This is where things start to get a bit serious. Alternative flagship phone, as a category. Well, almost, very serious. Expectations are high, also because this is where the monetary outlay starts to get serious. It wouldn’t have been easy for Motorola, a brand you’d probably better recognise as Moto, to make a phone that’s competitive enough, and then goes a step ahead, without an impact on the price tag. Yet, a fine balance seems to have been achieved with the Moto Edge 40, a phone that’s banking heavily on a lot of segment firsts.
The Edge 40 is the first phone in the world to be powered by MediaTek’s new Dimensity 8020 chip – a risk, but from what we have experienced, one that’s paid off handsomely. Motorola didn’t stop there. They claim this is also the world’s slimmest 5G phone with the IP68 water resistance rating. Now that is a very specific claim, but we’d want you to make note of this – IP68 means water resistance up to a maximum depth of 1.5 meters for up to 30 minutes.
Last but not least is the 144Hz 3D curve display, again a very specific set of things coming together into as-yet-otherwise-unseen combination. But may just be the ticket for gamers, and if you intend to use the Edge 40 quite a bit for video streaming. There is the option to force set this to 144Hz, but mind you, the battery consumption even for the simplest of tasks, will be enormous compared with leaving it at 60Hz or 90Hz. Your preference, your call.
Also Read: Motorola’s Edge 40 to debut in India on May 23
If you have a budget of around ₹30,000 and have ideally shortlisted one of the fairly underpowered, Samsung A34, the competent OnePlus Nord 2T but with some bits missing or the powerful Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro+ 5G but with a complex MIUI, then time for you to take a pause and reconsider.
On the subject of good smartphone displays, this one measure 6.5-inches, which is a few millimetres shaved off from a trend that usually leans towards 6.7-inch and slightly larger screen sizes. The smidgen smaller size doesn’t take anything away from the viewing experience. You’ll quite like the flexibility to choose between two varying colour vividness settings, and it does well enough on the brightness aspect too.
Do not, for a moment, expect the Edge 40 or the Dimensity 8020 chip to compete with the flagship phones, as far as raw performance goes. For the price band that it sits in, the Edge 40 does feel a notch snappier than the Redmi Note 12 Pro+ and much faster than the Samsung Galaxy A34. That said, the Nothing Phone (1), which may not be a direct competitor owing to pricing and screen size differences, does give it some perspective – there is parity with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G+.
The software, complete with unique Moto elements such as the widgets and a specific Moto app, doesn’t feel bogged down even when you leave a bunch of apps running in the background. There may be a chance you’re on a somewhat restricted budget for your next Android phone, the good news being the Motorola Edge 40 delivers an experience that is a notch above what you may have expected.
That said, gaming particularly when the 144Hz refresh rate is enabled, can lead to a perceptible temperature increase. About 30 minutes into a gaming session, the back panel heats up considerably. Soon enough, you’ll notice jittery frames in the game.
Battery life is a definite strong point. To keep the phone at just about 7.6mm thick, Moto had to make a slight compromise on the battery capacity. The 4,400mAh battery still retains enough stamina to easily last a day. The 68-watt wired fast charging can be useful for a quick juice-up before leaving for an important meeting. It is a fairly big downgrade to 15-watts for wireless charging, but that’s par for course on most phones – while also being a rarity in this price band.
Photography is a strong point for the Motorola Edge 40. The dual camera setup maintains a balance, at least in terms of megapixels and sensors in use. Unlike a lot of phones that have many megapixels in the primary sensor and accompanying them are mediocre 8-megapixel ultrawide or 2-megapixel macro sensors. The 50-megapixel wide sensor and a 13-megapixel ultrawide sensor take advantage of faster aperture and new image processing algorithms.
Results are impressive. Daytime photos are rich, well detailed and have just the right amount of sharpness (there is no hint of overenthusiastic noise reduction). We did not notice the camera oversaturating colours, even specific ones. Take a photo of a green patch, and the differential green tones come through rather well distinguished.
With low-light photos, you need to work a bit harder to get any sort of usable results from the Edge 40. The source of any light, how you’re framing, and the stability of your hand will have a bearing on whether the photo is detailed enough or struggles with some blurring. There is some softness quite unmissable with photos in less than perfect light – a touch of editing can fix that to an extent, but won’t add details where there are none.
It goes without saying that there is substance to what Motorola have delivered with the Edge 40. The feature set, performance and indeed the design (we’d specifically recommend the Nebula Green in the vegan leather back finish) all come together for an experience that feels more at home in a phone that’d likely cost significantly more than the Edge 40’s ₹29,999 sticker price.
No corners have been cut as far as refinement and the UX matters. The gamble with the MediaTek 8020 chip seems to have paid off for the most part. The 144Hz display adds a new element of surprise for users, while the fastest charging speeds in this category will bring convenience you’ll get used to soon enough.
Most important perhaps, is the fact that Motorola have priced the Edge 40 perfectly.
