Motorola Edge 30 Pro review

Two minute review

It's now been just over a couple of years since Motorola re-entered the flagship category and the Edge 30 Pro is finally a phone that ticks all the boxes required out of a flagship phone.

The Edge 30 Pro has a lot to offer and it starts with the excellent performance. The speedy Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor coupled with the 144Hz refresh rate screen and the lack of bloatware creates an extremely zippy experience. 

In addition, you also get a fantastic screen with natural colors and good sharpness, even though it only has FHD resolution. The latter is, however, compensated by a refresh rate of 144 Hz, which ensures extremely smooth flow in menus and websites. Yes, this option draws more power and you can choose to limit the refresh rate with an auto function that only goes up to 120Hz.

When it comes to cameras, the Edge 30 Pro is equipped with a good primary camera that takes decent pictures as long as you have relatively good lighting conditions. The wide-angle lens also delivers excellent pictures with a 114 degree picture angle without too much distortion. What you don't get is a zoom camera, as zooming is only digital. We appreciate the stylish design with frosted glass on the back and a camera module that has a design that stands out a bit without making too much of a fuss.

The Motorola Edge 30 Pro has a fast charge of 68W which ensures that the phone is charged from 0 to 50 percent in just 15 minutes, as well as 15 W wireless charging.

The Motorola Edge 30 Pro is simply a very good choice for you who want top performance, a good screen, fast charging, and stylish design. Just keep in mind that the cameras aren't as impressive as the top models from Samsung and Apple, so if that is important to you then you may want to consider other models instead.

Motorola Edge 30 Pro - pricing and availability

Motorola's new top model Edge 30 Pro is now for sale in UAE at an aggressive price of AED 2,599. It comes with just one configuration of 12 GB RAM and 256 GB storage, but you can choose between the two colors that are Stardust White and Cosmos Blue.

Design

Motorola hasn't really done anything out of the ordinary when it comes to the design of the Edge 30 Pro. It's your standard glass slab with curved edges that, despite its rather large size, is easy to hold.

We received the Stardust White version of the phone which has a frosted white look at the back with pastel colors bouncing off it. It looks great and does not attract any fingerprints.

Motorola has placed the camera module on the top right in a pill shaped enclosure with little protrusion. Even though the camera is placed on the top of the phone, the lowest lens can easily be blocked by your index finger when you're holding the phone.

The Motorola Edge 30 Pro is quite minimalist with no buttons on the left side of the phone. The right side has the power button with integrated fingerprint reader and volume button - both of which are placed a little higher than we would have liked and make them slightly harder to reach. On the top, you only see a microphone hole that breaks an otherwise completely smooth surface, while the bottom is equipped with a USB-C port, speaker grill and SIM card slot.

One detail that is worth noting is that the Edge 30 Pro is equipped with IP52 certification, which means that it can withstand a little water splash, but is far from being as waterproof as other phones on the market. What we're saying is to not take a dip in a pool with it.

Display

The screen on the Motorola Edge 30 Pro has a resolution of 2400 x 1080, which makes it a stretched 1080p screen. It is not a very high resolution, but enough to deliver sharp images with convincing quality.

The color reproduction is also good but we noticed a tinge of blue in overly white screens. It's not particularly visible during normal use. Brightness levers are good enough but not the best we've seen.

The best thing about the screen is the high refresh rate which can go all the way up to 144 Hz. That's higher than most flagship phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S22 or iPhone 13 Pro, both of which top out at 120Hz. Do keep in mind that higher refresh rates consumes more battery and thus, by default, the screen is set to 120Hz. 

There is a small punch hole camera that sits in the top middle of the screen and one that you stop noticing after a couple of days of using the phone. The size of bezels around the screen is acceptable but the lower part has slightly thicker bezels. 

Cameras

The Motorola Edge 30 Pro is equipped with three cameras: a 50 MP main camera, a 50 MP wide angle camera and a 2 MP depth camera. The front camera is 60 MP. It is therefore worth noting that Motorola has chosen to go down from 108 MP in the previous model to 50, which once again confirms that more megapixels doesn't always mean a better camera. 

The larger pixels on a 50 MP camera have the potential to let in more light, which can be as big of an advantage as higher resolution. Using "pixel binning" the Motorola Edge 30 Pro provides images with a quarter of the actual resolution that the camera delivers so you end up with 12.5 MP images with very convincing quality - at least under normal lighting conditions.

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The pictures we have taken show impressive sharpness and natural colors that are just the right balance. A direct comparison with the OnePlus 9 Pro also showed us that the Edge 30 Pro consistently gave us slightly better results with higher contrast and better color balance.

We also saw the same good sharpness when we used the wide-angle lens and you also get an impressively large image angle of 114 degrees. There is some distortion around the edges, but that happens to a lesser extent than you might think. The color balance on the wide lens was slightly off compared to the primary lens and you might have to do some color correction in post processing.

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In low light unfortunately, the Edge 30 Pro does not impress as much. You can get somewhat sharp results of the subject itself but the darker regions do show digital noise. 

The selfie camera can also deliver good images with good contrast, but it can be sensitive to motion blur. You need a steady pair of hands when taking a picture - especially when you don't have ideal lighting conditions. Portrait mode also works well, but it does not do as good a job of distinguishing between foreground and background as other phones. Thankfully, face beautification is switched off by default so you don't end up with unnaturally silky smooth skin.

When it comes to video, the Edge 30 Pro supports up to 8K at 30 fps or FHD at 60 FPS. The recordings at 8K can end up shaky when moving your hands which means that image stabilization isn't the best at the highest resolution. Most people will either use FHD or 4K and the camera performs well in both those resolutions. 

Overall, the Motorola Edge 30 Pro has a decent selection of camera modes, including portrait, the ability to take pictures with full 50 MP resolution and a Pro mode that provides access to manual focus, ISO and more.

On the video side, you get a slow-mo movie mode with 240 fps and a super slow-mo movie mode that goes up to 960 fps which can be fun to play with.

Performance

If you're looking for performance on an Android phone, you won't really get anything better than the Motorola Edge 30 Pro, which is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen1- the fastest chipset currently available for the Android platform. Not only is the phone extremely fast, the 144Hz refresh rate on the display makes it feel really fast well.

It's no surprise that the Motorola Edge 30 Pro ranks at the top of Geekbench's results. In our tests it we got a single core score of 1203 and a multi-core score of 3498 and a single core score of 1195. The phone also scored 8040 in 3DMark Wild Life which, again, puts it near the top of the list.

Real world performance also lives up to what synthetic tests show. The everyday user experience is fast and consistent- apps start quickly and switch fluidly. The lightning-fast performance of the Edge 30 Pro also becomes clear in how fast it is possible to unlock the phone with the fingerprint reader- it happens right away.

If you play games your mobile and are committed to always having top performance, the Motorola Edge 30 Pro is a great choice. You'd be hard pressed to find a faster Android phone in its price range.

Software

The Motorola Edge 30 Pro comes out of the gate with Android 12, which is great as Motorola hasn't been the quickest with Android updates. Our review sample is running the January security patch and we're in May, which is a bit worrying - however we did not notice any bugs or such.

What we do really like about Motorola phones is that they run a very stock flavour of Android and the Edge 30 Pro is no different. It's bloat-free and the only addition you find here over Google's own apps, is a Moto app that provides access to various themes, gestures and visual adjustments, as well as tips on how to use various functions.

Battery life and charging

The Motorola Edge 30 Pro also impresses with good battery life. It easily lasts a full day even with intensive use such as playing games, listening to podcasts and tons of web browsing. With more moderate usage you can also push it to go for two straight days before picking up the charger.

Thankfully there is a charger bundled in the box which is definitely appreciated at a time when companies like Apple and Samsung are removing them from their phone packaging. Motorola provides you with a 68W brick, which can charge from 0 to 50 percent in just 15 minutes. While it in't the fastest charger we've seen its still pretty impressive. 

You also wirelessly charge the Motorola Edge 30 Pro with 15 W wireless charging - again not as impressive but glad that its back since it has been a missing feature on Motorola flagship phones from the last couple of years.

Should I buy a Motorola Edge 30 Pro?

Buy it if ...

Don't buy it if ...