Motorola’s Edge mobiles are their best performing premium series, but you have to be careful with them, because not all of them have top performance. It is reserved for the more exclusive models in the range, with names like Plus, Pro and Ultra. And even then there are exceptions. The 2021 Edge 20 Pro had a leaner processor. However, the new Edge 40 Pro is a real top mobile phone in the truest sense of the word.
Rating 4.5 out of 5
Opinion
This is the top mobile phone of this year that so far offers the most bang for your buck. Top performance, luxury feel, quality of everything, plenty of memory and all the functions you could want, plus a couple more. So what’s the catch? A camera with color and light balance that can’t always match the very best, and moderate optical zoom. That’s all.
Positive
- High performance
- Consistent quality
- All important premium features
- Correct price
Negative
- Missing that little extra for photos
- Can get hot
For a recommended price of just SEK 9,999, it is a surprisingly well-equipped mobile. In other words, Motorola is positioning it just like the Oneplus 11. A sane alternative for the wallet when the prices of the best, and often second best, models from manufacturers like Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi and Sony have skyrocketed to unreasonable levels. But unlike Oneplus, they don’t seem to make any sacrifices on either configuration or functionality.
It has the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 gen 2 system chip, 12 gigabytes of RAM and 256 gigabytes of the fastest ufs 4.0 type storage. It also has both fast 5g connection, is prepared for wifi 7, has usb 3 speed on the usb-c port, and a screen with up to 165 Hz frame rate.
So the speed is absolutely nothing to complain about. It keeps pace with competitors such as Xiaomi 13 Pro and Oneplus 11, and often even matches Samsung’s Galaxy S23 mobiles in several aspects, despite the fact that they have tuned special processors from Qualcomm. It can in extreme situations become uncomfortably hot to the touch, but only during long sessions with the most demanding games, or if you work on it right at the same time as fast charging the battery. Then there may also be a certain reduction in performance so that it does not overheat.
Nothing missing
In terms of functionality, it also ticks off just about all the points that a top-of-the-line mobile phone should handle. It supports wireless charging with a power of up to 15 watts, and you can use it as a five-watt charging pad for other gadgets. Other nice little things like support for e-sim and support for external display via the usb port are also a plus.
There, Motorola has its own interface called Ready For, which it switches to when an external screen is connected, either via USB or wirelessly. There you can choose between media player layouts that connect to popular streaming apps you have installed and give you a smart TV-like start page, or a full desktop interface with free windows and mouse pointers. Nothing revolutionary, and they don’t do it as well as Samsung’s Dex. But it is functional and practical for web browsers or Office apps.
The mobile is built with durable Gorilla Glass Victus both front and back. Newer Victus+ or Victus 2 would of course have been better, but it is still well approved. If it feels unsafe, a transparent shell is also included. The back has a frosted glass surface that can be quite slippery to grip, so that could be another reason to use the case.
It also, unlike previous Motorola Edge mobiles, has a full IP68 rating and can be submerged under water for half an hour. Motorola even has its own promotional images with underwater photography, so that’s something they’re confident enough to brag about this time.
More bend than most
Curved glass along the long sides on both the front and back gives it a comfortable grip, not to mention a delicious style. If you’re like me, the more grippy surface in the metal frame holding it all together is enough to keep the phone from slipping in your hand. But it may depend on how big your hands are and how you choose to hold the mobile phone. It seems to be built to be gripped far down, because the fingerprint reader sits quite close to the bottom of the screen. If you just reach it, it is then both fast and reliable.
There is well-approved brightness in the screen of up to 1,300 cd/m2, so use outdoors is worry-free and the hdr effect when I play movies with the right formats is intense. It doesn’t have as high a peak brightness as, for example, a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, but is certainly bright enough in all the situations I try to expose it to. Possibly the Galaxy does better with direct sun reflection in the screen, but that is mostly easy to avoid.
The Edge 40 Pro has dci p3 class colors with excellent color accuracy, support for both hdr10+ and Dolby Vision, and has Dolby Atmos support in a pair of comparatively powerful stereo speakers. So a cinema experience is about as good as it can be in a mobile. Except then that a couple of millimeters of the long sides of the screen bend away from you.
The resolution is not 1440p as in some other top mobile phones, but Motorola settles for a 1080p screen. It still provides an excellently sharp image, so why one would need more I find it hard to see. In return, the highest refresh rate I’ve seen in a mobile so far is 165 Hz. But again, it’s hard to see when that would matter. Perhaps there is the occasional mobile gamer who appreciates a little extra direct response. You also have to select 165 Hz mode manually. In standard mode, you get a dynamic frame rate of up to 120 Hz. That’s enough for most people.
Long lasting, fast charging
Limited resolution seems to do wonders for battery life. Streaming online video at high brightness has only a small impact on the battery, and although the battery is not as large as on some other top mobiles, 4,600 milliampere hours instead of 5,000, it lasts just as long or in some moments longer. You also get a heavy charger for a whopping 125 Watt. It’s so fast to charge your mobile phone for an entire working day that you can do it while you’re making your morning coffee.
With the fast charging, you will rarely suffer from a battery shortage. Maybe if you shoot and film a lot, which the Edge 40 Pro really appeals to. There are mobile phones that can give you better image quality, more high-resolution and detailed images and have better signal processing and color balance. For example, there is a noticeable difference in white balance between the main camera and the wide-angle camera when shooting at night.
On the back is a combination of a 50 megapixel main sensor, a 50 megapixel wide angle with macro mode and a 12 megapixel 2x telephoto camera which partly provides optical zoom, but is mainly used for the camera’s portrait mode. With a higher focal length, you get a more natural portrait view even at a distance, and you can easily switch between all three lenses in the app, depending on the type of portrait you want to take. Depth detection for bokeh effect is reliable at all three focal lengths.
Stable camera, but not perfect
Shooting in dark rooms automatically activates light compensation and sometimes long exposure. Here the camera is a little overly eager to push up the light so that everything looks well lit. It is almost impossible, except when I activate full manual mode, to get the feeling of a dark room if I shoot in one. But the Edge 40 Pro is good enough at most things, and extra good at one thing, it’s easy to quickly take a reliably good picture. Autofocus in the camera is one of the fastest I’ve experienced. And it’s not much tougher in dim light.
The only thing it falls a little short on is digital zoom, or if you have a high-resolution 50-megapixel image instead of the usual stacked 12.5 megapixels, and then want to crop and scale up. Then a clear pixel-level shading appears around dark pixels, and artificial sharpness filter becomes noticeable.
The selfie camera on the front is a whopping 60 megapixels, which can be a plus if you want to use it for filming, as it means that it can also handle up to 4k with 60 frames per second and good digital stabilization. It could be worth its weight in gold in these Instagram and (maybe still) Tiktok times.
Film straight
The most interesting feature is otherwise the main camera’s horizon lock. You can choose that instead of image stabilization. Then, in addition to regular shake compensation, you also get an image that is always in a vertical or horizontal position. It’s as if you had your phone mounted on a gimbal, but only for one axis. It simply films in high definition and with a larger field of view, and rotates and crops down, frame by frame, in real time.
The result looks surprisingly good, although some softness and shimmer can occur at the pixel level and you’re fiddling around with the phone a lot. The only limitation is that you can only film like this in a maximum of 1080p resolution and with 30 frames per second. But that’s often enough.
As always in Motorola mobiles, you get a mobile with an Android interface in original design. Motorola adds some of its own interface functions and apps, such as the already mentioned Ready For interface, a game mode of its own, extra Wi-Fi protection, and lock screen and notification options. But nothing that fundamentally changes the experience.
This is as close as you’ll get to the feeling of a Google Pixel without having a Google Pixel. At least for mobiles in the top segment. Nokia does the same thing, but has no mobile phones in this class. You also get the exact same update plan that Google offers, three years of system updates and four years of security updates. Not best in class, we would have liked to see more people stick with Samsung and Oneplus up to another year… or more.
Specifications
Product name: Edge 40 Pro XT2301-4
Tested: April 2023
Manufacturer: Motorola
Systemkrets: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 gen 2
Processor: Kryo Prime 3,2 GHz, 4 st Kryo Gold 2,8 GHz, 3st Kryo Silver 2 GHz
Chart: Adreno 740, 680 MHz
Remind: 12 GB
Storage: 256/512 GB
Screen: 6.67 inch p-oled, 1080×2400 pixels, 165 Hz
Cameras: 50 megapixel + 50 megapixel wide angle + 12 megapixel 2x telephoto/portrait with LED rear, 60 megapixel front
Connections: Usb 3 type c with video out
Communication: 2g, 3g, 4g, 5g, wifi 7, bluetooth 5.3, a-gps, galileo, nfc
Operating system: Android 13 with My UX, 3 years of Android updates
Miscellaneous: Esim support, in-screen fingerprint reader, water resistant (ip68)
Bacteria: 4,600 mAh, approx. 31 hours of online video (wifi, high brightness, 60 Hz), approx. 18 hours of mixed use (4g, low brightness, 120Hz), approx. 32 hours of calls
Battery charging: 165 W usb (TurboPower), 15 W wireless (qi)
Size: 16,1 x 7,4 x 0,86 cm
Weight: 199 gram
Rec. price: 9 999 kr
Sales start for the Edge 40 Pro is April 10.
Performance
Geekbench updated in February from version 5 to version 6. Scores between versions are not 100% comparable. Therefore, during a transition period, I report both Geekbench 5 and Geekbench 6 scores, so that you can more easily compare with previously tested mobiles that only Geekbench 5 measurements were made on.
Antutu Benchmark*: 1,267,711 points
Geekbench 5: 4,660 points
Geekbench 5 a core: 1,469 points
Geekbench 5 compute: 8,682 points
Geekbench 6: 5,204 points
Geekbench 6 a core: 1,983 points
Geekbench 6 compute: 6,403 points
3dmark Wild Life Unlimited: 13,826 points
3dmark Wild Life Extreme: 3,659 points
Storage, reading: 3 513,1 MB/s
Storage, writing: 2 892,4 MB/s
*Only comparable to other Android mobiles, not iPhone
