Technologies

Motorola Edge 40 Pro Brings 125W Charging To Premium Android Phones

Following Xiaomi, Motorola’s next top-tier phone has fast charging and good specs.

The Motorola Edge 40 Pro, Motorola’s new premium phone, has top specs, a triple rear camera, a sharp display with a high refresh rate and one of the fastest charging rates among phones you can buy. That gives Android phone fans an alternative to Samsung, but only if they’re in Europe or Latin America, as Motorola hasn’t announced when (or if) this phone will come to the US.

The Motorola Edge 40 Pro has a starting price of 899 euros (roughly $980, £780, AU$1,440), pitting it squarely against top-tier phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus ($1,000, £1,049, AU$1,649). It’ll be available across Europe in the coming days, with a slower rollout to select Latin American markets in the coming weeks.

The Motorola Edge 40 Pro is a follow-up to last year’s Motorola Edge Plus 2022 (don’t mind Motorola’s confusing naming), a phone we felt was a good top-tier choice with a cleaner version of Android than other handsets. The new Edge 40 Pro improves on its predecessor in nearly every way, even if it may be tough to notice some of the incremental boosts to performance and screen quality.

For instance, the Edge 40 Pro is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, which Motorola says has 35% faster CPU performance and 40% better battery efficiency than the silicon in last year’s Edge Plus 2022. This should put it toe-to-toe with other top Android phones, including the Samsung Galaxy S23 series. It packs 12GB of RAM and comes with 256GB or 512GB of storage space.

The screen on the Edge 40 Plus curves around to the sides.

Motorola

The new Motorola phone’s big 6.67-inch display brings back the stylish waterfall-style curved edges, and has a maximum refresh rate of 165Hz, up from 144Hz in its predecessor, making gaming, watching shows and scrolling the internet or menus even smoother. It also supports Dolby Vision HDR and HDR10 Plus for a wide gamut of colors.

While the Edge 40 Pro’s main suite of 50-megapixel standard and 50-megapixel ultrawide cameras may not have changed from last year’s phone, it did swap out its predecessor’s 2-megapixel depth sensor for a 12-megapixel 2x telephoto lens. But instead of zooming in, it seems this will be used mostly to add depth in portrait modes. If you want a phone with zoom capabilities, you’ll want to opt for the Samsung Galaxy S23 series. Otherwise the Edge 40 Pro will likely take comparable photos to other premium phones; take a look at comparison photos in our review of its predecessor, the Edge Plus 2022 to get an idea.

The Edge 40 Plus’ camera bump.

Motorola

The Edge 40 Pro also inherits its predecessor’s 60-megapixel front-facing camera, though selfies should benefit from the new chipset’s Cognitive Image Signal Processor that uses AI to optimize different areas of each picture (subjects, buildings, background) separately for more true-to-life photos. Like the Edge Plus, the new phone can take video in up to 8K resolution or in 4K with HDR10 Plus for far more diverse color shades.

But one area the Edge 40 Pro could stand above its competitors is quickly refilling battery: it supports up to 125-watt recharging, just a hair faster than the 120-watt charger that comes with the Xiaomi 13 Pro. Qualcomm says its charger can fully juice up a dead battery in 23 minutes, or in the time it takes to listen to a couple songs, get enough battery life to last through the day.

The Edge 40 Pro battery’s 4,600mah capacity is respectable and roughly equal to the Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus’ 4,700-mAh battery, but the latter is capped at 45-watt charging, so Motorola’s phone takes the lead on paper. The Edge 40 Pro also supports 15-watt wireless charging and 5-watt power sharing to charge up other devices.

Technologies

Facebook Brings Back Local Job Listings: How to Apply

One of Facebook’s most practical features from 2022 is being revived by Meta.

On the hunt for work? A Local Jobs search is being rolled out by Meta to make it easier for people in the US to discover and apply for nearby work directly on Facebook. The feature is inside Facebook Marketplace, Groups and Pages, Meta said last week, letting employers post openings and job seekers filter roles by distance, category or employment type.

You can apply or message employers directly through Facebook Messenger, while employers can publish job listings with just a few taps — similar to how you would post items for sale on Marketplace.

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Facebook offered a Jobs feature before discontinuing it in 2022, pushing business hiring toward its other platforms. Its return suggests Meta is attempting to expand Facebook’s usefulness beyond social networking and to position it once again as a hub for community-driven opportunities.

«We’ve always been about connecting with people, whether through shared interests or key life events,» the press release states. «Now, if you’re looking for entry-level, trade and service industry employment in your community, Facebook can help you connect with local people and small businesses who are hiring.»

How to get started with Local Jobs on Facebook

According to Meta, Local Jobs will appear as a dedicated section in Facebook Marketplace starting this week. If you’re 18 or older, you can:

Tap the Marketplace tab on the Facebook app or website.
Select Jobs to browse available positions nearby.
Use filters for job type, category and distance.
Tap Apply or message the employer directly via Messenger.

Businesses and page admins can post jobs by creating a new listing in Marketplace or from their Facebook Page. Listings can include job details, pay range, and scheduling information and will appear in local searches automatically.

The Local Jobs feature is rolling out across the US now, with Meta saying it plans to expand it in the months ahead.

Technologies

Tesla Has a New Range of Affordable Electric Cars: How Much They Cost

The new, stripped-back versions of the Model Y and Model 3 have a more affordable starting price.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Oct. 22 #598

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Oct. 22, No. 598.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a fun one — I definitely have at least two of these in my house. Some of the answers are a bit tough to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Catch all.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: A mess of items.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

BATE, LICE, SLUM, CAPE, HOLE, CARE, BARE, THEN, SLAM, SAMBA, BACK

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

TAPE, COIN, PENCIL, BATTERY, SHOELACE, THUMBTACK

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is JUNKDRAWER. To find it, look for the J that’s five letters down on the far-left row, and wind down, over and then up.

Quick tips for Strands

#1: To get more clue words, see if you can tweak the words you’ve already found, by adding an «S» or other variants. And if you find a word like WILL, see if other letters are close enough to help you make SILL, or BILL.

#2: Once you get one theme word, look at the puzzle to see if you can spot other related words.

#3: If you’ve been given the letters for a theme word, but can’t figure it out, guess three more clue words, and the puzzle will light up each letter in order, revealing the word.