Motorola Edge 30 goes official with 6.5" 144Hz OLED display, SD778G+

2022-05-01

Want a phone with a 144Hz OLED display, high quality stereo speakers, dual 50MP cameras, mostly clean Android? Motorola’s Edge 30 Pro ticks those boxes, though the €800 price tag (while not as pricey as some flagships) may be a bit much for some. So, how about a phone that costs around half that?

Meet the Motorola Edge 30. It has a starting price of €450 and is coming soon to select markets in Europe, Asia, Australia, India, Latin America and the Middle East. We’ve already hinted at the basics, but let’s go over them in more detail.

Motorola Edge 30

The vanilla phone has a 6.5” FHD+ AMOLED display, slightly smaller than the 6.7” FHD+ display of the Pro. However, it is still a 10-bit panel with HDR10+ and 144Hz refresh rate. And you get stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos. We’re not seeing any mention of toughened glass, however.

The Edge 30 is powered by the Snapdragon 778G+, an overclocked version of the popular 778G – 0.1 GHz boost to the prime Cortex-A78 based core and a 20% speed-up for the Adreno 642L GPU. On this phone it is paired with 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB or 256 GB storage (no expansion).

The software is Android 12 in a form that is as close to the Pixel experience as it gets outside of Google, plus some Moto modifications (a few extras tucked into the Moto app). The phone is also equipped with Motorola’s desktop environment, Ready For. As usual, Motorola doesn’t make big commitments about OS updates, so keep that in mind.

Moving on to the cameras, the phone has a 50 MP main module, which boasts All-Pixel Autofocus and OIS. Next to it is a 50MP ultrawide-angle camera (118°) that also doubles as a macro camera. Both the main and the ultrawide cams can record 4K video at 30 fps and 1080p at up to 60 fps.

There is no telephoto lens like on the Edge 20, however. Instead, the final camera on the back is a 2MP depth sensor. Continuing on the front, there is a 32MP selfie camera (with pixel binning available).

The Edge 30 is smaller than the Pro, so it’s battery isn’t as big either – the 4,020 mAh capacity should still last a day and a half, by Motorola’s reckoning. And you get a 33W TurboPower charger in the box.

The phone has a decent connectivity package with some omissions. It has a dual-SIM slot and 5G connectivity (sub-6 GHz). The company advertises as the thinnest 5G phone – at 6.79 mm, this may just be true (by a hair and not counting the main camera bump). There is basic dust and splash resistance with an IP52 rating.

Anyway, there is also Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2 and NFC on board. Note that the USB-C cable is wired only for 2.0 speeds, so the Ready For feature will have to be used wirelessly (Miracast for TVs, Wi-Fi for PCs). Also, there is no 3.5 mm headphone jack.

Motorola Edge 30 in Aurora Green, Meteor Grey and Supermoon Silver