Verdict
The budget-focused Motorola Edge 40 Neo feels something however, with a slew of premium options together with IP68 water resistance, a 6.5-inch curved 144Hz show, 68W quick charging and actually beautiful colourways that make it one for critical consideration.
Professionals
- Skinny, light-weight design
- All-day battery life
- Premium {hardware} regardless of the value
Cons
- Mushy, inaccurate vibration motor
- Some pre-installed bloatware
Key Options
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Beautiful Pantone colourwaysMotorola continues its partnership with color specialists Pantone with the Edge 40 Neo, out there in three Pantone-verified (and unique) colourways that stand out from the gang. -
Speedy quick chargingWith 68W quick charging and a charger included within the field, you will get 50% cost in simply 17 minutes. -
Spectacular water resistanceThe Motorola Edge 40 Neo is considered one of only a few budget-focused telephones providing full IP68 mud and water resistance.
Introduction
Motorola has had a powerful yr within the smartphone world with the likes of the Edge 40 and its foldable Razr 40 Extremely. This development appears to proceed with the Motorola Edge 40 Neo.
Regardless of its reasonably priced £299 price ticket, the Edge 40 Neo comes with a slew of options you’d anticipate from flagship-tier smartphones. These embody full IP68 water resistance, a curved 6.5-inch 144Hz pOLED show, speedy 68W quick charging and beautiful Pantone-verified colourways that assist it stand out from the gang.
This culminates in a smartphone that doesn’t look, really feel or carry out like a funds telephone ought to. In actual fact, we might be taking a look at the new alternative for a budget-focused smartphone.
Design
- Trendy design with Pantone colourways
- IP68 mud and water resistance
- 6.5-inch 144Hz pOLED show
The Motorola Edge 40 Neo is a refinement of final yr’s Edge 30 Neo with a barely tweaked, although nonetheless recognisable, design. It’s a stunning smartphone with rounded edges and a curved show that makes it look far more premium than its funds price ticket suggests, together with an upgraded vegan leather-based rear that feels beautiful within the hand.
At 7.76mm thick and 172g, the Neo is comfortably in light-weight territory in comparison with heavy smartphones just like the iPhone 14 Professional Max, making it a pleasure to carry and use one-handed.
The guts of the Edge 40 Neo’s design focuses on Motorola’s partnership with color specialists Pantone. This yr, that comes within the type of three Pantone-certified finishes dubbed Black Magnificence, Soothing Sea and Caneel Bay, with the latter two sporting the vegan leather-based end.
The Caneel Bay end is a favorite of mine, with a completely beautiful deep shade of blue that instantly stands out from the gang. Every telephone comes with a 100% recycled case in the identical Pantone-certified color. There’s even a little bit Pantone brand on the rear.
The Motorola Edge 40 Neo additionally excels within the water resistance division. In actual fact, with full IP68 mud and water resistance normally reserved for flagship-level units, the Edge 40 Neo gives among the greatest safety within the funds finish of the market. Some units, just like the Google Pixel 7a, come shut with IP67 resistance, but it surely’s uncommon to see full IP68 at such a low worth.
Sustainability can be vital for Motorola, not solely within the type of its 100% recycled instances however even within the packaging the telephone is available in. It’s all comprised of cardboard, that means it’s all recyclable, with not one piece of single-use plastic discovered inside.
It’s additionally one of many best-smelling containers round. That may sound odd, however Motorola sprays a novel perfume within the packaging of Motorola telephones that makes the unboxing expertise really feel (and odor) even fancier.
Display
- 6.5-inch curved pOLED show
- 144Hz refresh price
- HDR10+ and Dolby Atmos assist
That premium-on-a-budget development continues with the show, which has seen a rise from 6.28 to six.5 inches this yr, and in contrast to its predecessor, it’s a curved show that wraps across the edges of the telephone. It actually helps the telephone really feel extra premium, although whether or not you’re a fan of curved shows or not is probably going down to private desire.
At a speedy 144Hz, the display screen will not be solely sooner than its predecessor however a lot of the 120Hz Android competitors. It’s arguably a lot of a muchness when you cross the 120Hz mark, but it surely interprets to even greater framerates when gaming.
The catch? You may solely choose a relentless 144Hz refresh price, with the dynamic choices capped at 120Hz. This implies you’ll want to decide on between exceedingly excessive refresh charges and respectable battery life, and for just about everybody besides cell players, it’ll probably be the latter.
Elsewhere, the FHD+ pOLED panel boasts spectacular specs together with 10-bit color, HDR10+ and Dolby Atmos assist that delivers a top-notch movie-watching expertise, with detailed and vivid playback that made specifically vibrant collection’ like David Attenborough’s Life in Color look distinctive.
Basically, if you happen to’re a fan of watching motion pictures on the go, you’ll love what the Edge 40 Neo has to supply.
Cameras
- 50MP Extremely Pixel major digital camera
- 13MP ultrawide and 32MP selfie digital camera
- Nice low-light efficiency for the value
The star of the present needs to be the first 50MP ultra-pixel digital camera on the rear. Although it’s a downgrade on paper from the 64MP shooter of the Edge 30 Neo, there’s way more to digital camera tech than megapixel depend, and the Edge 40 Neo appears to show that.
For one, it has a bigger sensor than its predecessor to seize rather more mild and element, and with OIS, each photographs and movies are pin-sharp. That basically signifies that it could actually punch above its weight by way of digital camera efficiency, with visuals which are fairly rattling spectacular for a funds telephone.
The Edge 40 Neo was my telephone of alternative throughout a current journey to Berlin, and it captured the essence of the journey completely. Photos are detailed and vibrant with nice dynamic vary capturing each vivid skies and the shadows of buildings with out one overpowering the opposite. It’s a easy point-and-shoot expertise made easier by OIS and PDAF autofocus tech.
That’s anticipated from most smartphone cameras in 2023 – it’s not troublesome to get a great shot in well-lit situations – nonetheless the identical can’t be mentioned for low-light. That’s when funds cameras start to falter with smaller apertures and sensors than their flagship brethren.
However that’s why the Edge 40 Neo is so attention-grabbing; it’s truly fairly respectable in low mild.
That’s right down to the bigger pixels of the primary digital camera, permitting the telephone to seize extra mild and at a lot sooner speeds – as much as 16x, in accordance with Motorola. Although I discovered it’d nonetheless take a few seconds to seize in low-light situations, the outcomes had been largely price it.
As you possibly can see from the above night time pictures I took on my journey to Berlin, the telephone does an important job of not solely capturing loads of mild, however there’s loads of element and, fairly impressively, no blur in shifting topics.
It could sometimes battle with color temperature, with overly orange outcomes, however that is simply fastened with a little bit of enhancing within the Photographs app. It’s not fairly at Pixel 7a ranges, then, but it surely’s not that far off.
Elsewhere, there’s a 13MP ultrawide digital camera on the rear to assist seize these group pictures or scenic vistas. It does an important job at capturing as a lot of the scene as attainable with a 120-degree discipline of view, and there’s little edge distortion, however photographs aren’t fairly as detailed as what you’ll get from that predominant sensor.
Flip the telephone over and also you’ll discover a high-res 32MP selfie digital camera with quad-pixel tech that greater than suffices for informal selfies and video calls.
It could’t fairly attain the lofty heights of 4K@60fps and even 8K@24fps, however the 4K@30fps video is greater than sufficient for capturing the second, and because of OIS, it’s comparatively shake-free too.
Efficiency
- Dimensity 7030 chipset
- Ample 12GB of RAM
- Surprisingly clean efficiency
On the coronary heart of the Motorola Edge 40 Neo is MediaTek’s mid-range Dimensity 7030, coupled with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage as commonplace – a formidable mixture for the value tag.
When you shouldn’t anticipate the identical efficiency as you’d get from the flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the telephone is surprisingly succesful at on a regular basis duties with no actual indicators of stutter or lag when scrolling by means of ad-laden web sites or media-packed X timelines.
The one time I observed any type of slow-down was shortly after setting the telephone up – however in all equity, it was putting in 90+ apps on the time. As soon as that was out of the way in which, the responsive efficiency resumed.
It’s an analogous story in relation to graphics efficiency with a surprisingly respectable expertise on supply, dealing with primary titles like Survivor.io with out breaking a sweat, and it could actually run 3D video games like Name of Responsibility Cell pretty easily so long as the graphics aren’t cranked too excessive. It stays surprisingly cool underneath load too, with no noticeable heat spots on the rear after half-hour of gaming.
That’s backed up by benchmark outcomes too, with the Motorola Edge 40 Neo destroying the £300 competitors with outcomes much like what you’ll discover from the £449 Google Pixel 7a and Samsung Galaxy A54 5G. It actually punches above its weight.
In actual fact, one of many few annoyances I’ve had with the Edge 40 Neo has nothing to do with core efficiency, however the efficiency of the vibration motor – and that ought to say rather a lot.
It’s the one ingredient that rapidly alerts the telephone’s funds focus with mushy, inaccurate vibration suggestions. It bought so dangerous that I needed to disable the vibration when typing because it rapidly blended into a relentless vibration. Nevertheless, disabling it mainly fastened the problem, so it’s nowhere close to a dealbreaker.
Elsewhere, you’ll discover stereo speaker assist in addition to assist for Dolby Atmos, with the latter delivering a semi-spatial expertise when watching supported content material with headphones.
Software program
- Close to-stock Android 13
- Helpful Motorola tweaks
- Some pre-installed bloatware
The Edge 40 Neo expertise is powered by near-stock Android 13 that’d please most Android puritans, with solely a handful of Moto tweaks on supply – and the place issues are totally different, it’s typically for the higher.
That ranges from Moto Actions that assist you to do a karate chop with the telephone to toggle on the flashlight to extra superior performance like Motorola ReadyFor and Moto Safe.
ReadyFor delivers among the greatest Home windows 10/11 integration of any telephone producer in 2023, with the power to get notifications, use Android apps and even use the Edge 40 Neo’s digital camera as a webcam, additional increasing simply how helpful the telephone might be in on a regular basis use.
There’s a little little bit of bloatware, however these come within the type of apps I’d have probably downloaded anyway – TikTok, Fb and LinkedIn – together with a few outliers like Reserving.com. It’s actually removed from what you’ll discover from low-cost Xiaomi or Honor smartphones that include literal folders stuffed with pre-installed apps and video games, and you’ll uninstall something that comes pre-installed on the smartphone if you happen to hate it.
Lastly, the software program promise of three years of OS upgrades and safety patches ought to see the telephone by means of to Android 16, permitting customers to repeatedly get new options and updates that’ll maintain the telephone helpful for longer durations of time. It’s not the 7 years you’d get from the Google Pixel 8, but it surely’s actually aggressive for the funds area the place loads of telephones don’t get a single OS improve.
Battery life
- 5000mAh battery
- All-day battery life
- 68W charger included within the field
Battery life is one other space the place the Edge 40 Neo shines with a big 5000mAh cell powering the expertise. That’s a rise of 920mAh in comparison with final yr’s Edge 30 Neo that we had no complaints about, and even with a sooner 144Hz show, it’s very a lot the case right here too.
There’s no higher instance of the Edge 40 Neo’s battery longevity than my current journey to Berlin. The telephone was unplugged vivid and early at 4:30am, and after a very lengthy day catching a flight, travelling round Berlin, attending a telephone launch and going to dinner, it reached the top of the day at simply after midnight with 15% remaining.
That’s with fixed use all through the day, be it chatting on WhatsApp or snapping picture samples for this overview, with round 5 hours of screen-on time. I’m positive that true energy customers will drain it sooner, however for most individuals, it’ll be greater than sufficient for day by day use.
It additionally sports activities speedy 68W quick charging tech and, regardless of the £299 price ticket, comes with a 68W quick charger within the field. That’s sufficient to ship 50% cost in 17 minutes in my expertise, although a full cost takes a barely longer (however nonetheless comparatively quick) 50 minutes.
Newest offers
Ultimate Ideas
If Motorola got down to disrupt the funds market with the Edge 40 Neo, it has succeeded with flying colors. It’s extremely effectively specced for its £299 price ticket with a 6.5-inch curved 144Hz pOLED show, IP68 water resistance and 68W quick charging with a brick included within the field.
The digital camera setup, and the primary 50MP sensor specifically, performs effectively contemplating its worth level, capturing not solely detailed, vibrant photographs in well-lit situations however in low-light situations too. It’s not fairly as much as the extent of flagships and even the mid-range Pixel 7a, but it surely’s one of many higher implementations within the funds telephone market.
Efficiency can be surprisingly strong from the Dimensity 7030 chipset, probably aided by the plentiful 12GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage must be ample for many funds customers.
It’s additionally one of many extra distinctive choices available on the market because of Motorola’s partnership with Pantone, permitting for some actually beautiful colourways. Paired with a vegan leather-based rear and a curved show, it doesn’t look or really feel like a budget-focused smartphone.
Critically, what extra might you need for £299?
FAQs
There’s a charger within the field, and a 68W charger at that.
It gives full IP68 water resistance, permitting it to be submerged in as much as 1m of water for as much as half-hour.
