With slender premium styling, backed by a mid-range price tag, the Motorola Edge 40 lays the groundwork for Motorola’s next generation of flagship handsets.
Motorola is certainly prolific when it comes to producing smartphones, to the point where shoppers might understandably struggle to see the differences and know which is right for them. The new Motorola Edge 40 is the successor to last year’s Moto Edge 30, with the same $699 price tag.
That doesn’t mean the Moto Edge 40 is Motorola’s new top-of-the-line flagship handset. Right now, that honour probably still belongs to the $1399 Moto Edge 30 Ultra, which outguns the standard Edge 30 as well as the $599 Edge 30 Neo, $899 Edge 30 Fusion and $999 Edge 30 Pro. It’s fair to assume we’ll see similar iterations of the Moto Edge 40 over the next six months, with the Edge 40 Pro already available in some countries.
So, if you’re after premium specs and prepared to spend more than $699 then you might want to hold off until we see the full Moto Edge 40 family in Australia – especially when not every aspect of the standard Edge 40 is an improvement on its predecessor.
Motorola Edge 40 first impressions
Out of the box, the Edge 40 is certainly easy on the eyes. It sports a 6.55-inch pOLED display, but still looks and feels elegant thanks to a slender 7.58 mm body and rounded edges incorporating an “endless display” with curved screen edges.
The result is the slimmest of bezels, with the screen only interrupted by a punch hole front camera rather than a notch. Adding to the elegant look, the sandblasted aluminium frame is matched with a vegan leather back (the matte acrylic Luna Blue model is not available in Australia).
The handset’s minimalist look features subtle volume and power buttons along the right-hand edge, along with USB-C at the bottom but no 3.5mm headphone jack. There’s a fingerprint reader built into the display, along with support for Face Unlock.
When it comes to the screen, you still enjoy the 1080×2400 resolution of last year’s Moto Edge 30, but it switches from AMOLED to pOLED while retaining HDR10+ and a 144 Hz refresh rate which is impressive in this price range.
With these changes, the handset is a fraction thicker and heavier than its predecessor, but in return, it bumps up the battery from 4020 to 4400 mAh, which should deliver more than 24 hours. It supports 68W TurboPower charging along with 15W wireless charging.
The Edge 40 also swaps out the Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G+ 5G power plant for the MediaTek Dimensity 8020, both of which are solid mid-range performers. It sticks with 8GB of RAM but downgrades it from LPDDR5 to LPDDR4X, sacrificing a little power efficiency but not enough to be a deal-breaker.
Motorola continues to include a basic transparent protective case in the box, which tries not to cramp the handset’s style but in return, leaves the edges more exposed in the event of a fall than you might like.
What’s more comforting is that Motorola has managed to increase the ruggedness rating from a splash-resistant IP52 up to IP68, meaning it can survive dunking in 1.5 metres of fresh water for up to 30 minutes.
- Fluid design and underwater protection
- 50MP and f/1.4, the widest smartphone aperture
- Blazing-fast 68W TurboPower charging
- Borderless 144Hz display + Dolby Atmos audio
- Performance powerhouse
Motorola Edge 40 specifications
| Display size | 6.55 inch, 20:9 aspect ratio |
| Display resolution | 2400×1080 pixels, 402 ppi |
| Display technology | pOLED, HDR10+, 144 Hz refresh rate, 1200 nits peak brightness |
| Bands | 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G (sub-6 only) |
| Chipset | MediaTek Dimensity 8020 |
| Rear cameras | 50 MP 1/1.5″ optical format f/1.4 aperture 1.0 µm pixel size | Quad Pixel Technology for 2.0 µm Omni-directional PDAF Optical Image Stabilisation |
| 13 MP Ultrawide angle (120° FOV) Macro Vision f/2.2 aperture 1.12 µm pixel size | |
| Front camera | 32 MP f/2.4 aperture 0.7 µm pixel size | Quad Pixel Technology for 1.4 µm |
| RAM | 8 GB LPDDR4X |
| Onboard storage | 256 GB UFS 3.1 |
| microSD slot | No |
| Charging | USB Type-C port (USB 2.0) 68W TurboPower charging 15W wireless charging |
| Battery | 4400 mAh |
| Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi 6 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax 2.4 GHz | 5 GHz Wi-Fi hotspot |
| Bluetooth | 5.2 |
| Operating system | Android 13 |
| Security | Fingerprint reader, Face Unlock, ThinkShield, Moto Secure |
| Ruggedness | IP68 |
| Dimensions | Vegan Leather 158.43 x 71.99 x 7.58mm |
| Weight | Vegan Leather 171g |
| Colours | Vegan Leather: Eclipse Black, Nebula Green, Viva Magenta |
| Price (RRP) | $699 |
| Warranty | 2 years |
| Official website | Motorola Australia |
Features
As you’d expect, the Motorola Edge 40 runs the latest version of Android 13, with minimal bloatware, which is likely to appeal to Android fans. Motorola is promising two major of platform updates, which means you’ll get Android 14 and Android 15 in time, along with threee years of bi-monthly security updates.
Speaking of security, you’ve got Lenovo’s ThinkShield suite for protection and management at the hardware and software level (similar to the Lenovo ThinkPhone by Motorola). There’s also Moto Secure, an app that serves as a security and privacy hub. This includes the ability to create a secure folder for storing apps and files where others can’t access them.
It’s also a 5G chipset, ensuring you can take advantage of Australia’s fastest mobile broadband networks. As you’d expect, it only supports sub-6 GHz 5G and not the US-centric millimetre wave version.
When it comes to photography, the Moto Edge 40 retains the 50 MP main shooter with optical image stabilisation and the same 1.55-inch sensor. It also switches from f/1.8 aperture to f/1.4, letting in more light but offering a slightly shallower depth of field.
Compromises are made elsewhere, scaling down the ultrawide lens from 50 MP to 13 MP, and losing the 2 MP depth sensor. The front still sports a 32 MP selfie camera.
When it comes to multimedia, the pOLED display offers deep, rich colours while bringing HDR content to life thanks to the high screen brightness. The whites may be too cool for some tastes, but you can easily adjust the colour temperature and saturation. Meanwhile, the earpiece doubles as a second speaker, so you can get true stereo sound with good stereo separation.
Quality
Despite forgoing a Snapdragon processor, the Motorola Moto Edge 40 holds its own with GeekBench 6 scores of 1130 single-core, 3725 multi-core and 4605 GPU OpenCL. It’s more than enough grunt to keep things humming and support the needs of people shopping in this price range, although rivals like the Pixel 7a pack more punch.
When it comes to photography, that 50MP main shooter figure sounds impressive but we all know that megapixels aren’t everything. Thankfully, it also takes advantage of a larger sensor and pixels than Motorola’s budget models, resulting in crisp images with plenty of detail and good colours. It offers particularly impressive low-light performance.
Switching across to the ultrawide lens naturally sees a drop in picture quality due to the lower megapixel count, plus the colours are a tad muted and the low-light performance takes a serious hit.
Who is the Motorola Edge 40 for?
The Motorola Edge 40 is for those who want to venture into premium design territory without breaking the bank. Yet while it looks the part, it’s made a few compromises – particularly in the camera array – to keep the same $699 price tag as its predecessor.
All up, you still score plenty of premium features at a mid-range price point, with the added bonus of a longer battery life and IP68 ruggedness to help protect your investment. It’s a solid mid-range handset but, if your sights are set a little higher, wait to see what else the Edge 40 range delivers in the months ahead.
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