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Motorola Edge 40 Pro
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Motorola Edge 40 Pro Audio test

OTHER AVAILABLE TESTS FOR THIS DEVICE

We put the Motorola Edge 40 Pro through our rigorous DXOMARK Audio test suite to measure its performance both at recording sound using its built-in microphones, and at playing audio back through its speakers.

In this review, we will break down how it fared in a variety of tests and several common use cases.

Overview


Key audio specifications include:

  • Two speakers (Top left and bottom right)
  • No Jack audio output
  • Dolby Atmos technology

Scoring

Sub-scores and attributes included in the calculations of the global score.

Motorola Edge 40 Pro
Motorola Edge 40 Pro
116
audio
115
Playback
94

158

113

149

137

162

144

162

94

157

119
Recording
92

147

107

146

129

159

160

170

95

145

105

166

Playback

Pros

Cons

Recording

Pros

  • Not too sensitive to hand occlusions or finger noises
  • Very loud recordings
  • Decent spatial performance

Cons

  • Omnipresent treble distortion
  • Badly tuned compression in most use cases
  • Unpleasant tonal balance

The Motorola Edge 40 Pro delivered a fairly underwhelming performance overall. Most notably, the sound signature was quite unpleasant and aggressive in both audio playback and recording. In playback, the Edge 40 Pro was most suited for gaming and watching movies, but showed poor results in the music use case. The device had accurate localizability of individual sound sources and good distance rendition, but the tonal balance and dynamic performance were poor.

In recording, the Edge 40 Pro performed on a similar level across all apps used for testing. The recordings were very loud and hardly affected by wind or finger noises. However, the tonal balance was unpleasant and both compression and distortion were often very noticeable.

Test summary

About DXOMARK Audio tests: For scoring and analysis in our smartphone audio reviews, DXOMARK engineers perform a variety of objective tests and undertake more than 20 hours of perceptual evaluation under controlled lab conditions.
(For more details about our Playback protocol, click here; for more details about our Recording protocol, click here.)

The following section gathers key elements of our exhaustive tests and analyses performed in DXOMARK laboratories. Detailed performance evaluations under the form of reports are available upon request. Do not hesitate to contact us.

Playback

115

Motorola Edge 40 Pro

163

Black Shark 5 Pro
How Audio Playback score is composed

DXOMARK engineers test playback through the smartphone speakers, whose performance is evaluated in our labs and in real-life conditions, using default apps and settings.

In the playback tests, the Edge 40 Pro delivered a poor timbre performance. The tonal balance sounded aggressive, which was mainly due to a harshness zone in treble and a piercing resonance. Midrange was fairly decent, but it lacked clarity and fullness. Bass was inconsistent and weak. Dynamics left some room for improvement as well. Attack felt blurry at nominal volume, and while bass precision and punch were decent at nominal volume, at maximum volume all three dynamic attributes — attack, punch and bass precision — suffered noticeably at maximum volume.

The Edge 40 Pro speakers offered decent wideness and quite accurate localizability of individual sound sources in the sound scene. While distance rendition was good, the sound scene lacked depth. Our experts found both the minimum and maximum volume settings to be loud enough, and volume distribution was very consistent. In terms of unwanted audio artifacts, our testers noticed strong distortion and significant compression at maximum volume. They also found the timbre to be impaired by aggressive treble resonance, even at nominal volume. In most hand positions, the built-in speakers were not easily occluded, however.

Listen to the tested smartphone’s playback performance in this comparison with some of its competitors:

Motorola Edge 40 Pro
Google Pixel 7 Pro
Xiaomi 13
Recordings of the smartphones playing some of our music tracks at 60 LAeq in an anechoic environment by 2 microphones in A-B configuration, at 30 cm
Here is how the Motorola Edge 40 Pro performs in playback use cases compared to its competitors:
Playback use-cases scores

Timbre

94

Motorola Edge 40 Pro

158

Black Shark 5 Pro

The Timbre score represents how well a phone reproduces sound across the audible tonal range and takes into account bass, midrange, treble, tonal balance, and volume dependency. It is the most important attribute for playback.

Music playback frequency response
A 1/12 octave frequency response graph, which measures the volume of each frequency emitted by the smartphone when playing a pure-sine wave in an anechoic environment.

Dynamics

113

Motorola Edge 40 Pro

149

Black Shark 5 Pro

The Dynamics score measures the accuracy of changes in the energy level of sound sources, for example how precisely a bass note is reproduced or the impact sound from drums.


Spatial

137

Motorola Edge 40 Pro

162

Black Shark 5 Pro

The sub-attributes for spatial tests include pinpointing a specific sound's location, its positional balance, distance, and wideness.


Volume

144

Motorola Edge 40 Pro

162

Black Shark 5 Pro

The Volume score represents the overall loudness of a smartphone and how smoothly volume increases and decreases based on user input.

Here are a few sound pressure levels (SPL) measured when playing our sample recordings of hip-hop and classical music at maximum volume:
Hip-Hop Classical
Motorola Edge 40 Pro 77.5 dBA 71.9 dBA
Google Pixel 7 Pro 73.1 dBA 68 dBA
Xiaomi 13 73.1 dBA 69.7 dBA
The following graph shows the gradual changes in volume going from minimum to maximum. We expect these changes to be consistent across the range, so that all volume steps correspond to users’ expectations:
Music volume consistency
This line graph shows the relative loudness of playback relative to the user selected volume step, measured at different volume steps with a correlated pink noise in an anechoic box recorded in axis at 0.20 meter.

Artifacts

94

Motorola Edge 40 Pro

157

Asus ROG Phone 5

The Artifacts score measures the extent to which the sound is affected by various types of distortion. The higher the score, the less the disturbances in the sound are noticeable. Distortion can occur because of sound processing in the device and because of the quality of the speakers.

Playback Total Harmonic Distortion (Maximum Volume)
This graph shows the Total Harmonic Distortion and Noise over the hearable frequency range.
It represents the distortion and noise of the device playing our test signal (0 dB Fs, Sweep Sine in an anechoic box at 40 cm) at the device's maximum volume.

Recording

119

Motorola Edge 40 Pro

160

Honor Magic6 Pro
How Audio Recording score is composed

DXOMARK engineers test recording by evaluating the recorded files on reference audio equipment. Those recordings are done in our labs and in real-life conditions, using default apps and settings.

Timbre in recording was below average, with a very heterogeneous tonal balance that lacked consistency between use cases. Treble could be harsh, midrange sounded hollow, and bass was weak and inconsistent. In terms of dynamics, the signal-to-noise ratio was acceptable, but envelope rendition was inconsistent, especially when recording concerts, where compression and distortion were quite intrusive. Spatial performance was generally good, with good wideness across all use cases as well as decent localizability and distance rendering.

Volume was a strong point for the Motorola Edge 40 Pro, with exceptionally loud recordings. This said, results in the maximum loudness tests were not good, indicating that the input gain may be set too high. Our experts also found a range of unwanted audio artifacts in recording. Compression was noticeable at nominal volumes and became more intrusive at high sound pressure levels, for example when recording loud concerts. Distortion was also noticeable across all use cases but mainly affected higher frequencies. On the plus side, hand occlusions of the microphones were not an issue on the Motorola. Background performance could have been better, with the background tonal balance usually sounding  harsh and intrusive.

Here is how the Motorola Edge 40 Pro performs in recording use cases compared to its competitors:

Recording use-cases scores

Timbre

92

Motorola Edge 40 Pro

147

Honor Magic3 Pro+

The Timbre score represents how well a phone captures sounds across the audible tonal range and takes into account bass, midrange, treble, and tonal balance. It is the most important attribute for recording.

Life video frequency response
A 1/12 octave frequency response graph, which measures the volume of each frequency captured by the smartphone when recording a pure-sine wave in an anechoic environment.

Dynamics

107

Motorola Edge 40 Pro

146

Black Shark 5 Pro

The Dynamics score measures the accuracy of changes in the energy level of sound sources, for example how precisely a voice's plosives (the p's, t's and k's, for example) are reproduced. The score also considers the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), for example how loud the main voice is compared to the background noise.


Spatial

129

Motorola Edge 40 Pro

159

Vivo X Fold

The sub-attributes for spatial tests include pinpointing a specific sound's location, its positional balance, distance, and wideness on the recorded audio files.

Recording directivity
Directivity graph of the smartphone when recording test signals using the camera app, with the main camera. It represents the acoustic energy (in dB) over the angle of incidence of the sound source. (Normalized to the angle 0°, in front of the device.)

Volume

160

Motorola Edge 40 Pro

170

Black Shark 5 Pro

The Volume score represents how loud audio is normalized on the recorded files and the how the device handles loud environments, such as electronic concerts, when recording.

Here are the sound levels recorded in the audio and video files, measured in LUFS (Loudness Unit Full Scale); as a reference, we expect loudness levels to be above -24 LUFS for recorded content:
Meeting Life Video Selfie Video Memo
Motorola Edge 40 Pro -18.2 LUFS -16 LUFS -15.7 LUFS -15.5 LUFS
Google Pixel 7 Pro -29.8 LUFS -19.2 LUFS -17.1 LUFS -22.4 LUFS
Xiaomi 13 -24.2 LUFS -22.1 LUFS -20.3 LUFS -19.5 LUFS

Artifacts

95

Motorola Edge 40 Pro

145

Black Shark 5 Pro

The Artifacts score measures the extent to which the recorded sounds are affected by various types of distortions. The higher the score, the less the disturbances in the sound are noticeable. Distortions can occur because of sound processing in the device and the quality of the microphones, as well as user handling, such as how the phone is held.

In this audio comparison, you can listen to the way this smartphone handles wind noise relative to its competitors:

Recordings of a voice sample with light background noise, facing a turbulent wind of 5 m/s

Background

105

Motorola Edge 40 Pro

166

Black Shark 5 Pro

Background evaluates how natural the various sounds around a voice blend into the video recording file. For example, when recording a speech at an event, the background should not interfere with the main voice, yet it should provide some context of the surroundings.

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