Motorola has unveiled the Motorola Edge 40 and Motorola Edge 40 Pro, successors to last year's Edge 30, Edge 30 Pro (and Edge 30 Ultra, going off the pricing). The company is aiming firmly at the high end, with an excellent choice of materials, a strong camera selection, and powerful internals. As with many Android phones this year, both entries in the Edge 40-series come with fast charging. The Motorola Edge 40 has 68W fast charging, while the Edge Pro comes with super-fast charging, 125W to be precise.
Following our Motorola Edge 40 Pro review, here we’ve detailed everything you need to know about the Motorola Edge 40 and the Motorola Edge 40 Pro, from pricing and availability to specs, and so on.
Cut to the chase
- What is it? Motorola's 2023 flagship
- When is it out? April 4
- How much does it cost? From £529.99 (roughly $666/ AU$997)
Motorola Edge 40 series release date and price
The Motorola Edge 40 Pro opened up the series and went on sale in the UK from April 4, at a price of £799.99 (roughly AU$1473). It was made available from Motorola's web store, as well as via Lenovo, Amazon, and Clove.
It is a little pricier than 2023's Edge 30 Pro and appears to be priced as more of a replacement to the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra. The company's choice of materials and powerful internals may well justify its price hike, though.
The Edge 40 Pro was made available in the US as the Edge Plus (2023) on May 2. It will set you back $799. As with the UK, Motorola is not going through major carriers or retail partners. It will be sold via Amazon and Best Buy, in addition to Motorola's own online store.
The smaller Motorola Edge 40 was made available later in the year on May 4 to retailers including Amazon, Currys, and John Lewis, as well as carriers such as Three, and Vodafone in the UK. You'll also find it directly through Motorola's and (potentially) Lenovo's online stores. It may follow the trajectory of the Motorola Edge 40 Pro and be sold as the Motorola Edge (2023) in the US, though that has yet to be confirmed.
Motorola Edge 40 series design and display
The Motorola Edge 40 Pro is a very premium-looking and premium-feeling device. Gone are the plastic and Gorilla Glass 3 of last year. Instead, it's a metal and glass sandwich phone. Much like the Oppo Find X5 (non Pro), it has soft-touch matte glass on the rear and Gorilla Glass Victus, with anti-glare protection, on the front.
The screen is still big though, at 6.67-inches. It’s a Full HD+ panel – as one expects on phones of this caliber and price – with a pixel density of 394ppi. This means that it's sharp and it should feel responsive too, really responsive, thanks to a peak 165Hz refresh rate.
Design-wise, the Edge 40 Pro is a big-screen candybar phone. It has a slight curve along its sides, while the screen is uninterrupted with a punch-hole camera in the top-center housing its 32MP selfie camera. At the rear, you'll find a triple-sensor camera layout.
The Motorola Edge 40 Pro comes complete with an IP68 rating; this means, like many other flagships (but unlike the Moto Edge 30 Pro), it’s capable of being submerged in water and is protected from dust.
You can purchase it in Interstellar Black or Lunar Blue colorways.
The Motorola Edge 40 looks quite similar to the Edge 40 Pro, but it's smaller and there's some variance in the materials. The Eclipse Black colorway is made of Vegan Leather, while the Nebula Green and Lunar Blue are your typical glass and metal phones.
The display is big, though not quite as big as the Edge 40 Pro. It's 6.55 inches with a Full HD+ AMOLED affair. High refresh rates are here too, though it's a 144Hz peak and not the 165Hz of the Edge 40 Pro. That's still a step above the 90 or 120Hz you'll find in phones of this price range.
As with the Edge 40 Pro, it has a slight curve along its sides, though less so. Round the front, the screen is uninterrupted with a punch-hole camera in the top-center. At the rear, you'll find a double-sensor camera layout.
Once again, and as with the Motorola Edge 40, it comes complete with an IP68 rating.
Motorola Edge 40 series specs
The Motorola Edge 40 Pro is a proper flagship, comparable to the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and the OnePlus 11. This means you'll find a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor inside; with all the performance and efficiency upgrades that it entails. There's a 4, 600 mAh battery in the Edge 40 Pro to keep it running, and the Edge Plus (2023) only differs here with a larger 5,000 mAh battery. 125W super-fast charging is the same on both, however.
It has 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM, with either 256 or 512GB of UFS4.0 storage. It has all the latest connectivity standards too, including USB 3.2, Bluetooth 5.3, WiFi 6E and WiFi 7, and 5G, naturally.
There’s a set of stereo speakers at the top and at the bottom of the 40 Pro, tuned by Dolby Atmos. You can use dual-SIM functionality on this device too, should you choose to adopt an eSIM for your work number or whatever else.
The cameras on the Motorola Edge 40 Pro are decent too, with a triple 50-megapixel camera on the rear for wide, ultra-wide, and telephoto scenarios.
The Motorola Edge 40 is also a flagship, but it's more comparable to the base S23 and iPhone 14 than their larger, more specced-out siblings.
There is no Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 here, Motorola has opted for a MediaTek 8020 here. It's a fairly powerful chip on paper, but an unknown quantity. The Edge 40 is the first phone to have adopted it as of its announcement. The battery is smaller here at 4,400 mAh, but it has less to do so it may not be an issue. 68W fast charging is also here to get you up and running fast if that battery isn't long enough for your liking.
It has 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM with 256 UFS 3.1 storage. It has all the connectivity standards you'd need, including USB 3.2, Bluetooth 5.2, WiFi 6, and 5G too.
As with the Edge 40 Pro, you'll find stereo speakers and Dolby Atmos too, as well as dual-SIM enabled by eSIM. Camera-wise, the Edge 40 has a 50MP main camera with a 13MP ultrawide camera, and a 32MP front-facing camera. Though it has one fewer camera than the Pro, it remains a pretty compelling package.
