Samsung Galaxy A50 ,review) And Galaxy M30 ,review) After testing, we came to the conclusion that these handsets are worth buying for less than Rs 20,000. Now let’s talk about Samsung’s latest smartphones. Samsung Galaxy A30 Which challenges the Galaxy M30 of the Samsung brand to a great extent. In such a situation, it will be interesting to see how its performance is compared to Galaxy M30? We will know the answer to this question through review…
Samsung Galaxy A30 design
If seen, Samsung Galaxy A30 is a big phone. Samsung has given a 6.4 inch display on the front panel of Galaxy A30 which comes with thin borders. The bottom border is a little wide. But it does not sting the eyes. The Galaxy A30 features a full-HD+ Infinity U display, like the Galaxy A50 and Galaxy M30. Colors are vivid due to the Super AMOLED panel. Text and images come out clearly. The company did not mention Gorilla Glass or any other glass protection. However, during the review, there were no scratch marks on the screen of this phone.
Glossy side and back panels look good but they easily get fingerprints. The phone is quite slim. There is no problem in gripping it. The button on the right side has been given the same glossy treatment as the rest of the edges. The SIM tray has space for two nano SIM cards and a microSD card (up to 512 GB). There is space at the bottom for a speaker, 3.5mm headphone socket and a USB Type-C port.
The back part may appear to be glass, but it is actually plastic. It does not get scratched easily during normal use. The fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone is located too high up than we would have liked. To reach this we had to stretch our finger a bit several times. But the sensor works fast.
There is also an option for face unlock in the phone, but sometimes it does not work fast even when there is enough light. You will also not get the raise-to-wake gesture in this device, which means you will have to turn on the display by double tapping.
Apart from the phone, in the retail box you will get SIM eject tool, power adapter with adaptive fast charging, USB Type-C cable and headset. Overall, the Samsung Galaxy A30 is a great phone which looks great despite being made of plastic. It will be available in multiple colors but we have its black version available. Which looks more gray than black.
Samsung Galaxy A30 specifications and features
Like the Galaxy M30, the octa-core Exynos 7904 processor has also been used in the Samsung Galaxy A30. Galaxy A30 is available in only one variant in the market and that too with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage variant. Samsung has not explained the specifications of the phone in detail on its website. But with the help of select Android diagnostic apps, it is clear that the phone has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Gyroscope, Hall sensor, Proximity sensor, Ambient light sensor, Compass, GPS, FM radio and USB-OTG.
The main difference between the two is the OS. The Galaxy M30 runs Samsung Experience based on Android 8.1 Oreo, while the Galaxy A30 comes with Samsung’s new One UI based on Android 9 Pie. Our review unit had the February 2019 security patch.
This phone comes with Samsung Pay Mini support which is a cut-down version. With its help you will be able to setup UPI account, gift card and payment wallet. This device also supports Android Pie Digital Wellbeing. As soon as we started using the phone, we got many promotions from Galaxy Apps and that too before we even opened the app. You can also opt-out of it when setting up the Samsung App Store.
Samsung Galaxy A30 performance, cameras and battery life
The Galaxy A30’s performance is strong when it comes to general chat and productivity apps. But the experience is not very smooth. Because there is a feeling of lag when switching to the Bixby homescreen. This shortcoming is visible whether you open the Gallery app after taking a photo or the Recent Apps tab to switch between apps.
The benchmark scores of this phone were not great. Especially when you can buy a handset equipped with MediaTek Helio P70 and Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 processor at the same price.
The good thing is that the phone does not get too hot. It only heats up when the phone’s CPU and GPU are used heavily, such as while playing PUBG Mobile. This phone does not overheat even after shooting a lot of pictures and videos. The Exynos 7904 processor is a great chipset for gaming, but sometimes the graphics settings have to be lowered a bit to get a smooth framerate. Games like Asphalt 9 Legends and PUBG Mobile run smoothly if the graphics settings are reduced slightly.
The sound coming from the speaker is not very loud while playing games and watching videos on YouTube. Notification LED is not provided in the phone, but if you want, you can enable the always-on display to see time and notifications.
The Galaxy A30 has a 16-megapixel primary camera with an aperture F/1.7 and a 5-megapixel wide-angle camera without auto-focus. You will get Scene Optimizer in the camera app, we first saw this feature in Samsung Galaxy S10+. This feature automatically detects the object and adjusts the exposure.
We noticed that it also boosted the color a bit. While shooting in landscape mode, enough detail is captured, while shooting with a wide-angle sensor, more things can be captured in the frame. Barrel distortion is seen when using a wide angle camera. And due to lack of autofocus, details are not captured as much as the primary camera.
In adequate lighting, macro shots come out with detail and colors are also accurate. The edges are sharp and well defined which is a good thing. Despite the wide aperture, landscape photos in low-light appear blurry and lack detail. Noise is controlled, but photo quality is not very good. Photos get worse when switching to a wide-angle sensor. Picture quality for macros is still slightly better but still below average.
The camera app has panorama, pro and live focus modes. Live Focus mode lets you adjust the background blur level before and after clicking the picture. Edge detection is good. However, photos shot in live focus mode in low light turn out patchy and lack detail.
For selfie, a 16-megapixel front camera has been provided whose aperture is F/2.0. It works well in daylight. Selfies are captured a little soft for our liking. But colors are good and HDR also works well when shooting in adverse light. There is live focus here too. But edge detection is weak. In low light, selfies lack detail and grains are clearly visible.
Image taken from the primary lens of the Samsung Galaxy A30 (tap to view full-size image)
Image taken with the Samsung Galaxy A30’s wide-angle lens (tap to view full-size image)
Tap to view full-size Samsung Galaxy A30 camera samples
To bring life to the phone, a 4,000 mAh battery has been provided. The battery lasted 15 hours 8 minutes in the video loop test which is much better than average. In normal use it will easily last for a day. The fast charger that comes with the phone charges the phone’s battery up to 70 percent in one hour.
our decision
Apart from better battery life, AMOLED display and build quality, there is nothing special about Samsung Galaxy A30. The Galaxy M30 is only Rs 1,000 costlier, but it has better camera performance and comes with a bigger battery, more RAM and storage. That too with old Android OS. If you want, you can buy 4 GB / 64 GB variant of Galaxy M30 at a cheaper price of Rs 2,000.
Considering the price, the processor of Galaxy A30 is better than anywhere else. Oppo K1 ,review) And Redmi Note 7 Pro ,review) which deliver better app and gaming performance. The Galaxy A30’s cameras disappoint. The cameras take average quality photos even in adequate light and have disappointing output in low light.