Motorola Edge 40 Neo review – between top smartphone and entry-level model

With smartphones such as the Edge 40 Neo, you need to ask yourself which aspects are important to you and which ones you’re willing to compromise on. After all, a mid-range smartphone won’t be great across the board. On the flip side, it’s affordable.

The Edge 40 Neo is waterproof according to IP68. Motorola’s equipped it with an AMOLED display, but only the ten-year-old Gorilla Glass 3 technology. There are four newer generations of the scratch-resistant glass.

Grippy, colourful back and rounded display

Motorola has been cooperating with Pantone for quite some time now. While other models are usually only available in one version in the proprietary colour space, the Edge 40 Neo comes in three colours – including black. The latter features a matt acrylic back. My blue – Caneel Bay, as Pantone calls it – test device has a soft, grippy back made of artificial aka vegan leather.

The front of the phone boasts a 6.55-inch AMOLED display. With a refresh rate of 144 hertz and a resolution of 2400 × 1080 pixels, the display leaves nothing to be desired. It offers vivid colours, high brightness – 1300 nits at peak – and a detailed image. Personally, I don’t like the rounded edges on the long sides of the display, as they often produce annoying reflections.

The fingerprint sensor is located underneath the display. There’s an icon indicating where to place your finger to unlock it. This usually works quickly and reliably.

IP68 certification is exceptional for a mid-range smartphone. It guarantees that the Edge 40 Neo survives in water for 30 minutes in a depth of 1.5 metres – provided it’s clean fresh water and the phone isn’t damaged.

Enough power, modern standards and okay battery

The Edge 40 Neo is powered by a new chipset – the Mediatek Dimensity 7030. Motorola only presented the 6-nanometre SoC in September 2023. It equips the smartphone with 5G, Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. The eight computing cores – two high-clocked for demanding tasks and six low-power cores – are supported by a Mali-G610 for graphics calculations.

Compared to the Dimensity 7020 in the Moto G54, which struggles in the graphics tests, the Dimensity 7030 in the Edge 40 Neo delivers better results in the benchmarks. The Edge is roughly on par with the Galaxy A34’s Dimensity 1080 in the CPU tests and performs slightly worse in the GPU tests. The mid-range smartphone doesn’t stand a chance against the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 that powers the Edge 40 Pro. However, it usually has enough power for everyday use and doesn’t show long loading times.

Here, Motorola offers the Edge 40 Neo with 12 gigabytes of RAM and 256 gigabytes of storage space for data. You can’t insert a microSD card. In other countries, the manufacturer also offers a version with 8 gigabytes of RAM and 128 gigabytes of storage.

At 5,000 mAh, the Edge 40 Neo’s battery offers average capacity for a smartphone. At full display brightness, it lasts 7 hours 10 minutes in the Work 3.0 battery test. This means the Edge 40 Neo performs better than the Pixel 8 Pro and is clearly behind the Nothing Phone (2) and the cheaper Moto G84 from Motorola. Having said that, the Pixel 8 Pro has a much brighter display. Doesn’t sound impressive, but gets me through the day.

The power supply unit that comes with the Edge 40 Neo delivers up to 68 watts of power, which promises to charge the smartphone battery to 50 percent in 15 minutes. The speed decreases slightly as the charging level increases. The battery is fully charged after 40 to 45 minutes.

Average camera – relies on light

Unlike a top smartphone, the Edge 40 Neo doesn’t offer a telephoto camera. Nevertheless, there are two cameras on the back: the main camera with a resolution of 50 megapixels and an ultra-wide-angle camera with 13 megapixels.

Motorola uses pixel binning for the main camera, which gives the photos a resolution of 12.6 megapixels. This also applies to RAW shots in pro mode. I haven’t found a way to use the full resolution.

Contrast and colours – muted but natural

The colours look less vibrant than on other smartphones. This may make them appear less attractive at first glance, but in my opinion, they look very natural. Especially considering the light conditions in Hamburg’s autumn are rather dull.

In these conditions, there are rarely strong contrasts. The camera does a good job of bringing out the clouds in the sky. When comparing the main and ultra-wide-angle cameras, it’s noticeable that the latter becomes blurrier towards the corners.

Using the digital zoom doesn’t improve image quality. The Edge 40 Neo offers 8× zoom maximum, but you’ll stop after 2× zoom, as that’s already not great.

Portrait in three focal lengths

Switch to portrait mode and you’ll notice that the image quality isn’t only poor, but also depends on the distance of the subject and the lighting. In the portrait below, I’m nice and sharp, the background is blurred and the borders aren’t always perfect. Portrait mode offers three focal lengths, corresponding to 24, 35 and 50 mm in 35 mm format.

Not a smartphone for dark nights

If it gets dark, the picture quality drops rapidly. You’ll recognise what’s on the photo, but the level of detail is poor, especially with the ultra-wide-angle camera. Night mode, with its slightly longer exposure time, only improves photos taken with the main camera in this respect.

Selfies – yes, but only in good lighting

The Edge 40 Neo’s front camera has a resolution of 32 megapixels. Unlike the main camera, it doesn’t offer pixel binning. If 32 megapixels is too much for you and you want to save storage space, you can change it to 8 megapixels in the camera settings. The quality of selfies is okay, but not outstanding. The level of detail is sufficient, whereas the colours could be a bit more vivid.

Darkness also has a negative impact on the image quality of the front camera. The following photo was taken in night mode with a slightly longer exposure time.

Android with some handy and some useless apps

Motorola delivers the Edge 40 Neo with Android 13. An update to Android 14 is planned, but Motorola hasn’t yet specified a time frame. The smartphone will receive updates for a total of four years, including two to three Android versions. That’s not bad, but other manufacturers promise longer update periods.

Motorola has added numerous apps of its own to Android. The Moto app, for instance, offers a good overview of some settings. Family Space allows you to set up an area for your children where they can only access selected apps. «Ready for» connects the Edge 40 Neo to your Windows computer.

Unfortunately, Motorola has its fair share of bloatware, too. The four pre-installed third-party apps can, however, be uninstalled in no time.

Conclusion – okay, but the competition is strong

The blue version of the Motorola Edge 40 Neo is particularly eye-catching. I also really like the grippy back. The display looks good, but features ten-year-old glass technology.

Featuring a mid-range chipset, the smartphone offers more than enough power and an okay battery life. The cameras are average and need sufficient lighting to perform well. In this price range, you won’t get a telephoto camera (yet). The software is useful for the moment, but not as future-proof as with other manufacturers.

With the Galaxy A34, Samsung offers a tough competitor that’s in the same price range as the Edge 40 Neo – or even slightly cheaper.

Header image: Jan Johannsen