REVIEW: The Motorola Edge 30 Pro Punches Well Above Its Weight And Wins

Motorola’s affordable premium answer to the latest range of Samsung flagships, the Edge 30 Pro is a modern David vs Goliath story. Packed with features you’d have to spend a small fortune more for in any other device and performance rivalling a lightning bolt, its hard to find a reason to spend the extra $250 on an S22.

I have been using Samsung’s for years and honestly, they are fantastic phones. However, after spending some quality time with the Motorola Edge 30 Pro, I find myself questioning why you would want anything else. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not perfect, but the positives are so blindingly bright that the issues are well worth dealing with.

First Glance

Before you even turn on the Motorola Edge 30 Pro, you’re getting more for less when compared to its rivals. The phone comes with a basic case, a set of USB-C headphones and to my absolute delight, a 30W wall charger and USB-C cable, which as I am sure you know, something you won’t get from an iPhone or Samsung.

The phone itself is also pleasant to hold and look at. I found myself caught in the pearlescent matte blue that shimmers hues of purple and green quite a few times. It’s gained a little bit of weight and is slightly thicker than its predecessor, the Edge 20 Pro, but sits super comfortably in the hand. I have small chunky hands and for a phone that is quite big, I had no issue handling it comfortably.

Build and feel.

Just like the S22, the Motorola Edge 30 Pro makes use of a polycarbonate frame that is super sturdy and looks fantastic. The fingerprint scanner on the side is excellent and super sensitive, but almost too good at its job. Due to its position on the power/lock button, I often found myself unlocking the phone when it was simply resting in my hand.

Display

The 6.7” pOLED display is stunning. Browsing apps is quite a joy, with its 2400×1080 resolution, adaptive refresh rate that tops out at 144Hz and 10-bit 1.07 billion colours. It is a gorgeous display. Brightness typically sits at 500 Nits and will max out at 700. This is a tad lower than Samsung’s S22 range, but much more colourful compared to the Korean brands 8-bit 16.7m colours.

Motorola have really made use of as much space as possible with the display too, with screen residency sitting at about 88.5 percent.

Processor

The Edge 30 Pro boasts the latest and greatest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, the same chip found in the top-of-the-line Samsung phones, and performance is pretty similar. When playing games or using intensive apps, there was no sign of stress or performance issues, however the phone did heat up a tad.

Battery

The Motorola Edge 30 Pro’s added performance over its predecessor comes with a battery bump to boot, from 4,500mAh to 4,800mAh. As a result, by the end of the day, even after heavy use, you aren’t rushing to plug it in. Not once did find myself worrying about battery life, something that was a constant issue with my tired old Samsung S20. Optimizations from Android 12 are sure to be helping out in the battery life department, and if you were to ever find yourself running low on battery (which I doubt) the 30W charger means you’ll be at full charge in a bit over an hour.

Android 12

The Edge 30 Pro is the first in the Motorola line up to come out of the box with the brand-new Android 12 OS, with a Motorola skin that is pretty true to the base OS, with the only changes brought by the My UX 3.0 overlay being the addition of a camera app and Moto gestures (such as the classic double shake to enable the torch which is much more fun than it should be).

As someone who has used the Samsung operating system since the Galaxy S7, Android 12 was an easy transition. It was sleek in appearance, easy to adjust to (mostly) and intuitive, meaning if you’re looking to change from Apple or Samsung, getting used to it won’t be an issue.

Network Connectivity and 5G

Now the biggest issue I had with the Edge 30 Pro was network connectivity. I often found myself dropping out or having notifications not come through until I opened the app in question. When the phone seemed to be cooperating and remaining connected, which granted was most of the time, the 5G connection was lightning quick as expected. It is worth noting that here in Australia, buying a genuine model rather than an international model is necessary if you want 5G connection as the grey market versions don’t support Optus n40.

Camera

The photos that the Edge 30 Pro takes are nothing short of spectacular. The 50MP main camera is super clear and can zoom up to 10x. However, it is a considerable downgrade from the Edge 20 Pro’s 108MP camera, which also had an optical zoom. Strangely, the selfie camera has a higher megapixel count than the main one, sitting at 60MP. An interesting choice by Motorola for sure.

Standard Shooting Mode

Wide-Shot

Sound

For built in phone speakers, the ones fitted to the Edge 30 Pro are adequate. Featuring Dolby Atmos, the bass response (while not exactly pleasing to audiophiles) is pretty respectable for a phone. Treble and mids are a little muddy and tinny but they weren’t designed with intense listening in mind. Bluetooth and USB sound on the other hand was superb.

Options and Pricing

Unfortunately, in Australia, we have one model to choose from – 8GB memory with 128GB of storage, which is priced at $999 at JB HI-FI. To put that in perspective however, the S22 with the same specs is $1,250 and as we have identified, doesn’t have anything more to offer other than the Samsung logo.

Overseas, the top model available boasts 512GB of storage and 12GB of ram.

We also don’t get a lot of choice in terms of colour, so its good that the pearlescent matte blue is so eye-catching.

Verdict: 9/10 – A few small cons that become invisible alongside the pros.

I have to say it, I adore this phone. It stands up against the best phones on the market and at a much lower price point and wins in quite a few key aspects. It’s not perfect but neither is a phone that costs twice as much. Motorola really have hit it out of the park. My biggest issue was the network dramas however that could have just been a personal experience or something that might be fixed in a future software update. I mean this when I say that while I had no plan on upgrading from my S20, I am absolutely going to buy a Motorola Edge 30 Pro for myself.