Moto Edge 2022

[Trip]

Got myself a Moto Edge 2022 to replace a Moto One 5G Ace that I dropped and the glass smashed.  First time I've done that.  Anyway, I'd seen on Reddit that the Moto Edge 2022 looked good for this, so I ended up spending more than I'd hoped for one to replace it.

And let me say, for the purposes of band locking and logging with Signal Check, this phone is gunning to be the one I standardize on.  I made a post about it on Reddit earlier:

I rooted mine with the intent to use Network Signal Guru for band locking and to ensure that I could use the modem reset function within Signal Check.  As it turns out, the free version of Network Signal Guru does not, apparently, support band locking on 5G-NR.  Not entirely sure why they've done that, but that seems to be an issue.  However, not all is lost, because this phone has a built-in utility for it!  Steps:

1)  *#*#4636#*#*

2)  Tap on "5G/LTE Debugging Information"

3)  Three dots at the top right, then choose "NR options" and "Enable/Disable NR SA band."

4)  Enter the band number to Enable/Disable, then click the appropriate button.

It's that simple.  You do have to do it band by band, which could be annoying, except that Network Signal Guru does still work for 2G/3G/4G, so I could disable all those bands in one fell swoop, then I only had to remove the NR bands I didn't want it connecting to.  It also does not persist through a reboot, but I don't reboot often anyway, so hopefully I won't run into it often.  (I've not yet done any testing with Cellular Pro beyond installing it.  I'm wondering if that may allow it to be done outside the phone's own menu.)

As I said at the beginning, I paid more than I wanted here.  I try to keep my logging phones under $100, and until this one, I don't think I'd paid more than $130 for one before tax.  This one was $180, and I spent it because I didn't want to buy something else as an experiment when I knew I wanted to try this one, and my smashed phone forced my hand earlier than expected.  But hopefully it'll come down some more over the next year or two, as it becomes necessary to replace other devices. 

And I want to note that it supports pretty much every band outside of mmWave worth having in the US, including n77/n78 generally and n26 and n70 for Dish.  It also appears to support the AT&T bands and the T-Mobile bands in one device, which is an improvement over the e5 Play I'd standardized on in the LTE days since I had to buy the separate AT&T-compatible version of it for use on AT&T.

With any luck, it will get upgraded to Android 14, which will add Timing Advance to the NR API, which as long as band locking remains possible and the Timing Advance functionality actually makes it into the API output, would make it the perfect device for my use case, and definitely would be what I would standardize on going forward.  Time will tell!

- Trip

[Yuhfhrh]

FYI, RU fieldtest is a free alternative to NSG for band locking, I sent you a PM with a telegram link. Needs root but can do those NR bands.

[Trip]

Follow-up:  I'm not going to standardize on this phone.  It's unfortunate, as I love pretty much everything about it, but there's a show-stopper that I'm not sure I can get around.  (And, of course, if it ends up not getting Android 14, that would prevent use of TA values, so I wouldn't standardize on it anyway.)

Every so often, the phone resets the modem.  I've not yet identified a pattern, but essentially what happens is that every so often, the phone suddenly acts like the SIM was popped out and back in, and when that happens, the band locks get unset and I have to set them again.  It seems to happen most frequently about 15-20 minutes after leaving from the phone screen being off.  We went to the beach in August and it did it once on the beltway about 15-20 minutes out, and then didn't do it again the whole trip.  On Saturday around town, however, it did it about 15-20 minutes after leaving my second stop of the day, and then did it two more times within the next 15-20 minutes, and was fine the rest of the day. 

It's particularly frustrating because it resets and Network Signal Guru has to be closed and reopened in order for it to work at band locking 2G/3G/4G again once the modem resets, and then I have to disable n2/n25/n71 one-by-one in the dialer screen since Network Signal Guru apparently doesn't support NR band locking. 

In any case, it's not something I am able to manage across multiple devices, and even one doing it is frustrating.  I don't know if it's a common problem with the MediaTek chipset or something specific to this phone, but I'm considering avoiding the MediaTek chipset in the future. 

- Trip

[S4GRU]

1 hour ago, Trip said:

Follow-up:  I'm not going to standardize on this phone.  It's unfortunate, as I love pretty much everything about it, but there's a show-stopper that I'm not sure I can get around.  (And, of course, if it ends up not getting Android 14, that would prevent use of TA values, so I wouldn't standardize on it anyway.)

Every so often, the phone resets the modem.  I've not yet identified a pattern, but essentially what happens is that every so often, the phone suddenly acts like the SIM was popped out and back in, and when that happens, the band locks get unset and I have to set them again.  It seems to happen most frequently about 15-20 minutes after leaving from the phone screen being off.  We went to the beach in August and it did it once on the beltway about 15-20 minutes out, and then didn't do it again the whole trip.  On Saturday around town, however, it did it about 15-20 minutes after leaving my second stop of the day, and then did it two more times within the next 15-20 minutes, and was fine the rest of the day. 

It's particularly frustrating because it resets and Network Signal Guru has to be closed and reopened in order for it to work at band locking 2G/3G/4G again once the modem resets, and then I have to disable n2/n25/n71 one-by-one in the dialer screen since Network Signal Guru apparently doesn't support NR band locking. 

In any case, it's not something I am able to manage across multiple devices, and even one doing it is frustrating.  I don't know if it's a common problem with the MediaTek chipset or something specific to this phone, but I'm considering avoiding the MediaTek chipset in the future. 

- Trip

That's frustrating.  Especially when mapping and you're moving Freeway speeds in traffic. For two reasons.  One, you may not notice and arrive at your destination and you missed mapping what you planned.  Or worse, you notice while you're driving and it's a big frustrating distraction.

Robert

[Trip]

2 hours ago, S4GRU said:

That's frustrating.  Especially when mapping and you're moving Freeway speeds in traffic. For two reasons.  One, you may not notice and arrive at your destination and you missed mapping what you planned.  Or worse, you notice while you're driving and it's a big frustrating distraction.

Robert

For me, it's been the latter, as this phone is used as my n41 phone and thus has a spot on the dash. 

- Trip