Weekly poll: is the Motorola Edge 40 Pro your next flagship?

Motorola is launching the Moto Edge 40 Pro in Europe in the coming days and will soon make it available in South America as well. The base model has 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage and costs €900/£800. That’s less than you’d pay for a Samsung Galaxy S23+.

And the Motorola has certain advantages. For example, its 6.67-inch OLED display is a 10-bit panel with a 165Hz refresh rate. It doesn’t have a QHD+ resolution (it’s FHD+) and isn’t an LTPO panel, but it the same goes for the Samsung.

Both phones are powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, but as we mentioned before, the Moto has more RAM. You can’t even get 12GB on the Galaxy even if you were willing to pay the extra. Moreover, the near stock Android will be updated 4 times and the phone is considering 5 years of security patches. Extensive software support has been one of the greatest strengths of Galaxy phones and Motorola aims to match them.

The main 50MP cameras of both are quite similar (1.0µm pixels, OIS), the Moto leads with a 50MP ultrawide module (vs 12MP) but falls behind with a 2x12MP telephoto camera (vs 3x 10MP) . The 60MP selfie camera looks good on paper but lacks autofocus.

Finally, Motorola fitted the Pro with a slightly smaller 4,600mAh battery (100mAh less on the S23+) but absolutely tops the Samsung in terms of charging speed – the 125W wired adapter can charge complete in less than 25 minutes, the Samsung reaches 58% in 30 minutes. And unlike many phones with super-fast wired charging, it doesn’t come at the expense of wireless charging. It’s only 15W but that’s enough for most use cases.

The OnePlus 11 is an example of this – it does 100W on a wire, wireless charging was cut off while present on the 10 Pro. Anyway, this phone currently costs €850 for an 8/128 GB unit and €920 for 16/256 GB.

Unlike Motorola and Samsung, the OnePlus 11 has a QHD+ LTPO display (120Hz). Its 32MP 2x zoom camera is better than the Edge’s, not with its optics but with its higher-resolution sensor that enables digital zoom. This phone is also configured for 4 OS updates and 5 years of security patches.

Samsung Galaxy S23+ • OnePlus 11 • Xiaomi 13 • Google Pixel 7 Pro

The Google Pixel 7 Pro regularly drops to €800 (or less) for a 12/128GB phone and the 256GB option usually only costs a small premium. This one also has a QHD+ LTPO (120Hz) display and also packs a proper 5x periscope with a 48MP sensor behind it. Charging the 5,000mAh battery is slow (23W wired and wireless) and the Tensor G2 is no match for the Snapdragon in terms of CPU and GPU performance (but it has plenty of AI power).

What else? A Xiaomi 13 (the vanilla model, the Pro is much more expensive) could be an option, costing €1,000 for an 8/256GB unit. Like the Samsung, this one only has a non-LTPO FHD+ display (120Hz), although its 6.36-inch size helps. This one doesn’t have the 1” sensor of its Pro sibling (instead it has a 50MP 1.0µm sensor), it also has a decent 3.2x 10MP tele camera, plus 67W wired charging and 50W wireless charging for its 4500mAh battery.

Motorola Edge 40 Pro

So what’s it gonna be? Does the Motorola Edge 40 Pro look like the flagship you’ve been waiting for at the right price or has Moto missed the mark? Were you hoping for a cheaper Moto 40 instead?

By the way, we have the Moto Edge 40 Pro for review, so expect a detailed report soon.