Motorola’s new flagship is here with crazy-good specs and a crazier price

To start with, Motorola is now offering an ultra-high 165Hz display refresh rate on its 6.7-inch OLED screen. That’s not a record for the fastest refresh rate on a smartphone. We’ve seen devices go up to 240Hz refresh rate before. However, most regular flagships top out at 120Hz. By keeping the refresh rate at par with phones like the ROG Phone 6 Pro, Motorola is trying to woo gamers with a combination of a more affordable price, the powerful Adreno 740 GPU, and a modest Full HD+ resolution that won’t be as resource heavy as QHD+ screens found on other flagships.

Another highlight of the Motorola X40 is its 125W charging. It also features wireless charging, but that’s disappointingly low at 15W compared to 50W on the X30 Pro (Edge 30 Ultra globally) flagship from last year. Still, the wired charger should be good enough for many as it promises to top-up the phone’s 4,600mAh battery to 50% in just 7 minutes.

In terms of optics, the Motorola X40 is equipped with a 50MP primary sensor, a 50MP ultrawide lens, and a 12MP camera with 2x optical zoom. The muted camera specs indicate a Pro version of the phone may be on its way, given last year’s Edge 30 Ultra carried a 200MP shooter onboard.

Motorola X40 price and availability

Coming down to pricing, the X40 is very attractively slotted in the flagship landscape. It starts at just 3,400 Chinese yuan (~$490) for the 8GB RAM + 128GB storage version. It also has an 8GB/256GB version priced at 3,700 yuan (~$530), a 12GB/256GB variant that costs 4,000 yuan (~$573), and the highest 12GB/512GB option priced at 4,300 ($616).

The phone will be available in China starting December 22. We expect it to debut globally sometime early next year.