Samsung has finally introduced its next mid-range smartphone in the M-series with the launch of Galaxy M30. the smartphone comes with a price tag of Rs for the 4GB RAM + 64GB storage option and Rs for 6GB + 128GB storage variant. The phone will be available for purchase from Flipkart and the company’s official website.
With this, Samsung is trying to win back the trust of its once loyal base in the mid-budget segment. The Galaxy M30 packs some interesting hardware and it features some modern design language. However, the question here is, will it be as successful as the recent Galaxy M-series were? We spent some time with the device and this is what we think of it.
Design and Display
Starting off with the design first, the Samsung Galaxy M30 comes loaded with a glossy finish at the back panel, which is made of polycarbonate and not glass. Unlike the other M-series smartphones, this one comes with a gradient finish, which certainly adds some charm to the device. The gradient finish comes with a combination of two different shades of blue. Once you get over with the gradient finish, you will notice a triple-camera setup at the top-left corner along with a LED flash. Just ajustant to it is the fingerprint sensor.
The front features the new Infinity U display and you will see minimal bezels around the corner, which is a good thing. The right side of the device is equipped with a volume controls and power on/off button. The left side of the phone features SIM slot, which houses two SIMs and a dedicated microSD card slot. The bottom of the phone comes with a USB Type-C port flanked between 3.5mm Audio Jack and speaker grille. That said, the smartphone is quite easy to hold, though it is prone to smudges on both front and back panel, meaning that you will require a protective case with this smartphone.
Coming to the display, the Samsung Galaxy M30 features a 6.3-inch Full HD+ sAMOLED display with a screen resolution of 2340 x 1080 pixels. Unlike the other two smartphones that come with LCD display, the Samsung Galaxy M30 is equipped with an AMOLED screen. Naturally, the colour output will be better on the Galaxy M30 as compared to the other two devices and the deep blacks are pretty decent. The viewing angles of the device are great and you will certainly enjoy the watching video content on this smartphone.
Hardware and Software
On the hardware front, the smartphone is powered by the latest Samsung Exynos 7904 octa-core Processor clocked at 1.8GHz, which is the same present in the Galaxy M20. The phone will be available in two memory configurations: 4GB RAM + 64GB of internal storage and 6GB RAM + 128GB of internal storage. The memory can be further expanded up to 512GB via microSD card slot.
However, it is too early to comment on the computing power of the Galaxy M30, we tested the Chipset in Galaxy M20 and found out that the chipset is able to handle most of the tasks quite effectively, though, in high-end gaming front, it lagged a bit. It would be interesting to see whether this device is able to handle all the tasks we throw at it. As for the competition is concerned, the phone will face stiff competition with the likes of Nokia 6.1 Plus, Oppo K1, Realme 2 Pro and more.
On the software front, the Galaxy M30 runs on Android 8.1 Oreo, which is based on the company’s Samsung Experience 9.5 UX. As for the initial impressions of the user interface is concerned, we found that the animations are quite smooth in nature. We will talk in details about the user interface in our upcoming review.
Camera
On the camera front, the Galaxy M30 is equipped with a triple-camera setup, which is a scarcity at this price point. The phone comes with a 13-megapixel primary lens, a 5-megapixel depth sensor and a 5-megapixel ultra-wide angle lens. For the front, there is a 16-megapixel shooter. Starting with the user interface, it is quite easy to use you get an option to choose from normal to Wide-Angle view with a toggle button. The top features different camera modes including Auto, Live Focus, Beauty, Stickers, Continous Shot. One can simply swipe up or down to switch between rear and front-facing camera.
That said, we were able to test the camera in broad daylight situation only. In our brief testing, we found out that the phone was able to deliver some good photos with decent dynamic range. The phone was pretty fast to lock focus on the subject and the detailing looks sharp in our brief testing. However, we felt that the Live Focus could have been better as it was not able to properly blur out the background. The selfie performance is quite decent and the Live Focus works pretty fine for selfies.
Battery and Connectivity
The smartphone from Samsung is juiced up by a 5000mAh battery and the company has bundled a fast charger with the device, which is a welcome move. The battery efficient processor along with big battery should ideally give you about 2 days of battery backup, though we are yet to test the battery capabilities of the Galaxy M30. Connectivity options include 4G VoTLE, Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS, GLONASS, dual-SIM, 3.5mm audio jack and USB Type-C port.