Motorola Edge 30 Neo review

It is difficult to call Motorola Edge 30 Neo a hot new product because it has been sold both on the global market and in Ukraine for some time. However, the middle age does not automatically make the phone uninteresting for buyers, because the Edge series in the case of Moto can be called the flagship, and the Edge 30 Neo is currently the most affordable representative of it for the Ukrainian buyer.

Motorola Edge 30 Neo

In the box

The phone arrived in the best form – we tested a commercial device “off the shelf”, the same one that the end consumer will receive.

We were satisfied with the results of the first acquaintance: the package includes a charger with a two-sided USB Type-C cable, a simple plastic protective case, documentation, and a tool for removing the SIM tray.

In addition to the packaging made of recycled plastic indicating the manufacturer’s concern for the environment, it is worth noting the 68W charger, which should be compatible with several modern laptops (tested on the ThinkPad X1 Carbon 6th gen and Huawei MateBook X Pro) that use the Type-C connector for charging.

Design

Motorola Edge 30 Neo can be called a classic example of modern industrial smartphone design. There is nothing wrong with this, but all the lines and shapes of the case look familiar and a bit “like everyone else”.

Among the conditionally unique features, we can note the Very Peri color (the color of the year 2022 according to the Pantone version) and generally compact dimensions, in particular the thinness and low weight of the phone. You immediately pay attention to this, so at first, you don’t even want to use the supplied cover.

The body of the smartphone is made of plastic, but the side frames and the back well imitate metal and glass, respectively. The back is matte and does not collect fingerprints. To some, such a coating may seem more slippery compared to a simply smooth surface that “sticks” to the palm, although it seemed quite appropriate to me.

In theory, the coating should also be relatively wear-resistant but don’t get your hopes up – unexpectedly, a couple of barely noticeable stripes appeared on the case after the phone slid between the car’s plastic cup holders, so the use of a complete case will be appropriate.

The arrangement of buttons and connectors is standard and familiar, and the ergonomics of the phone do not bring any unpleasant surprises.

The case of the Motorola Edge 30 Neo is protected according to the IP52 standard – this is not full protection against moisture, which allows you to submerge the phone in water, but a simple “splash protection”. The seal on the tray for two NanoSIMs looks similar to that in models with full protection, but I would not advise you to check for more serious undeclared protection in practice.

The camera unit is surrounded by a solid light indicator that flashes during charging and when receiving new notifications – an interesting feature if you often put the phone down with the screen, although I do not have such a habit and noticed the indicator not immediately.

At the same time, the indicator will be more useful if you carry the phone in a complete case. It is made of transparent plastic, so it acts as a light guide – the indication is clearly visible at dusk and under dim artificial lighting.

Motorola Edge 30 Neo screen

The smartphone is equipped with a 6.28-inch pOLED display with FHD+ resolution (2400 × 1080, 419 PPI) that supports a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz (60 Hz, 120 Hz, and automatic mode options are available). Other features include support for the DCI-P3 color space and a 240 Hz sampling frequency of the sensor layer.

The screen protects the glass of an unknown manufacturer with an oleophobic coating, it occupies 95.6% of the body area. There is a standard set of color saturation settings, color temperature adjustment, and flicker reduction.

The Always on function is replaced by an alternative mechanism – when you pick up the phone or receive new messages, the screen lights up with a dark background and displays the time and application icons with notifications.
In general, the phone’s display leaves an extremely positive impression – for its price, it’s a good (and even excellent) display with the usual color reproduction for OLED screens and an excellent reserve of brightness, which is enough for comfortable reading of text on a sunny day.

Platform

Motorola Edge 30 Neo is built on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 5G platform and is equipped with 8/128 GB of memory (without a memory card slot). Other specs include a set with NFC, dual-band WiFi 6, and Bluetooth 5.1 with aptX. That is, it contains almost all the necessary and popular technologies/modules that you want to see.

The Snapdragon 695 5G formally belongs to the chips of the previous generation (or 2022) and compared to the latest models (especially Chinese brands) may look minimally outdated, but in practice, the platform remains relevant. It is built based on the 6nm process and offers comfortable speed during daily use of the phone.

While testing the Motorola Edge 30 Neo, I didn’t feel that the performance was insufficient. The characteristic “comfortable” will be one of the most appropriate. Yes, the flagships are faster, but due to the high refresh rate of the display, the phone works adequately during normal operations (using social networks, the browser, messengers, navigation, listening to music, or watching videos). Moreover, the capabilities of the “hardware” will be enough for games if you play them, although it seems to me that phones with smaller displays are chosen by buyers who are less interested in mobile games.

Moto software and features

The smartphone entered the market under the control of Android 12 and uses an almost stock interface of the system, supplemented by several proprietary solutions.

We were already thinking of writing criticism about the formally outdated version of the OS in the formal disadvantages of the phone, but already in the process of writing the review, we finally received the Android 13 update, which (judging by the reviews) was long awaited by those who managed to buy the edge 30 neo earlier. However, in the list of disadvantages, we will leave the lack of VoLTE support, in particular with Kyivstar, which was the first to launch such a function.

The standard Moto application will help you get acquainted with your solutions that should improve the user experience. It includes tools to change screensavers, fonts, text scaling, desktop shortcut grids, system themes, icon shapes, and more. In it, you can find tips for working with the device, and familiarize yourself with the available gestures.

Some of the gestures should bring back fond memories for anyone who has had a Motorola smartphone in the last 10 years. In particular, these are still very convenient opportunities to start the camera by “twisting” the smartphone in the hand and turning on the flashlight with a characteristic “chopping” gesture in the air. You may also like the opportunity to launch any program or specific action by double-tapping the back of the phone (it works even in the included case) or switching songs by pressing the volume control keys.

It is impossible not to note the solution called Ready For. By installing an additional program on your computer with Windows 10 or later, you can get a projection of the phone’s desktop on the screen (including in PC mode), use a shared clipboard, and use the phone’s main or front camera as a computer webcam.

You can connect the phone both via Wi-Fi and cable. After the pandemic, many people continue to work remotely, so the ability to use the phone’s camera as a webcam can be especially interesting if you want to improve the quality of your conferences. For such scenarios, I would use a cable connection – in this case, the image will be noticeably smoother.

Cameras

Motorola Edge 30 Neo is equipped with two main cameras: the main 64 MP (f/1.8; 1.4 μm) with optical stabilization and Quad Pixel technology and an additional 13 MP ultra-wide-angle (f/2.2; 1.12 μm, 120°) with support for macro photography and depth of field (for portrait mode).

I would like to see a telephoto lens in the arsenal, but they remain characteristic of more expensive solutions. Formal thanks to the manufacturer can be expressed for the fact that they did not install low-resolution modules (2-5 MP), which are usually of dubious benefit.

The camera app has a familiar interface and Auto-HDR mode. There are also manual, portrait, night shooting modes, Ultra-Res, and “entertainment” modes: photos and videos for two cameras at the same time, photos with an emphasis on a specific color, etc.

The quality of the main camera can generally be described as good. This is definitely not a revolutionary solution for its segment, but just a normal camera that is suitable for household shooting. Under natural lighting conditions, photos have normal detail and adequate color rendering. The camera works quickly, and the Auto-HDR mode often comes in handy, by default photos have a resolution of 16 MP.

You should not expect miracles under difficult lighting conditions, and even more so in the dark. Algorithms try to improve the final result, but the capabilities of the camera in such situations are limited.

The hardware capabilities of the platform limit the video recording quality to Full HD. When shooting static scenes and good lighting, the video sequence will be acceptable for publication on social networks, but if you shoot a video on the go, it is easy to get a “jello effect”.

Ultrawide/macro lens takes photos of lower quality than the main camera with a resolution of 13 MP. Photos of architecture or landscapes are not impressive, but when shooting macro, the camera can take a better photo (at least with better detail) than you will get on the main module.

There are no comments regarding the selfie camera of 32 MP (f/2.4; 1.4 μm, also with Quad Pixel support), which takes a photo of 8 MP. The camera supports almost the same shooting modes as the main one, allows you to adjust the viewing angle (wider for group photos and narrower for individual photos), and takes pictures of normal quality. The only wish is not related to shooting directly – I would like the Face Unlock function to work in more scenarios.

Battery life and charging

The Motorola Edge 30 Neo has a 4,020 mAh battery, supports 68W TurboPower fast charging, comes with a matching charger, and can charge wirelessly at 5W. There is no possibility of reverse wireless charging of accessories.

The manufacturer describes the battery life of the device as “a battery that lasts all day” and in general you can agree with this characteristic. During testing, the phone confidently lasted a day of use with a margin in my usual mode, often working for about 1.5 days with active screen time at the level of 5+ hours, a constantly connected smartwatch, using Bluetooth earbuds, periodically testing the camera, etc. Given the characteristics, the time to do can be called adequate, vin meets expectations.

Separately, I would like to note that the speed of charging the phone from the supplied power supply unit is perceived as very high. Full charging takes less than 50 minutes. In 35 minutes, the phone is charged from 15% to 95%, literally in 10 minutes you can recharge the device from 11% to 45%, and in about 15 minutes – from 39% to 84%.

That is, even if you forget to charge Edge 30 Neo at night or during the day, the charge reserve can be quickly replenished while you are getting ready. The main thing is to have a power supply unit and cable at hand. Although given that it can also charge laptops, it can simply be carried with you at all times as a universal solution.

Sound

Quite expectedly, Motorola Edge 30 Neo received stereo speakers, where the role of the second speaker is performed. The device also supports Dolby Atmos technology, which allows you to use additional sound enhancement settings not only for speakers but also for Bluetooth headphones, which can be useful if the accessory manufacturer has not created a separate application.

To my taste, the smartphone sounds normal – loud enough, clear enough. One can assume that if the device had a thicker body, it would sound more voluminous, but then it would be a different phone.