Moto X40 is Motorola’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2-powered flagship at mid-range price

Lenovo, the parent company of the Motorola brand, has officially announced its new flagship for 2023 in China. As expected, it’s called the Moto X40 and is equipped with the most powerful hardware available at the moment. Even if there’s no talk about it yet, this model will most likely be shipped in Europe by spring under the name Motorola Edge 40 Pro, as has been the case with X flagships in China for a few years now.

The Moto X40 is a high-end phone with a top processor and super-fast screen

As expected, the Moto X40 is equipped with Qualcomm’s latest high-end chipset: Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, 8 or 12 GB RAM and up to 512 GB internal storage. However, it seems that this generation, this model’s aim is to come at a lower price than the competition, as the base model starts at an extremely low eare, at under $500 USD after yuan conversion.

This price is surprising primarily due to the fact that in addition to the flagship processor, this model also integrates an extremely high-performance display: a 6.7″ OLED panel with Full HD+ resolution (2,400 x 1,080 pixels), but with a refresh rate of 165 Hz. Previously, we’ve only seen such frequencies on screens from gaming models. Motorola already offered 144 Hz phones, so this would be a “natural” upgrade for the brand.

On the battery life front, we might not see any upgrades. Even though the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is more efficient than last year’s model, the Moto X40 uses a 4,600 mAh battery, compared to 5,000 on the X30 variant. However, charging is significantly improved, at double the power: 125W, compared to 68W last year.

Cameras might not be as good as flagships adopting 1″ sensors next year. We’re looking at a 50-megapixel main camera, a 50-megapixel ultrawide camera, and a 12-megapixel 2x zoom camera. The front camera offers 60 megapixels.

The price is surprising

On top of all that, the Moto X40 comes with Android 13, IP68 certification and benefits from a premium material construction. The base variant (8+128GB) starts at $490, while the top variants with 12+256GB and 12+512GB go for $575 and $615 respectively. These are prices for China, however, and will increase in other regions due to local taxes and shipping costs.