense approach to design here. The Edge 50 Pro feels like a throwback to smartphone design of a previous era, and I’m fine with that as Apple and Samsung opt for chunkier designs. The camera lenses are unobtrusive, the audio quality from the stereo speakers, complete with Dolby Atmos, is adequate. The phone comes with a IP68 water and dust-proof rating.
Software: Motorola continues the theme of offering a basic, near-stock Android experience. I appreciate this. Other phone makers do a lot more to take over your experience. I live in the Google ecosystem of Gmail, Chrome and Google Drive, so having these available and not competing with proprietary apps from Motorola is refreshing. Motorola has taken a relatively light touch on artificial intelligence features and I can appreciate that, too, as Samsung has hyped up the tech. AI features largely play a role behind the scenes, improving the functionality of the cameras.
Cons:
Battery: With a 4500 mAh (milliamp hour) battery, the Edge 50 Pro has less capacity than the Oppo Reno 12 Pro, though will still likely deliver a day of standard phone usage.
Performance: The Edge 50 Pro uses a Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset, which isn’t as powerful as some similarly priced competitors available overseas. I found the phone responsive to use but for regular tasks like web browsing and video playback and loading apps. But multitaskers will want to consider a more premium offering to get a higher capacity processor.
Price: This doesn’t feel like an $1099 phone to me. Wait for a sale to pick it up for under $1000 or look for a special that bundles in earbuds or some other gadget. Then you are getting a decent, reasonably priced alternative to a Samsung.
Price: $1099
Oppo Reno 12 Pro
Recent models of Oppo’s Find X series haven’t found their way to New Zealand since the debut of the Find X5 Pro, which is the phone I use day-to-day and which still does a solid job but now struggles to get me through the day with its degraded battery life.
Oppo goes head-to-head with Samsung with its Find N3 foldable phone and the clamshell N2 Flip at the top of the phone market, as well as with its extensive A-Series of low- and mid-market phones. The Reno 12 Pro is really Oppo’s flagship smartphone in the conventional format.
Here’s what I liked and didn’t like about it.
Pros:
Camera: Equipped with a 50MP main camera, 50MP telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom, and an 8MP ultra-wide lens, the Reno 12 Pro provides a robust photography experience. There’s a fairly decent 50MP selfie camera, too. I took it on holiday to Rarotonga and achieved good results in a range of lighting conditions. Portrait shots look great and the Reno 12 Pro is a good performer in low light. Vibrant colour, good zoom performance and video clips recorded in 4K look great.
Battery: The phone features a larger 5000mAh battery, potentially offering longer usage times depending on your tendency to multitask and draw on battery-sapping applications. I definitely see a bigger battery as a big advantage.
AI Features: The phone comes with AI enhancements like AI Eraser 2.0 and AI Perfect Shot, which are genuinely useful additions. There are a range of others similar to Samsung’s, which allow for AI-powered web browsing, transcription and note taking in the AI Toolbox. But the real utility is in AI-augmented photo editing. I particularly like the eraser tool, which lets you simply rub out an object, and AI Best Face, which identifies when people in the photo have their eyes closed and edits them to magically have their eyes open.
Design: The Reno 12 Pro has a sleek design with a 120Hz AMOLED display slightly curved at the edge, providing a modern aesthetic. Like the Edge 50 Pro, it is also light. It’s a decent incremental improvement in design from previous Reno models.
Storage: The Reno 12 Pro comes with 512GB of onboard storage which is fairly generous and great for those who take a lot of photos and videos.
Cons:
Charging: While it supports 80W fast charging (1% to 32% in just 10 minutes), the Reno 12 Pro lacks wireless charging options, a disadvantage for me given that I’ve invested in a wireless charging pad.
Build quality: While it has a clean, modern design, the plastic back to the Reno 12 Pro, which gives way to a shiny metallic trim at the bottom, makes it feel less premium compared to the Motorola Edge 50 Pro’s design. It seems sturdy enough and comes with a Gorilla glass screen. But I’d expect slightly better materials at this price.
Performance: The Oppo Reno 12 Pro has a Dimensity 7300 chipset, which I’m unfamiliar with, but is designed to balance performance and energy efficiency. It handled all of the tasks I threw at it but the processor doesn’t perform particularly well in benchmark tests for phones in the same price bracket.
Software: ColorOS is not my favourite Android experience. It tries to do too much and requires quite a lot of customisation to get the most out of it. I’d prefer a more scaled back approach and the option to download additional extras as required.
Price: $1099
Bottom line - It’s good to have options
At the top of the market, you are paying around about $1500 for a Samsung Galaxy S24 and more than $1800 for an iPhone 15 Pro, so Motorola and Oppo represent more affordable options that squeak into the premium category. Naturally, you need to make sacrifices on everything, from processing power to build quality.
But I’d argue that both the Motorola Edge 50 Pro and Reno 12 Pro represent value for money if you can pick them up for an even $1000 or less. The sacrifices you’ll need to make on technical specifications are probably worth it for the average Android user looking for an alternative to the ever-present Samsung.
What’s great to see is two smartphone makers picking up the pace on innovation and usability as the industry’s two market leaders try to push their fans even further upmarket. Here’s hoping that translates into a more diverse range of players claiming a share of the smartphone market in future.
