Ausdroid Reviews: Moto Edge 30 – Slim but needs some beefing up

Motorola is a name that is as synonymous with mobile phones as it is with Android. It’s also a brand that holds a special place in my tech heart, given I have owned a few Motorola devices over the past 20 years on and off.

With the brand now being a sub-brand for its parent company, Lenovo, is having a bit of a resurgence, with the company just recently announcing three new devices, including the Motorola E32 I just reviewed but also this review device, the Moto Edge 30, which is said according to the company to be bringing some high end features and 5G for a budget price, so when we got the opportunity here at Ausdroid, I wanted to see if the Moto Edge 30 lives up to the hype the company has built up for the device.

So can the Moto Edge 30 live up to its hype and take a daily barrage of usage? Let’s have a look, shall we?

What’s in the box

In the box, you get the device, the Motorola E32, plastic cover, 1-metre USB-C charger, 3.5mm audio earbuds with Microphone, 33W base charger and the usual paperwork and instruction booklets.

The Design

The Moto Edge 30 comes with a 6.5-inch OLED display (2400 x 1080) with HDR10+, which is stunning and clear and bright. The front also houses the 32MP front facing camera which is located in a punch hole at the top middle of the display.

The Moto Edge 30 also has an under display fingerprint sensor, which works quite well, compared to the Moto E32 which is built into the standby power button.

The right hand side of the device houses the volume rocker which the standby/power button located just down from this.

The Moto Edge 30 sadly doesn’t come with the ability to expand the memory via MicroSD card and this seems to be a thing lately with a lot of devices in this category. The bottom of the Moto Edge 30 houses the USB-C port located in the middle, with the combined dual SIM tray located just to the left and the right hand side housing the rear volume speaker grills. Embedded alongside the speakers is an additional microphone to help phase out background noises.

Turning to the rear of the Moto Edge 30, we have the triple rear camera set up made up of a 50MP main camera lens, 50MP wide-angle lens and a 2MP depth sensor alongside a dual LED flashlight. The housing for the camera setup protrudes out from the main housing by 1mm. The rear of the Moto Edge 30 is a matte polymer plastic which doesn’t show fingerprints as much as you would think.

Lights, Camera, Action!

The Moto Edge 30 comes with a triple rear camera set up made up of a 50MP main camera lens, 50MP wide-angle lens and a 2MP depth sensor alongside a dual rear LED flashlight. The camera setting features that are included are slow motion, video, photo, portrait, pro, cut out, spot colour, night vision, group selfie, panorama, cinemagraph, ultra-res, scan and dual capture.

Pics taken with the rear camera set up are ok, but not something that honestly wow is me. The other issue is the ability to take a picture from afar that might require you to zoom in; these type of pics just utterly appalling, with pixelation, loss of clarity and sharpness, which was very disappointing.

Colours were generally acceptable, but there’s a slight element of “that’s not right” with some photos dull in colour and lacking detail. There is also a bit of lens flare on the sample pictures I took for the review which was a little strange and no matter how I tried the lens flare still persisted.

The front facing camera is a made up of a 32MP camera which is located in a punch hole at the top middle of the display and the pictures taken with the front facing camera are ok but I feel they just don’t pop with the same calibur and seem a little off in terms of contrast, clarity, sharpness and detail.

Performance, Software and Battery Life

The Moto Edge 30 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G+ 5G processor alongside 8GB RAM and onboard storage of 128GB. This leaves the Moto Edge 30, sadly, taking a few extra seconds, up to a minute to open apps. There were also obvious struggles multi tasking and toggling between apps, occasionally needing apps to be closed and restarted.

As stated in the design part, the Moto Edge 30 comes with dual SIM capabilities, however there is no way to physically expand the memory beyond the 128GB of onboard storage. Of course, you can use cloud storage such as Google One, but users who want physical storage, want physical storage…

The Moto Edge 30 comes with Android 12 right out of the box and during the review period there were a couple of security updates. Though it is unclear whether there will be an update to Android 13 or an ETA of when this will be available.

Given Motorola’s track record with updates checking various websites and feedback and comments we have received, I wouldn’t be holding my breath for such an update as soon as possible.

There is also Bluetooth 5.2, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax 2.4 GHz | 5 GHz | 6E Wi-Fi + hotspot capabilities and the device was able to connect and stay connected to my Wi-Fi even when I wasn’t using it. There are also NFC capabilities so if you’re like me and prefer to use Google Pay or other tap payment methods.

This isn’t the cheapest, but it’s far from the most expensive phone offering 5G connectivity for those who are looking to get a speed burst. This is dependent on your telco, mine does not yet offer and even then the network it connects to does not have very good 5G coverage in my area.

The Motorola Edge 30 comes with a 4,020mAh battery which surprised me given there are plenty of other devices including budget ones which have a 5000mAh battery capacity. The battery life isn’t great, unsurprisingly with the Moto Edge 30. More of then than not, I was struggling to get through a full day usage without the need to charge. This could be contributed to the 144Hz refresh rate on the display which can be manually changed in the settings, but that can have an overal affect on performance and display quality.

With medium usage by the end of the day I had about 30% battery charge left at the end of the day, however with high usage there were times I was scrambling to find my a charger to keep the device going, with about 5-10% battery life nearing 4-5pm with high usage. The Moto Edge 30 does — as earlier mentioned — come with a fast 33W charger, if you don’t have a portal battery charger on you, then you will need to carry the included charger in your bag to allow for faster charging.

Furthermore, there is no wireless charging and whilst wireless charging isn’t a deal breaker, it is something that consumers like myself do find useful.

Should you consider buying one?

The Moto Edge 30 is a good device but needs some refining to justify recommending the device to anyone.

Yes it runs stock Android with some Moto touches and the cameras does deliver reasonable results. At this price point it feels like the Moto Edge 30 is slightly underdone. Perhaps this something that could be addressed with a software update.

There are some areas that will probably push some users to different devices but if these aren’t a deal breaker for you, then the Moto Edge 30 could be for you. If you do choose to take a closer look the Moto Edge 30 is available to purchase from today in Meteor Grey from the usual retailers such as JB Hi-Fi, The Good Guys, Officeworks, Big W, Mobileciti and the Lenovo online store and from Vodafone from June 14 for $699.