Motorola Edge 40 Neo: A Budget Smartphone with Premium Features

Motorola's latest offering, the Edge 40 Neo, is a budget-friendly smartphone that packs an array of impressive features without breaking the bank. Priced at Rs 23,000, it has garnered considerable attention in the market, with reports of it being sold out in various online channels. After using the phone as my daily driver for a month, including a trip to the historic city of Murshidabad, here are my insights.

Design and Feel

The Motorola Edge 40 Neo closely resembles its elder sibling, the Edge 40, with a couple of notable differences. Instead of a metal frame, it opts for a plastic one and foregoes wireless charging. I had the pleasure of using the Caneel Bay color variant, a sparkling turquoise-blue shade certified by Pantone, a renowned color authority. The color is eye-catching, and the vegan leather back adds to the aesthetic appeal. It offers a matte finish, ensuring a non-slip grip and sturdiness, allowing for use without a protective case if you're not concerned about potential dirt. The phone's dimensions - 159.63 mm length, 7.89 mm thickness, 71.99 mm width, and 172 gm weight - make it lightweight and comfortable for one-handed use.

Display

The Edge 40 Neo features a 6.55-inch curved pOLED display, an impressive feature for its price range. It boasts full-HD resolution, a 144 Hz refresh rate, and 1,300 nits of peak brightness. The display has minimal bezels, offering a sharp and crisp viewing experience with good visibility in outdoor conditions, although a higher peak brightness would have been appreciated. Enjoying multimedia content is a delight, and OTT apps look vibrant on the phone, thanks to its support for Widevine L1 and HDR-10+. The dual-speaker setup provides excellent audio clarity.

Performance

Powering the Edge 40 Neo is the octa-core MediaTek Dimensity 7030, a 6nm processor, making it the first phone to run on this chip. My review unit came with 12GB LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB of internal memory with UFS 2.2 storage speed. In day-to-day usage, the phone felt responsive, with minimal lags or hiccups, including smooth app opening/closing and multitasking. However, the phone tended to get warm during intensive tasks and gaming. Software updates are a concern, as I received only one with the September security patch, despite Motorola's promise of two OS updates and three years of security patch updates.

Gaming on the Edge 40 Neo is impressive, allowing for seamless gameplay of high-end titles like BGMI, Call of Duty, and Genshin Impact at high settings without overheating issues.

Camera

The Edge 40 Neo features a dual-camera setup on the rear, with a 50-MP primary shooter (f/1.8 aperture, OIS, and Ultra Pixel technology) and a 13-MP ultra-wide shooter (EIS and autofocus). The front camera is 32-MP. Motorola's camera performance has improved, with images appearing sharp and vibrant in normal conditions, though edge detection still requires refinement. Night mode picture quality and processing speed could be enhanced. The phone offers 4K video recording at 30FPS for both front and rear cameras, with useful features like portrait video mode and low-light mode. Video stabilization is good, but night video clarity could be better.

Battery

The Edge 40 Neo is equipped with a 5000mAh battery, surpassing the 4,400mAh of its higher-end sibling, the Motorola Edge 40. With regular usage, the battery easily lasts a day, thanks to the efficient MediaTek Dimensity 9000 processor. For casual users, a single charge in the morning suffices for a full day, while intensive gamers may need more. The phone includes an 89-watt Turbocharger that offers fast charging, taking a little over an hour to reach a full charge from 2-3 percent.

Software

Running on Android 13-based MY UX, the Moto Edge 40 Neo provides a near stock-Android experience without bloatware. It includes useful Moto apps like Thinkshield and PIN scrambler for enhanced security. The operating system is fast and responsive, with strong 5G network reception. Dual-5G, Wi-Fi calling, Bluetooth 5.3, NFC, and Wi-Fi 6 support ensure seamless connectivity. While 5G network reception and call clarity are excellent, the microphone volume seemed slightly low in certain situations.

Verdict

The Moto Edge 40 Neo is a feature-packed smartphone that inherits many qualities from its elder sibling, the Moto Edge 40. It offers a range of features that are impressive for its price, including a sleek design, curved AMOLED display with a high refresh rate, NFC, dual speakers, IP68-rating, and a processor that handles tasks efficiently. Although it has some room for improvement in camera performance, software updates, and handling accidental touches due to the curved screen, these aspects do not overshadow its attractive pricing. Overall, it stands out as a budget smartphone with premium features.