Motorola’s Edge 40 Neo is here to shake up the budget smartphone market with a premium design and impressive specs to match – but how does it compare to its predecessor, the Motorola Edge 30 Neo?
The Motorola Edge 30 Neo was a strong smartphone for its £349 price tag with gorgeous Pantone-certified colourways, a solid 120Hz OLED display and 68W fast charging tech. The Edge 40 Neo looks to take that to the next level with a faster, larger display, more colour options, a larger battery and much more – all while coming in at a cheaper price point than its predecessor.
We’ve not fully reviewed the Motorola Edge 40 Neo just yet, but we have gone hands-on ahead of its reveal, and we’ve spent a lot of time with its predecessor, the Motorola Edge 30 Neo. That said, here’s how the two compare to help you decide which is best for your needs.
Both sport Pantone-certified colourways
Motorola kicked off its partnership with colour experts Pantone with the Motorola Edge 30 Neo and its Veri Peri finish, Pantone’s official colour of the year 2022. It’s a stunningly vibrant finish that allows the Edge 30 Neo to stand out in a sea of black, white and silver slabs.
That trend continued in 2023 with the likes of the Razr 40 Ultra and now, the Edge 40 Neo. This year, it’s available in three amazing Pantone-certified shades including Black Beauty, Soothing Sea and Caneel Bay.
The Caneel Bay finish was a particular favourite of ours during our hands-on session, with a bright, eye-catching finish matched by a premium-feeling vegan leather rear that helps make the Edge 40 Neo feel much more premium in the hand than its predecessor.
The Motorola Edge 40 Neo has a bigger, faster screen
Last year’s Motorola Edge 30 Neo had a respectable 6.28-inch OLED display with a smooth 120Hz refresh rate that made for a comfortable one-handed experience, but it lacked some of the bells and whistles of similarly priced smartphones.
Motorola looks to rectify that with the Edge 40 Neo, which not only has a larger, curved 6.5-inch pOLED display, but it’s faster at a super smooth 144Hz and boasts support for both HDR10+ and Dolby Atmos content with a peak brightness of 1300 nits.
That’s a roundabout way of saying that the Edge 40 Neo’s display is bigger, faster and all-round more capable than the Edge 30 Neo’s panel – though whether anyone can tell the difference between 144Hz and 120Hz in normal use is a different story altogether. Still, it looks impressive on paper!
The Motorola Edge 30 Neo sports Qualcomm’s mid-range Snapdragon 695 chipset with either 6- or 8GB of RAM and 128- or 256GB of storage to play with. We found that the chipset was more than capable of smooth everyday operations with very little in the way of noticeable slow-down, no doubt aided by the smooth 120Hz refresh rate.
However, we found that it struggled when it came to more complex tasks like 3D gaming, with PUBG needing to run at a lower resolution to be playable at a decent frame rate.
There’s hope that the MediaTek Dimensity 7030 within the Motorola Edge 40 Neo will change things somewhat, especially with its boosted 8- or 12GB of RAM and 128- or 256GB of storage available under the hood.
It’s not a chipset we’ve had much experience with at Trusted Reviews, though we did note in our hands-on that the phone felt snappy in everyday use. As with the Edge 30 Neo, gaming will likely pose a real challenge – but exactly how much is yet to be seen.
The Motorola Edge 40 Neo has a larger battery
With a larger display comes more space in the chassis, and Motorola has used most of that extra space in the Edge 40 Neo to accommodate a larger battery than its predecessor. More specifically, the Edge 40 Neo sports a 5,000mAh cell, 980mAh more than the 4020mAh cell of the Edge 30 Neo.
That might not translate to markedly better battery life than its predecessor with a larger, faster display to power, but there could be marginal year-on-year gains. We’ll be putting it to the test once we get a sample into the office for review.
For what it’s worth, even with a smaller battery, we found the Motorola Edge 30 Neo would deliver solid all-day battery life, though it didn’t quite boast the longevity to last into a second. Will the Edge 40 Neo? We’ll have to wait and see.
Regardless, both smartphones boast rapid 68W fast charging tech with the fast charger bundled in the box, which delivers 50% charge in just 15-20 minutes.
The Motorola Edge 40 Neo is cheaper
Despite the various upgrades on offer from the Motorola Edge 40 Neo, it actually comes in at £50 cheaper than its predecessor at just £299. Of course, it has been a year since the release of the Edge 30 Neo, and as such, it’s available at a cheaper price than its original £349 RRP, but there isn’t that much in it.
That said, it seems like the Motorola Edge 40 Neo is the one to go for if you’re stuck between the two.
