Samsung Galaxy M30 Review: An Affordable & Reliable Daily Driver

Samsung this year focused all its resources on the A-series and two high-end series, the Galaxy S and Note. However, the company still launched a few M series products aimed at users who want a smartphone that meets the basic needs at a reasonable price.

The Samsung Galaxy M30 was first available in mid-August in India for Rs. 10,399. This is an upgrade of the Galaxy M20 launched exactly half a year ago. Compared to the Galaxy M20, this product has the 4 most significant upgrades: switching to an AMOLED panel, an extra camera for portrait shots, a front camera with twice the resolution to 16MP, and increased internal storage.

In addition, the Galaxy M30 still retains the Exynos 7904 processor with a 5,000 mAh battery capacity that supports fast charging similar to its predecessor. The overall design hasn't changed much either. 

Samsung Galaxy M30: Display

This is the only product in the M series to get an AMOLED panel. The Samsung Galaxy M30 display has a size of 6.39 inches, Full-HD+ resolution, 19.5:9 aspect ratio, and a pixel density of 403 PPI. 

The screen of the Galaxy M30 has a high maximum brightness, which is enough for comfortable use and easy to see in the sun. Like many other Samsung devices, the maximum brightness of this screen reaches the highest peak in auto-brightness mode, much higher than in manual mode. So when using under direct sunlight, you should switch to automatic brightness adjustment for clearer viewing.

In addition to the high brightness, the screen also has the characteristic bright colors and wide viewing angle of an AMOLED panel. Compared with the Galaxy M20, the Galaxy M30's screen is fresher and has a slightly higher maximum brightness. However, the difference in overall is not much. In fact, LCD screens on mid-range smartphones recently have improved in quality, not much different from AMOLED screens like a few years ago.

Samsung Galaxy M30: Performance

Performance is where Galaxy M30 doesn’t differ from the old series. It is still equipped with the Exynos 7904 chipset manufactured on 14nm FinFET process, which has 2 high-performance Cortex-A73 cores clocked at 1.8GHz and 6 Cortex-A53 power-saving cores clocked at 1.6GHz with Mali-G71 MP2 GPU. However, the memory (RAM and storage) has been increased on the base model, 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage compared to 3GB RAM + 32GB storage on the base version of Galaxy M20.

In terms of power, the Galaxy M30's Exynos 7904 chip is inferior to many products of the same price range today using Snapdragon 710 processor (Realme 3 Pro), Kirin 710 (Huawei P30 Lite), Helio P65 (Vivo S1 ) or Helio P70 (Oppo F11). This is clearly shown in the performance scores on standard benchmark software.

The Galaxy M30 can stably handle basic tasks such as surfing the web, listening to music, watching YouTube or taking pictures. The device is also powerful enough to play light popular games, but for games that require a lot of graphics processing power such as PUBG Mobile or Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade, the device struggles with low fps and stability.

In general, the performance of the Galaxy M30 is only enough for casual use, not suitable for gaming. If you want to play games or use a lot of heavy applications then you should consider other products equipped with Snapdragon 660, Snapdragon 710, or Helio P65 or P70 chips as mentioned above.

In terms of software, Galaxy A30 currently comes pre-installed with customized One UI 1.1 based on Android 9. The interface and software functions of the device are similar to those of Galaxy A products in 2019. 

Samsung Galaxy M30: Battery life

Unsurprisingly, the massive 5,000 mAh battery and the energy-efficient AMOLED display have brought very good actual battery life to the Galaxy M30. In our regular battery tests, this phone has the top notch battery life in the current mid-range segment, much higher than the Asus Zenfone Max Pro M2 with the same 5,000 mAh capacity.

Galaxy M30 supports 15W fast charging and comes with 9V / 1.67A fast charger. Using the included charger, the device was fully charged in about 2 hours and 15 minutes, of which the first 30 minutes charged 25% and 1 hour charged nearly half the battery.

Samsung Galaxy M30: Camera

The triple camera cluster on the Galaxy M30 includes a 13MP main sensor with an aperture of f/1.9, a 5MP portrait camera, and a 5MP ultra-wide-angle camera with a 123-degree viewing angle. The camera specs of the Galaxy M30 are pretty much the same as its predecessor, except for the addition of the 5MP portrait camera. 

You can take landscape photos with the M30’s wide-angle camera, but you should not expect high-quality ones. In day-light scenes, the device can take serviceable photos, though you might notice the lack of fine detail in the photos.

Indoors, even if you take photos with enough light, the M30 won’t make you happy. Even in bright light, the Galaxy M30 doesn’t fare all that well. There is significant noise in the shadow regions and the image generally appears a bit blown out. Zooming in reveals a watercolor-like noise reduction effect.

The 16MP front-facing camera takes average images. The phone can manage Full HD video recording on both the front and the back camera. Unfortunately, there is no form of video stabilization available.

Samsung Galaxy M30: Verdict

Equipping with an AMOLED screen has affected many factors on Galaxy M30. Not only improving display quality, but the power-saving AMOLED screen also helps this phone have top battery life in the current mid-range segment while also contributing to the slim body lighter than the old devices that use the LCD screen.

Performance is the point that the Galaxy M30 struggles. The camera quality is also not better than competing products. So, overall, the Galaxy M30 is suitable for those who want a massive battery smartphone and a quality display for web surfing and normal use, without the need to play heavy games.

Samsung Galaxy M30 price: around Rs. 11,600

Samsung Galaxy M30 price in India: Rs. 10,399

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