The Motorola Edge 30 Pro is a great sequel to the Edge 20 Pro and is one of the most affordable Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 phones you can buy right now. While it is pegged as an upgrade and it does feel like one most of the time, there are some downsides with the Edge 30 Pro as well. If you are looking for a phone to play games, you’d be better off with something like the ROG Phone 5s and if great cameras are your priority, you’d be better off with the OnePlus 9RT (review) or Samsung Galaxy S21 FE (review).
The Motorola Edge 30 Pro is the latest flagship phone by Motorola in India. The Edge 30 Pro currently also happens to be the most affordable Snapdragon 8 Gen 1-powered smartphone that you can buy, priced just under Rs 50,000. The Moto Edge 30 Pro follows the Edge 20 Pro (review) which launched last year in October at Rs 36,999 and offered great performance without putting a dent in your wallet. With the Edge 30 Pro, Motorola is aiming for a share in the sub-Rs 50K budget segment and relies on high-end features like the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, two 50MP and a 60MP selfie camera, along with support for fast wired and wireless charging. But is that enough to rile the incumbents like the OnePlus 9RT, Samsung Galaxy S21 FE and more? Let’s find out.
In the retail box of the Motorola Edge 30 Pro, you will find a TurboPower 68W fast charging adapter with a Type-C port. There is a USB Type-C cable to go along. Apart from this, there are user manuals and guides along with a TPU protective case and a SIM tool.
Price: Rs 49,999 – 8GB/128GB
Display: 6.7-inch OLED display with FHD+ (2400×1080 pixels) resolution, 144Hz refresh rate, 10-bit panel, HDR10+ certified
Thickness: 8.79mm
Weight: 196g
Platform: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset
RAM: 8GB LPDDR5
Built-in storage: 128GB UFS 3.1
Expandable storage: No
5G support: n1/3/5/7/8/20/28/38/40/41/66/77/78
USB-C: Yes
3.5mm jack: No
OS: stock Android 12 with MyUX customizations
Rear Camera: 50MP (f/1.8, OIS) + 50MP ultra-wide (114-degree FOV) with macro vision support + 2MP depth sensor
Rear Camera Video: 8K (24fps), 4K (upto 60fps)
Front Camera: 60MP (f/2.2)
Speakers: Stereo speakers( Dolby Atmos and Snapdragon Sound)
Battery and charging: 4,800mAh with 68W fast wired and 15W fast wireless charging
The Motorola Edge 30 Pro is the first phone I’m using that is powered by the 4nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC. It’s the latest flagship Qualcomm SoC which is faster and more power-efficient than the Snapdragon 888 chipset and is one of the highlighting features of the Edge 30 Pro. The new chip has an octa-core CPU which consists of a Cortex X2 prime core running at 3GHz, three Cortex-A710 performance cores clocked at 2.50 GHz and four Cortex-A510 power-efficient cores along with Adreno 730 GPU. There is a single storage variant on offer and no microSD card support for expansion which is a bummer for power users.
We took the Moto Edge 30 Pro through our standard testing procedure to see how it performs in comparison with its counterparts as well as to understand how much of a jump it is over the previous generation.
In the AnTuTu benchmark, the Edge 30 Pro could not reach the expected 1 million score but neither did the iQOO 9 Pro, which is the only other Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 phone we have got our hands-on yet. In comparison with a Snapdragon 888 phone, the Edge 30 Pro demonstrates a 17-20% increase in performance and around a 12% uptick over the Snapdragon 888 Plus.
Similarly in the Geekbench benchmark, the Edge 30 Pro received good scores in single-core and multi-core tests, in line with the performance of this new chipset.
In the PCMark test which runs a workload with intensive tasks like video editing, photo editing and more, the Edge 30 Pro managed to edge out the competition which proves that it can handle high-pressure tasks with ease.
The CPU throttling test checks whether the CPU decreases performance to keep the thermals in check under intensive tasks. Here, the Moto Edge 30 Pro throttled to 79% of its maximum performance which means that there are certain optimizations in place to reduce the core performance to keep the phone running cool.
The core CPU temperature of the Edge 30 Pro during these tests easily reached above 40-degrees and the phone got warm to the touch. While this is something that’s experienced only in certain instances like when playing games, using cameras or recording video, the battery does take a hit.
Now, these numbers are not indicative of the real-world performance which in my use was excellent. Be it multi-tasking or playing games like Call of Duty Mobile, Battlegrounds Mobile India, Genshin Impact and more, the Edge 30 Pro performed these tasks without any noticeable issues. The Edge 30 Pro is a powerful phone that is capable of handling your daily tasks with ease and the stock Android 12 with My UX customizations gives it a unique flavour without taking away the essence. To top it off, all your favourite action shortcuts like karate chop for flashlight and twist for camera app are present.
The Motorola Edge 30 Pro gets a 300mAh bump in the battery over the Edge 20 Pro and I easily got around a day’s worth of use on normal usage. This included light browsing on the web and social media, sending messages over Whatsapp, snapping some pictures and watching some videos on YouTube. If you include things like gaming and other intensive tasks like video editing, the battery will take a more substantial hit.
As for the charging, the Edge 30 Pro took around 45 minutes to fully charge from 1-100% using the 68W fast charging adapter.
Motorola has a cutback in the camera department when you compare it with the Edge 20 Pro. While the latter comes with a primary, ultra-wide and periscope telephoto lens, the Edge 30 Pro gets a depth sensor instead of the telephoto camera which is more of a downside than an upgrade.
The pictures from the main camera turned out to be sharp, bright and with good dynamic range. The camera can identify the different textures and details and the images look vibrant without any major editing involved. The stabilization is good too and the camera app is tuned to snap a picture without any shutter lag which is great.
The ultra-wide camera produces some decent wide FOV pictures but nothing that validates its premiumness. These pictures often end up with lesser details towards the corners and if you position the phone correctly you will be able to negate the barrel distortion. The pictures from this camera tend to be biased towards warmer colour tones and isn’t in line with the colour profile of the main camera. The ultra-wide camera also doubles up for macro photography and produces some well-detailed pictures provided the subject in the frame is stable.
The portrait mode does a decent job of identifying edges in a frame and can lend an artificial bokeh effect to pictures. Sometimes though, depending on the light, the camera isn’t able to properly optimize the blur effect around the edges.
By using the night mode in low-light, the camera bumps up the brightness and highlights but the images end up being filled with noise which is noticeable when you zoom into it. While the app takes 3 seconds to capture a frame at night, the result is nothing extraordinary.
The front-facing camera does a great job of taking selfies and mostly the pictures are bright, detailed and have a good dynamic range. You can also record 4K UHD videos from the front camera.
Motorola sent us the Cosmos Blue colour of the Edge 30 Pro and there’s a Stardust White colour available as well. The Edge 30 Pro is a tall and wide phone giving you a large screen estate and may feel a bit gigantic for small hands. The frame is plastic while the back panel is topped with the Gorilla Glass 5. The plastic frame feels a bit out of place since it is aimed at the premium segment and diminishes its value. While it looks and feels premium in the hand, it is slightly thicker and heftier than the Edge 20 Pro, which by the way had an aluminium chassis.
When you look at a premium phone, you expect a certain sense of refinement which is sadly missing from the Edge 30 Pro. The volume and power buttons are situated on the right edge but slightly at the top, sending ergonomics for a toss. You will have to use both hands or shift your hand slightly upwards to unlock the phone via a fingerprint reader on the power key which is a hassle.
The rear panel is home to an oval camera module that has smooth chamfered edges that ensure it doesn’t wobble too much when kept on a flat surface. The back panel also has a matte finish which doesn’t attract noticeable fingerprints or smudges.
The OLED display on the Edge 30 Pro is great for watching videos, playing games and is just generally pleasing to the eye as it produces crisp visuals with vibrant colours. Since it is a 10-bit panel, you get much better colours and support for a 144Hz refresh rate means that everything looks and feels super smooth in normal use.
In our Calman tests, the display on the Edge 30 Pro recorded 472.8 nits of brightness with an average deltaE of 2.7 and maximum deltaE of 3.8. We also noticed the display’s bias towards red and blue colours but it's not substantial and doesn’t spoil the viewing experience. The HDR tests put the colour gamut coverage at 99.91% in the vivid/saturated colour space.
As evident from these numbers, the Moto Edge 30 Pro has an excellent display for your daily use with decent brightness levels. Although, the Edge 20 Pro’s display offered better brightness, the colours accuracy and details on the Edge 30 Pro is better and won’t let you down if you spend hours watching videos on your phone.
The Motorola Edge 30 Pro is a great sequel to the Edge 20 Pro and is one of the most affordable Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 phones you can buy right now. While it is pegged as an upgrade and it does feel like one most of the time, there are some downsides with the Edge 30 Pro as well.
The main camera does a great job and the ultra-wide camera is decent too, but the presence of a depth sensor instead of a much capable telephoto lens limits the versatility that otherwise would have upped its camera game.
The design of the Edge 30 Pro, while being in line with the previous model isn’t a head-turner as it doesn’t feel refined as you’d expect from premium phones. Considering, Motorola has a legacy of well-designed and unique phones, the Edge 30 Pro will get lost in the crowd with its plastic-glass build.
As for the performance, you can expect blazing fast speeds both in day-to-day usage as well as in instances like playing games. Though the phone has not been designed to withstand high thermals, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 runs hot and struggles with heat dissipation. I really like the stock Android 12 experience that Motorola offers and the My UX features work well.
If you are looking for a phone to play games, you’d be better off with something like the ROG Phone 5s and if great cameras are your priority, you’d be better off with the OnePlus 9RT or Samsung Galaxy S21 FE.