The Motorola Edge 40 launches as a fast-charging Pixel 7 rival

Motorola today announced the Motorola Edge 40, the latest entry into its flagship Motorola Edge line and the base model of its current Motorola Edge 40 series. This comes after the launches of the Motorola Edge 40 Pro in April and the Motorola Edge 2023 Plus on May 2.

Unlike the Motorola Edge 40 Pro which had first debuted in China as the Motorola X40, the Edge 40 is an entirely new phone. It’s powered by a MediaTek 8020 chipset – a step down from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, but still an extremely capable chip. There’s 8GB of RAM to keep it moving, and 256GB of storage to keep all your files, your movies, your apps, and your games. Once you’ve downloaded all your content, it has a medium-sized 6.55-inch Full HD display with a 90Hz refresh rate to view everything on.

When it comes to the camera, Motorola has included a dual-sensor setup here, unlike the Edge 40 Pro (which has three on the back). It sports a 50-megapixel main sensor and a 13MP ultra-wide camera. Round the front, there’s a 32MP punch-hole camera, which sounds impressive on the surface until you remember that the Pro boasts a whopping 60MP sensor. Powering all that is a 4,400mAh battery and super-fast 68W wired charging (plus 15W wireless charging).

The Motorola Edge 40 will be made available as of May 4 to retailers including Amazon, Curry’s, and John Lewis, as well as carriers such as Three, and Vodafone in the UK. It’s also expected to be sold online through Motorola and (possibly) Lenovo stores. The phone will set you back £529.99 (around $666 and AU$997) and come in Nebula Green, Lunar Blue, and Eclipse Black colorways – the latter of which is a vegan leather variant, as opposed to the standard metal and glass sandwich.

 Putting the Pixel 7 in second place? 

(Image credit: Motorola)

In our Motorola Edge 40 Pro review, we found the phone to be a capable Pixel 7 Pro rival. The Motorola Edge 40 naturally would slot in as a Pixel 7 rival, then. Most of the best Android phones feature software experiences that are very different from what Google offers on its own Pixel phones. Since Samsung, Xiaomi, and Oppo sell the lion’s share of Android phones globally, that variety is no bad thing for most people. At the same time, if you prefer Google’s take on Android Motorola’s phones off similarly clean, Pixel-like software.

It’s not a one-to-one comparison, there are areas where we intuitively feel Motorola does better in hardware and software than Google. While testing the Edge 40 Pro out, we noted that there are a few more customization options on Motorola’s version of Android than a Pixel’s. As for hardware, the display is bigger and a little nicer, which if you read a lot ebooks or watch Netflix and Prime Video often, is something you’d likely appreciate. The camera has more pixels to play with and, of course, there’s more storage in the base model of the Edge 40 than the Pixel. The battery and charging are almost certainly better. The Pixel 7, of course, will win when it comes to camera output and OS updates, but it’s great to see that Motorola’s phones are able to contend with what are regarded as the definitive Android phones.

We’ll have the Motorola Edge 40 reviewed so, so expect to see more of our thoughts there and assume it’ll at least find a spot among our rundown of the best Motorola phones, if not some of our other buying guides.