The Motorola Edge 40 is the first smartphone in the new Edge series to be launched in India. It has premium hardware and is very aggressively priced in the upper mid-range segment. Motorola calls the Edge 40 a “flagship killer” and costs Rs. Priced at $29,999, it packs a lot of premium features. Is the Edge 40 the real deal? While our review is ongoing, here are our first impressions of the phone.
When it comes to sales packaging, Motorola is going the environmentally friendly route. Thankfully, it’s just limited to the packaging materials, which consist of plastic-free wrappers, a recyclable cardboard lid, and soy ink for the printed text. A charger and a USB Type-C cable are included in the scope of delivery. The company also included a transparent hard case with the Edge 40, along with some documents and the SIM eject tool.
A 68 W charger is included with the Motorola Edge 40
As for the phone itself, the Motorola Edge 40 was launched in two flavors. The color we have is called Nebula Green and it comes with a vegan leather back. There’s also an Eclipse Black variant with a vegan leather back, and a Lunar Blue variant with a PMMA acrylic finish that’s essentially plastic but has a frosted, glass-like appearance.
The Motorola Edge 40 is quite slim at 7.58mm and weighs just 171g. Notably, the blue plastic-backed variant is slightly slimmer and lighter. The metal frame gives the Edge 40 a premium touch and contributes to the good hand feel. Unlike most phones on the market, the Motorola Edge 40 has a curved frame and back that makes it fit comfortably in the palm of your hand.
The phone is also IP68 certified and is said to be the world’s slimmest 5G smartphone to receive official certification for water and dust resistance. Notably, it is also the cheapest smartphone in India at the moment with an IP68 rating.
On the front, the Motorola Edge 40 features a 6.55-inch pOLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate. The curved-edge screen has a cutout at the top for a 32-megapixel front-facing camera. The Full HD+ display receives HDR10+ certification and is said to offer a peak brightness of up to 1,200 nits.
The Motorola Edge 40’s curved display has a fairly thin chin frame
The Motorola Edge 40 has a dual camera setup on the back. It has a 50-megapixel primary camera with an f/1.47 aperture, the largest in the segment. In theory, it should help capture more light while maintaining a fast shutter speed. There’s also a 13-megapixel ultra-wide camera with autofocus, so it can also be used to take macro pictures. Additionally, the Edge 40’s ultra-wide camera can capture 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm portrait mode images. We test how well these functions actually work in the detailed test report.
Under the hood is a MediaTek Dimensity 8020 SoC based on a 6 nm manufacturing process. The device ships in India with 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. It also packs a large 4,400mAh battery with support for 68W TurboPower fast charging out of the box. The Edge 40 also supports 15W wireless charging.
The Motorola Edge 40 comes with no preinstalled bloatware apps
In terms of software, the Motorola Edge 40 runs on the Android 13-based MyUX skin. It offers a near-stock Android experience with some additional customization and personalization features. There are also some nice productivity, security, and connectivity features like ThinkShield, Ready For, and more, which we’ll talk about in the full review coming to Gadgets 360 soon.
