MSC-131 learner - Design and Deploy AirDefense Solutions Updated: 2023

While it might not seem like it today, there was a time in the not-too-distant past where Motorola was the processor manufacturer. They made chips for everything, but the most popular was arguably the 68000 or 68k. It’s still has a considerable following today, largely among retrocomputing enthusiasts or those maintaining legacy hardware. For those wanting to dip their toes into this world, this Motorola 68000 emulator created by [Ted Fried] may be the thing needed to discover the magic of these once-ubiquitous chips.

The emulator itself runs on a Teensy 4.1, a 32-bit ARM microcontroller running at 600 MHz — giving it enough computing power to act as a cycle-accurate emulator not only for the 68000 CPU but also the local bus interface, in this case for a Mac 512K. This capability also makes it a drop-in replacement for the 68000 in these older Macs and the original hardware in these computers won’t notice much of a difference. A few tricks are needed to get it fully operational though, notably using a set of latches to make up for the fact that the Teensy doesn’t have the required number of output pins to interface one-to-one with the original hardware.

While the emulator may currently be able to replace the hardware and boot the computer, there is still ongoing development to get every part of the operating system up and working. The source code is available on the project’s GitHub page though so any updates made in the future can be found there. And if you have a Mac 128k and still haven’t upgraded to the 512k yet, grab one of these memory switching modules for the upgrade too.

Ryan Haines / Android Authority

Motorola Edge 2023

Motorola Edge 2023

Great value • Compact design • Feature-packed

The new Motorola handset offers a 6.6-inch curved pOLED 144Hz display, MediaTek Dimensity 7030 SoC, 68W fast charging, and IP68 certification.

See price at Amazon

Motorola Edge | 2023 | Unlocked | Made for US 8/256GB | 50MP Camera | Eclipse Black

Motorola Protective Hybrid Clear Case

Cresee Case

Futanwei Slim Case

HFICY Cover Case

HFICY Leather Wallet Stand Cover

Elubugod Case Cover

FAQs

The $1,499 Motorola Razr made its debut in 2019 as the first clamshell foldable phone, though months later, the $1,380 Samsung Z Flip came out. Since then, the brands have iterated on their designs and lowered their prices to arrive at this year's Razr Plus 2023 and Z Flip 5, both of which cost $1,000; both still beyond the budget of most people. But now Motorola has released the $700 Razr 2023, the world's most affordable foldable phone, which I've been testing for the past 12 days.

Phone-makers like TCL have been working toward cheaper foldables for years, but Motorola is the first to widely release a foldable that has a premium look and feel at a significantly lower price than its clamshell foldable competitors.

Motorola made some compromises to get a lower price, including a smaller front display and less advanced specs than its pricier counterparts. These are understandable tradeoffs, but harder to swallow is the single configuration of 128GB of storage that isn't expandable -- if you want more space, you'll either have to rely on a cloud solution or pay up for the $1,000 Razr Plus 2023, which has 256GB of included storage (and isn't expandable either).

But if you want a neat and compact phone, you'll need to make some sacrifices for the Razr 2023, which Motorola has discounted to $600 at launch. 

Design

At first glance, the Motorola Razr 2023 might be mistaken for a Galaxy Z Flip 5 as both have followed a parallel design evolution. The Razr abandoned its eccentric flip phone design roots to seemingly follow Samsung's lead with a more contemporary vibe. The Razr 2023 looks like a regular phone that folds in the middle. When unfolded flat, there's a nominal crease in the display at the midpoint that I didn't notice when looking at it or by running my finger over the screen. 

All in all, the Razr 2023 feels good to hold. Its solid build quality feels reassuringly dense -- I folded it up and did a few test drops on my carpeted floor without worrying that the halves would come apart. The phone closes with a satisfying snap, and when unfolded, the two halves come together in the back to meet seamlessly over the hinge cover. While the device is a little tough to open one-handed given additional resistance in the hinge, that also means the Razr stays partially unfolded at any angle -- great for video calls or selfies using the inner screen's camera.

Folding aside, the design looks premium, with a polished aluminum frame and hinge cover, while the vegan leather back cover adds some needed texture -- I'm used to a full-size phone, so a folded-up clamshell has half the footprint and took time to get used to holding. The glass strip on the top half of the back of the phone covers both the external dual cameras and the small outer display, which looks svelte. 

Unfolding the phone reveals the tall and narrow 6.9-inch OLED display (2,640x1,080 pixels) with a variable refresh rate up to 144Hz, which shows sharp and vivid details comparable to other 1080p Full HD resolution phones. The Razr's up to 144Hz variable refresh rate makes browsing the internet or navigating the home screen buttery smooth. In having a fully functional inner display, the Razr 2023 is on par with other clamshell foldables, but the outer screen is another story.

Instead of the larger outer display of its Razr Plus 2023 sibling, the Razr 2023 has a 1.5-inch OLED external screen that's too small to show much more than the time, app notifications, and a handful of shortcuts to weather, calendar events, contacts, voice recording and more. It's about as useful as checking my smartwatch for snapshots of notifications and texts to triage whether I need to open my phone, and it's helpful to take selfies with the rear cameras (far sharper than the one above the inner display), but it generally leaves me wanting more.

The smaller outer display is the Razr 2023's most obvious compromise to get to the lower price -- the pricier Razr 2023 Plus' foldable's 3.6-inch outer display is large enough to fit a keyboard to type on, though most users will probably only use it primarily as a notification and app preview screen, as well as to preview selfies. 

Note that there isn't a camera shortcut on the outer display -- instead, you'll need to use Motorola's signature gesture shortcut to open the camera (twist your wrist twice while holding the device), which is thankfully reliable. And yes, the brand's gesture shortcut to turn on the flashlight (making a chop motion twice) also works while the Razr is folded or unfolded.

Performance and battery

The Razr 2023 also takes a dip in hardware for a lower price, packing a Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 chipset that was released in mid-2022. The Razr 2023's performance benchmarks are noticeably lower than phones rocking the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 found in the Razr Plus 2023 alongside other leading Android phones from this year. See the graph below:

That doesn't directly translate to a poorer user experience, and I was able to flip through the phone, swap apps, play intensive games and pop open the camera without much delay. But it does mean slightly lower graphical capabilities in games like PUBG Mobile, which won't let me pick the highest graphics setting (my Galaxy S22 Ultra can). 

The 8GB of RAM seems ample, though the 128GB of onboard storage may not be enough for folks who take lots of photos or get multi-gigabyte games. Regrettably, the Razr 2023's storage isn't expandable, which is the same for clamshell foldables, but it's less of a hindrance for the Razr Plus 2023 (256GB), Galaxy Z Flip 5 (256GB/512GB) or Oppo Find N3 Flip (256GB/512GB). 

The Razr 2023 comes with Android 13 out of the box, and will get three years of Android operating system upgrades (and four years of security patches). Android 14 launched for Google Pixel devices in early October, and will come for Motorola phones sometime later. Motorola's software upgrade commitment falls behind Samsung (four years of OS and five years of security) and Apple (around six years of iOS), but Google just raised the bar by committing to seven years of OS and security updates with its Pixel 8 series.

The battery life does seem better than older clamshell foldables lasting a full day. Its 4,200-mAh capacity is greater than batteries on the pricier Razr Plus (3,800 mAh), Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 (3,700 mAh) and Oppo Find N3 Flip (4,000 mAh). While some manufacturers have argued that the outer screens provide enough info for quick checks that could save battery drain of illuminating an entire main display. It's a dubious total savings in battery, but I can't deny that the Razrs small outer display is perfect for checking the time and weather quickly.

In our 45-minute usage test simulating heavy use, the Razr 2023 dropped from 100% down to 91%, which is only 2% lower than the Razr Plus 2023 -- perhaps owing to the better efficiency from the pricier phone's higher-end chipset. Yet that's not the whole picture, as the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 ran through the same test ending at 90%, a nearly identical result. Standard (flat) phones with larger-capacity batteries tend to do better on the test, likely owing to their better capacity, but the smaller batteries on clamshell foldables lead to more drain (by comparison, the just-launched Oppo Find N3 Flip drained from 100% down to 89% in the same test). 

But on the bright side, the 30-watt charger included in the box recharges the phone from 0% to 72% in 30 minutes. The 5-watt wireless charging was less impressive, juicing the phone up from 72% to 86% in 30 minutes. 

While the hardware for the Razr 2023 achieves good performance across a variety of tasks, its cameras are far more uneven. 

Of the rear cameras, we do have a favorite child

While most phones at the mid-range and premium levels have an array of cameras that capture photos of similar quality, the Razr 2023's two rear shooters are drastically different. I'll name my less-favored child up front: the 12-megapixel ultrawide camera takes far blurrier photos. 

The upside is that the 64-megapixel main camera is great all around. It takes sharp photos in a variety of environments, from bright daylight to dark interiors. So long as you don't need to zoom in or out -- as the old photographer's adage goes, to "zoom with your legs" -- the main camera is fine.

It captures sharp details and good color, as can be seen in this pic of a suitably vibrant salad.

The ultrawide does provide utility in bright daylight, but struggles in any moodier environment, as low-light shots are noticeably -- even painfully -- blurry. Here's an apt comparison of an interior lit with dim, warm lighting, starting with the ultrawide camera:

Now look at the same room shot by the main camera:

The Razr does use the ultrawide for a macro mode to take up-close shots, which turn out well, capturing detail and vivid colors (in my case, a close-up on the vegan salad with ingredients spanning the color spectrum). 

The Razr 2023 doesn't have a telephoto lens, and doesn't provide users an option for digital zoom -- taking a main camera photo and cropping in is the only option. Most clamshell foldables, including the Razr Plus 2023 and Z Flip 5, lack zoom lenses and miss out on distance photography -- though the Oppo Find N3 Flip managed to pack one in.

The last camera on the Razr 2023 is a 32-megapixel shooter above the main display, and only used when the device is unfolded. While one could take selfies with it, given the outer screen shows previews for the 64-megapixel main camera when the phone is folded up, the inner display camera will probably only be used when taking video calls. The outer display is too small to preview everything the main camera can capture, but the sharper quality is worth it. 

Compare a shot by the inner 32-megapixel selfie camera:

Now look at a shot with the outer 64-megapixel main camera:

There are quirks to taking selfies with the main camera via the outer display -- as you can see above, it seems you can only take them in 4:3 ratio (which is annoying for 16:9 diehards like myself). But you'll also have to be very intentional about how the phone is oriented when taking selfies: the thumbnail display is a horizontal rectangle, yet taking photos with the phone right-side up results in photos oriented vertically. If you want a wide selfie, you'll need to counter-intuitively rotate the phone so that the display rectangle is thin and tall. 

Motorola phones aren't particularly known for their night photography, and the same is true in the Razr 2023 -- by which I mean, don't expect some of the AI software miracles that premium Apple, Samsung and Google phones pull off to illuminate pitch-dark areas. That said, the Razr 2023's 64-megapixel main camera makes the most of any light in the area and still produces sharp detail in zones that are lit enough. 

Ultimately, the Razr 2023's camera suite makes it feel more midrange than premium -- but so long as users only need to shoot distant or landscape shots, the main camera serves just fine. And given its front-facing and selfie options, it's a phone suited for the kind of casual and social photographers that are likely attracted to a clamshell foldable anyway, especially one at this price point. If folks want a more camera-focused phone, they can go with a Galaxy S23 Ultra, iPhone 15 Pro Max or Google Pixel 8 Pro -- and pay a good amount more for it.

Razr 2023 final thoughts

There are certainly folks who the Razr 2023 will be perfect for, but they may fall in two camps: those who don't quite have the budget to pay $1,000 for a Razr Plus 2023 or Galaxy Z Flip 5, and those who want the fun clamshell format and are fine passing on the better photos taken by and the AI-powered editing tools in the similarly priced $700 Google Pixel 8.

The Razr 2023 challenges the idea that consumers aren't buying foldables because they're too pricey. Will they show up for the most accessible flexible-display phone yet? Or will the market segment that can pay $700 continue shelling out around $1,000 for the latest-and-greatest in phone tech? The Razr 2023 makes a couple questionable choices in its list of compromises, but is overall shrewd in trimming features to get to a significantly lower price point than its competitors. It's fun to use, looks attractive and trickles down cool innovations to the upper cusp of the midrange market, but it remains to be seen if consumers want style over cameras as much as a reviewer like me does.

How we test phones

Every phone tested by CNET's reviews team was actually used in the real world. We test a phone's features, play games and take photos. We examine the display to see if it's bright, sharp and vibrant. We analyze the design and build to see how it is to hold and whether it has an IP-rating for water-resistance. We push the processor's performance to the extremes using both standardized benchmark tools like GeekBench and 3DMark, along with our own anecdotal observations navigating the interface, recording high-resolution videos and playing graphically intense games at high refresh rates.

All the cameras are tested in a variety of conditions from bright sunlight to dark indoor scenes. We try out special features like night mode and portrait mode and compare our findings against similarly priced competing phones. We also check out the battery life by using it daily as well as running a series of battery drain tests.

We take into account additional features like support for 5G, satellite connectivity, fingerprint and face sensors, stylus support, fast charging speeds, foldable displays among others that can be useful. And we of course balance all of this against the price to provide you the verdict on whether that phone, whatever price it is, actually represents good value. While these tests may not always be reflected in CNET's initial review, we conduct follow-up and long-term testing in most circumstances.

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If you have $700 to spend and need a new smartphone, one of the best options you can find today is the Google Pixel 8. Google’s existing Pixel handset has a great design, excellent cameras, fantastic software, and surprisingly good battery life. It’s just a pleasure to use in almost every regard.

But Motorola’s latest phone makes things interesting for  prospective Pixel 8 buyers. On October 10, just days after Google revealed the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, Motorola announced a new Android phone of its own — the Motorola Edge (2023). It promises good design, cameras, software, and battery life, all for $100 less than the Pixel 8.

Is it all too good to be true? Is the Motorola Edge (2023) the Google Pixel 8 killer we didn’t know we needed? I used Motorola’s new phone to find out for myself, and I must admit that I’m impressed … mostly.

What I love about the Motorola Edge (2023)

The Motorola Edge (2023) makes an excellent first impression the second you take it out of the box. The matte aluminum frame is sleek and cool to the touch, and the screen curves over the left and right edges — making it look like there aren’t any bezels at all. I don’t have particularly strong feelings about flat versus curved displays, but the curves on the Motorola Edge add a touch of elegance that’s unexpected at this price.

I also quite like the back of the Motorola Edge (2023). Motorola chose vegan leather for the rear of the phone, and it feels excellent. It’s grippy, has a pleasant texture, and looks leagues better than the glossy plastic backs seen on other budget Android phones (I’m looking at you, OnePlus Nord N30 5G). I wish Motorola offered more than the single Eclipse Black color, but overall, I have very little to criticize about this design.

Beyond the curved display and leather back, Motorola also got the smaller details right. The power and volume buttons feel nice, the speakers sound good (and get very loud), and there’s an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance — the same one you get on flagship smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Speaking of the display, it’s excellent. Besides the curved edges, the 6.6-inch screen offers a pOLED panel with a 2400 x 1080 resolution, HDR10+ support, up to 1,200 nits of peak brightness, and a 144Hz refresh rate. It’s a fantastic screen with vibrant colors and plenty of brightness for regular use. You can force the refresh rate to run at 144Hz, but I’ve kept it in Auto mode — which runs it at up to 120Hz — and it’s looked great to my eyes. When Apple is still slapping 60Hz displays on its iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus, having 144Hz on the Motorola Edge (2023) feels pretty awesome.

I’ve also been (mostly) impressed by the Motorola Edge’s performance. Powering the phone is a MediaTek Dimensity 7030 chipset. It’s one of the only phones in the world with this specific MediaTek chip, and it’s actually pretty good. Apps open quickly, the 8GB of RAM has done a great job with basic multitasking, and the Edge (2023) has held its own with various mobile games.

With graphics quality set to High and 60 frames per second (fps) enabled, Marvel Snap looks and runs great. Motorola’s phone also does a good job of playing Call of Duty: Mobile with High graphics and Max frame rate settings. Some menus take slightly longer to load compared to phones with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, but it’s never been enough to seriously impact my enjoyment of the phone.

Lastly, I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about battery life and charging. It’s a 4,400 mAh battery inside the Motorola Edge (2023), and in my testing, it’s typically enough to get me through a day and a half on a single charge. You can drain the battery in a single day if you really try, but with moderate app usage and some light gaming, a day and a half is much more likely.

And when your battery does run dry, the Motorola Edge (2023) is able to charge up quickly thanks to 68-watt wired charging. Plug the phone in with a fully depleted battery, and you’re back up to 17% after just 10 minutes of charging. Thirty minutes on the charger takes you from zero to 52%, while getting all the way to 100% happens in about 55 minutes.

If you don’t mind sacrificing charge speed, you can also wirelessly charge the Edge (2023) at up to 15W. And if you want to top up another phone or a pair of wireless earbuds, you can place them on the back of the Motorola phone to use its 5W wireless power sharing. This is one of the better charging solutions on a smartphone at this price, and it’s a seriously huge benefit if you pick up the Motorola Edge (2023).

Where Motorola stumbles

Motorola got a lot right with the Edge (2023), but as with any phone, perfect it is not. In fact, there are a few big issues with the Motorola Edge.

The first has to do with the phone’s cameras. The Motorola Edge (2023) has two cameras on the back, including a 50MP main camera and a 13MP ultrawide camera. There’s also a 32MP selfie camera.

In good lighting conditions and with a steady hand, photos from the Motorola Edge (2023) can look fine. They typically look a bit flat without particularly impressive colors or details, but they’re certainly usable for posting on social media or sharing with friends.

These certainly aren’t the best photos I’ve taken with a smartphone this year, but they get the job done. The ultrawide camera is a bit worse than the main sensor, but if you need a wider view of your subject, it works.

My main issue with the camera is how slow it is. Throughout my time with the Motorola Edge (2023), the real photo-taking process hasn’t been an enjoyable one. The camera app can be slow to open, the shutter button has a noticeable pause between pressing it and when your photo is captured, and this often results in blurry or missed shots.

I’m not sure if the MediaTek processor is to blame or if this is poor optimization on Motorola’s part. Whatever the cause is, all I know is that it’s made taking pictures with the Motorola Edge (2023) pretty frustrating at times.

Speaking of slow, the phone’s in-screen fingerprint sensor isn’t always as quick as I’d like. It usually works, but there have been a few instances where it takes too long to scan my fingerprint or fails to identify it entirely. I’ve also noticed some instances where tapping notifications or swiping down to view my Quick Settings causes the phone to stutter a bit. It seems to happen more often if I try to do something on the phone very quickly after I pick it up — it’s almost like it takes it a second to “warm up” and start working as intended.

Finally, there’s the issue of software updates. The Motorola Edge (2023) ships with Android 13 and is promised just two Android OS upgrades — plus three years of bimonthly security patches. This isn’t the worst update policy we’ve ever seen on a Motorola phone, but it’s not good, either.

It especially stings considering that Android 14 has now been available since early October. After Motorola gets the Edge (2023) updated to Android 14, the only other big OS update you’ll ever see is to Android 15. Motorola has been getting better with how it updates its phones — most recently with the Motorola Edge Plus (2023) and Motorola Razr (2023) — but this is a disappointing step backward.

How it compares to the Google Pixel 8

On its own, the Motorola Edge (2023) is a darn good smartphone. But the Motorola Edge doesn’t exist on its own. It was released right alongside the Google Pixel 8, and with a similar price, so it’s impossible not to compare the two. And it’s here where the pitch for Motorola’s phone starts to weaken.

Perhaps the biggest differentiator is the camera. The Google Pixel 8 takes much better photos than the Motorola Edge (2023). The 50MP main camera and 12MP ultrawide camera don’t sound much different on paper, but in practice, the gap between the two is clear. Google’s camera app is also much faster and more reliable, and there’s a whole world of AI photo-editing tools that crank it up to 11.

Google also has Motorola handily beat on the software front. Although the Android interfaces look largely the same on both phones, the Pixel 8 gives you so much more. From the Google Assistant holding your spot in line on a phone call, Now Playing automatically recognizing music playing in the background, or being able to summarize entire webpages into a few bullet points, the AI features you get on a Pixel are pretty incredible — and are legitimately difficult to live without on a non-Pixel Android phone.

There’s also the matter of software updates. The Google Pixel 8 ships with Android 14 and is promised seven years of Android upgrades, feature drops, and security patches. In other words, the Pixel 8 will keep getting software updates through October 2030 — four years after the Motorola Edge (2023) receives its last security patch.

And then we have everything else. While the Motorola Edge (2023) has very nice hardware, the Google Pixel 8 edges it out. It has a much nicer vibration motor, the buttons feel clickier, and its extra weight (187 grams versus 168 grams) feels reassuring in your hand. You’ll also find that the Google Pixel 8’s Tensor G3 processor is more capable than the MediaTek chip in the Motorola Edge. The Pixel 8 generally feels smoother throughout daily use, and it also has much faster internal storage — UFS 3.1 compared to the UFS 2.2 storage Motorola opted for.

The Pixel 8 can’t match the Motorola phone when it comes to charging speed, and the Edge (2023) has a larger display, but those are really the only two areas where Motorola has a clear advantage.

Motorola Edge (2023) price and availability

The Motorola Edge (2023) is available for purchase right now from Motorola’s website, Amazon, Best Buy, and other retailers. It comes in just one configuration — the Eclipse Black color with 256GB of storage and 8GB of RAM.

You’ll find a retail price of $600 for the Motorola Edge (2023), which is $100 less than the $700 Google Pixel 8 and $200 cheaper than the $800 Samsung Galaxy S23. That’s already a good deal, but things get more interesting.

As part of a special launch offer, you can buy the Motorola Edge (2023) right now for just $500. It’s technically a limited-time promotion, but knowing how Motorola runs its sales, you should be able to get the Edge (2023) at this $500 sale price fairly often.

Should you buy the Motorola Edge (2023)?

OK — so what’s the final word on the Motorola Edge (2023)? Did Motorola knock it out of the park and create a phone you should buy instead of the Google Pixel 8? As with everything in life, it’s a bit complicated.

If you can buy the Motorola Edge at its discounted $500 price, I think there’s a really solid argument in the phone’s favor. At $200 cheaper than the Pixel 8, the Edge (2023) delivers a really solid smartphone experience — so long as you don’t mind some occasional performance issues and a lackluster camera. But if we’re looking at the Motorola Edge (2023) as a $600 smartphone, I don’t think the $100 in savings is enough to justify buying it over the Pixel 8.

The Edge (2023) delivers a really solid smartphone experience.

For folks who can afford it, there’s no denying that the Google Pixel 8 is the better overall choice. In fact, it’s one of the very best smartphones you can get right now. But if money is an object — and you can snag the Edge (2023) at its lower price — it’s worth considering. It may not be the undisputed Google Pixel 8 killer that Motorola hoped it would be, but it is a worthy alternative — and a phone that should be on your radar.