Skip to main content

Motorola’s newest phone has something we’ve never seen before

Motorola is on a roll, having now announced the Motorola Edge 40 smartphone on the back of the Motorola Edge+ (2023) and the Motorola Edge 40 Pro.

Don’t bother looking into Motorola’s naming style too deeply, though, as all you need to know is the Edge 40 series is for the U.K. and various other regions, while the Edge+ (2023) is for the U.S. It means the Edge 40 seen here may arrive at a later date in the U.S., but be called something else.

The Motorola Edge 40 in green.
Motorola

Made of aluminum and with a vegan leather rear panel, the Edge 40 is just under 8mm thick and has an IP68 water and dust resistance rating, so it should prove relatively hardwearing. The screen is a 6.55-inch pOLED with a Full HD+ resolution, making it a little smaller than the other two recent Edge models, and the refresh rate has dropped to 144Hz rather than 165Hz, but you almost certainly won’t notice the change in the real world.

Interestingly, Motorola has chosen MediaTek to power the Edge 40, and it’s the first time we’ve seen the Dimensity 8020 in a smartphone. The octa-core, 2.6GHz chip is accompanied by 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage space, and it runs Android 13 with all the usual Motorola additions. These include the Ready For software to connect to a PC, and Motorola’s ThinkSheild security platform, just like on the Motorola ThinkPhone. And that’s not where the similarities end between these two Moto phones.

The Motorola Edge 40 in black.
Motorola

On the back of the Edge 40 is a 50-megapixel main camera, which is likely the same one fitted to the Edge 40 Pro, the Edge+ (2023), and the Motorola ThinkPhone too. It comes with a 13MP wide-angle camera with a macro mode, and on the front is a 32MP selfie camera. This setup is just like the ThinkPhone, and you can see what we thought of it in our ThinkPhone review.

Finally, all this is kept powered up by a 4,400mAh battery that’s recharged using Motorola’s proprietary 68W TurboPower fast charging system (or with 15W wireless charging). While the charging system is the same as the Edge+ (2023) and the ThinkPhone, the battery has a smaller capacity which may see it struggle to last a couple of days if pushed hard.

Motorola Edge 40 being put into a pocket.
Motorola

Motorola will release the Edge 40 in the U.K. for 530 British pounds, which is around $666, through its own online store and several retailers — including Currys and John Lewis, along with Vodafone and Three.

The price sees it undercut the OnePlus 11 and the Google Pixel 7, meaning it’s going to compete with phones like the Samsung Galaxy A54.

Editors' Recommendations

Andy Boxall
Senior Mobile Writer
Andy is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends, where he concentrates on mobile technology, a subject he has written about for…
This leaked Motorola phone looks like the foldable of my dreams
Leaked render of a new Motorola Razr phone

When you think of a foldable flip phone these days, the first thing that comes to mind is probably the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4. But Motorola may have a strong competitor coming soon that will beat the Z Flip 4 in one particular area: the cover display.

Twitter user Evan Blass (who has a private account) posted what appears to be renders of a next-generation Motorola Razr phone. You’ll find a lot in common with its predecessor, including the same flat design with a dual-camera layout. However, the biggest change is with the cover display, which takes up pretty much the entire outer part of the phone — including the areas around the camera lenses. The images themselves do look a little rough, however, so this may not be indicative of the final product.

Read more
This may be the strangest iPhone mod we’ve ever seen
A modded iPhone with a Lightning and USB-C port on the bottom.

Apple is rumored to be working on an iPhone with USB-C this year, but creative users have taken matters into their own hands and created their own USB-C-equipped iPhones. The latest of such mods is by an engineer who created an iPhone with both a USB-C port and a Lightning port side by side.

The iPhone mod comes from an engineer on YouTube. Using an iPhone 12 mini (though presumably, any iPhone would work), the engineer added another port to the iPhone. This means that not only is this modded iPhone capable of using the modern USB-C standard, but it can also do something as simple as listening to music through wired headphones while charging. Apple's iPhones are capable of playing music through the Lightning port, so any combination of USB-C and Lightning-wired headphones or charger would work.

Read more
5 things the iPhone has to change in 2023 before I ditch Android
iPhone 14 Pro with a black always-on screen.

The iPhone’s operating system is many things, but perfect is not one of them. It’s been two years since I shifted to using an iPhone as my primary device, but I still use an Android as my secondary smartphone. And if I weren’t invested in the Apple ecosystem, I would have ditched my iPhone a long time ago.

I have been hoping desperately for iOS to get better at some things Android has been doing for years. For instance, I love scrolling through Twitter while watching a music video on YouTube. I can do this simultaneously on an Android thanks to multiwindow support, but iOS only offers picture-in-picture at best.

Read more