After testing Samsung Galaxy A50 (Review) and Galaxy M30 (Review), we came to the conclusion that these handsets available under Rs 20,000 are worth buying. Now let’s talk about Samsung’s latest smartphone Samsung Galaxy A30, which to a great extent challenges the Galaxy M30 of the Samsung brand itself. In such a situation, it will be interesting to see how its performance is compared to the Galaxy M30? We will know the answer to this question through the review…
Samsung Galaxy A30 design
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 lower border is a bit wide. But it does not hurt the eyes. Galaxy A30 has a full-HD + Infinity U display, like Galaxy A50 and Galaxy M30. Due to the Super AMOLED panel, the colors are vivid. Text and images look sharp. The company did not mention Gorilla Glass or any other glass protection. However, during the review, there were no scratches on the screen of this phone.
The glossy side and back panel look good but fingerprints are easily visible on them. The phone is quite slim. There is no problem in gripping it. The button on the right side has been given a glossy treatment along with 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 the speaker, 3.5mm headphone socket and USB Type-C port.
The back may look like glass, but it is plastic. It does not get scratched easily in normal use. The fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone is placed higher than we would have liked. We had to stretch our finger a bit to reach it several times. But the sensor works fast.
There is also a face unlock option in the phone, but sometimes it doesn’t work fast even if there is enough light. You won’t get the raise-to-wake gesture in this device, which means you will have to turn on the display by double tapping.
In the retail box, apart from the phone, you will find SIM eject tool, power adapter with adaptive fast charging, USB Type-C cable and headset. Overall, Samsung Galaxy A30 is a great phone which looks very good despite being made of plastic. It will be available in multiple colors but we have its black version available. Which looks more grey than black.
Samsung Galaxy A30 Specifications and Features
Like the Galaxy M30, the Samsung Galaxy A30 also uses an octa-core Exynos 7904 processor. The Galaxy A30 is available in only one variant in the market, that too with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage. Samsung has not given details about the specifications of the phone on its website. But with the help of selected 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.
The phone comes with Samsung Pay Mini support which is a cut-down version. With its help, you will be able to set up UPI accounts, gift cards and payment wallets. The device also supports Android Pie Digital Wellbeing. As soon as we started using the phone, we got several promotions from Galaxy Apps and that too without even opening the app. You can also opt-out of this while setting up the Samsung App Store if you want.
Samsung Galaxy A30 performance, cameras and battery life
The performance of the Galaxy A30 is solid when it comes to general chat and productivity apps. But the experience is not very smooth. There is a lag when switching to the Bixby homescreen. This lag is evident 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 are not great. Especially when you can buy handsets equipped with MediaTek Helio P70 and Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 processors at the same price.
The good thing is that the phone does not heat up much. It heats up only when the CPU and GPU of the phone are used heavily like while playing PUBG Mobile. Even after shooting a lot of pictures and videos, this phone does not overheat. The Exynos 7904 processor is a great chipset for gaming, but sometimes the graphics settings have to be reduced a bit for smooth framerate. Games like Asphalt 9 Legends and PUBG Mobile run smoothly when the graphics settings are reduced a bit.
The sound output from the speaker is not very loud while playing games or watching videos on YouTube. There is no notification LED in the phone, but if you want, you can enable the always-on display to see the time and notifications.
The Galaxy A30 has a 16-megapixel primary camera with an aperture of f / 1.7 and a 5-megapixel wide-angle camera without auto-focus. In the camera app, you will find Scene Optimizer, a feature we first saw in the Samsung Galaxy S10 +. This feature automatically recognizes the object and adjusts the exposure.
We noticed that it also boosts the color a bit. While shooting in landscape mode captures enough detail, more things can be captured in the frame when shooting with the wide-angle sensor. Barrel distortion is seen when using the wide angle camera. And due to the lack of autofocus, the detail is also not captured as much as the primary camera.
Macro shots in adequate light are detailed and colours are accurate. Edges are sharp and well defined, which is a good thing. Despite the wide aperture, landscape photos in low light are blurry and lack detail. Noise is controlled, but photo quality is not very good. Photos get even worse when you switch to the wide-angle sensor. Macro picture quality is still slightly better but it is still below average.
The camera app has Panorama, Pro and Live Focus modes. With the help of Live Focus mode, you can adjust the background blur level before and after clicking the picture. Edge detection is good. However, when shooting in Live Focus mode in low light, the photos come out patchy and lack details.
For selfies, a 16-megapixel front camera has been provided, which has an aperture of f / 2.0. It works well in daylight. Selfies are captured a little softer than we like. But the 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 details and grains are clearly visible.
Shot with the primary lens of the Samsung Galaxy A30 (Tap to see full-sized image)
Shot using the wide-angle lens of the Samsung Galaxy A30 (Tap to see full-sized image)
Tap to see full-sized Samsung Galaxy A30 camera samples
To bring life to the phone, a 4,000 mAh battery has been provided. In the video loop test, the battery lasted for 15 hours and 8 minutes, which is much better than the 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 an hour.
Our verdict
Apart from better battery life, AMOLED display and build quality, there is nothing special in Samsung Galaxy A30. Galaxy M30 is only Rs 1,000 more expensive, but its camera performance is better and it comes with a bigger battery, more RAM and storage. That too with older Android OS. If you want, you can buy the 4 GB / 64 GB variant of Galaxy M30 for Rs 2,000 cheaper.
Considering the price, the processor on the Galaxy A30 is nowhere close to competing with the Oppo K1 (Review) and Redmi Note 7 Pro (Review) which offer better app and gaming performance. The cameras on the Galaxy A30 are disappointing. The cameras take average quality photos even in good light and the output in low light is disappointing.
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