Motorola still makes flagship phones: Meet the Edge 40 Pro

These days Motorola is mostly known as a mid- to low-end smartphone manufacturer thanks to product lines like the Moto G, but the Lenovo division still makes flagship smartphones. The latest is the Motorola Edge 40 Pro, which the company says is headed to Europe in a few days and Latin America in a few weeks. The US is left out of the party, but Motorola's latest blog post promises to "expand the edge family in North America this year." (Presumably, Lenovo's flagship US phone is supposed to be excitingly branded "ThinkPhone," but that still hasn't launched yet despite being announced three months ago.)

In Europe, the Edge 40 Pro is 899.99 euro, or about $982, so this phone needs to be on par with the best Android phones out there. The specs are close, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, 12GB of RAM, and 256GB of UFS 4.0 storage. The OLED display has a unique stat line of 165 Hz with a 2400×1080 resolution—typically flagships have a 120 Hz display at 1440p. The battery is smaller than expected at 4600 mAh, when most phones pack in 5000 mAh at this size.

It has IP68 dust and water resistance, Android 13, Wi-Fi 7 support, NFC, an in-screen fingerprint reader, and 15 W wireless charging. One standout is the 125 W wired charging, which Motorola says will charge the phone in 23 minutes. For cameras, Motorola has included a "triple high-res camera system," which includes a 50 MP main camera, a wide-angle camera, and a 12 MP 2x telephoto camera on the back; the front has a 60 MP selfie camera.

A lot of phones approach stereo speakers with one speaker on the bottom edge of the phone and then the earpiece doubling as a top speaker, but Motorola went the unique route of having a speaker cutout on the top edge of the phone, just like the bottom. Besides that, not much sets the design apart, and it's barely distinguishable from the pile of mid-rangers Motorola pumps out every few months. It has a curved screen, metal frame, glass front and back—all the usual stuff.

Motorola still loves the idea of a phone that can turn into a desktop computer, and this phone includes Motorola's "Ready for" software. The phone's USB-C port allows DisplayPort, and plugging the phone into a monitor will boot over into a Windows-style desktop mode, where you can use the phone screen as a trackpad.

Software support is a big reason not to buy Motorola phones, since the company is the worst Android OEM for after-sales software support. You don't have to look far to find disappointed customers. Motorola has not announced any official update plan for this phone. When we last heard from the company, the Edge 2022 was promising three years of OS upgrades and four years of bi-monthly (every other month) security updates. The problem is when will those updates arrive? This phone's predecessor, the Motorola Edge 30 Pro, only started to get Android 13 last month in some countries. So that's about seven months after Android 13 arrived, and that cadence is good for Motorola. Also, don't be surprised if the company misses some of those security updates for a few months.

Listing image by Motorola