Motorola One 5G Ace 2021 - Hazy Silver - Made for US

TL;DR before I get started: Good phone, but competition at $400 makes it a 🤔 purchase. At $300 though? Banger. Do you like the blisteringly fast performance of flagship phones? Do you like the feeling of your hard earned money reflected by premium glass in your hands reminding you that you dropped 800 bones plus tax? Do you loathe headphone jacks and expandable storage because it's a "dying feature" holding back the future? Well too bad, schmuck! You get none of that. Instead, yous gettin' a midrange fighter that could be argued on price, but still performs admirably. Unless you got it on sale for $300 like I did, in which case you got a steal of a phone, even compared to others in the price range. If you spent $400, well....to be honest, I'd have gotten something else. But never mind that! You got what you got, and what you got is quite serviceable. Somewhat detailed breakdown across the board, and I'll start with the obvious. Mainly, Motorola's abysmal update department. Whereas other phones give you maybe some years of guaranteed software updates, Motorola kicks you out at 18 and says you get one care package. Now for someone like me who roots their phone day one on delivery, this is whatever. But for those who don't, this blows. It's almost like they WANT you to root the phone and void the warranty by not offering future updates. Why. Maybe you're wondering about the hardware and software. Well, minus the cameras being only okay, which does kinda bite, you're getting a quick Snapdragon 750G, which SEEMS to be on par with the 765 in the Samsung A71 5G. With the 6GB Ram variant (which is the only one you SHOULD be getting), you have enough room to enjoy a smooth, fast experience, which may or may not be what she said. However, with the 5000mAh battery, you'll be going without a charge for quite some time, which is what you WANT her to be saying. Idk, YMMV. And charging is pretty quick. Gaming is a breeze for most titles that I've played, so you shouldn't have too much trouble if you like to game on the go. And since Motorola is dedicated to the idea of a (mostly) pure Android experience, your OS is a bloat free experience, which is nice. Design wise? The waterproofing could be better. It's really raindrop repellent if anything, but I'll take it. The display? Well, it won't be breaking any records, especially since it isn't AMOLED, but it's bright enough. And tbh, this phone isn't small. Now, I have long, lanky hands, so this isn't much of a big issue for me, but for those with smaller hands, you'll probably be asking yourself why you bought this. The answer? MORE PIXELZ, BAYBEE. The plastic? Your mom's 93 Corolla has plastic all across the frame and that's been in more accidents than most of us have had during potty training and survived. Plus, who isn't buying a case with your phone these days? What are you, a daredevil? However, whoever put the speakers where they put them, I want to have a conversation. If we were to look at it on paper, you're only getting this for the battery life and the bloat free experience. For some of us who don't care about an amazing camera, that's more than enough. But when this phone is on sale, it's an amazing buy. It's quick, it's long lasting, it's a good enough addition to the Moto family. It's just not worth $400. But in a world where expandable SD storage, amazing battery life, and 5G capabilities are a plus on a phone that performs well, maybe it is worth the $400...?