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Software
Software skins are increasingly becoming the differentiating factor when it comes to budget smartphones as they decide how well the hardware performs. Running One UI built over Android 9 Pie, the M30s is no different than other offerings from Samsung’s stables.
While it’s leaps ahead of TouchWiz, One UI is still not a very light skin and can overwhelm mid-range phones like this one. There are plenty of pre-installed apps that make the home screen appear even more dated. It’s still better than what the Chinese competition offers with their smartphones, but far from best.
It needs to be stripped off of unnecessary apps and features, and give users more options to decide how they want their interface to look. The Samsung browser regularly pushes weird notifications that are borderline ads. The lock screen, too, shows trending news that is untargeted, making the initial experience less than ideal. These can be turned off if you dig enough into the settings.
Battery and Charging
With a 6,000 mAh battery, the Samsung Galaxy M30s had our expectations high, and we are glad to report that the battery life is pretty solid, if not class-leading. It’s impossible to kill in a single day, and light users can probably get their phones to last for two days.
Unfortunately, the included charger takes close to three hours to refuel the M30s, so you might want to plan your top-ups accordingly.
Camera
The Samsung Galaxy M30s has a triple camera setup on the rear, consisting of a 48MP f/2.0 primary ISOCELL GM2 camera, an 8Mp ultrawide shooter, and a 5MP depth sensor.
Right off the bat, the images lack saturation, and the dynamic range could use a little help too.
The ultrawide camera does a slightly better job at colors, but the results look very inaccurate in terms of colors, and the sharpness takes a bit hit too.
Surprisingly, low-light shots and Night mode images were above-average, with a fair amount of detail in the darker parts of the picture.
Selfies were pretty inconsistent as well, with good shots usually taking more than one try.
Verdict
The Samsung Galaxy M30s aims to grab a piece of the highly-competitive budget segment of India, which has shown a growing preference for Chinese smartphone brands such as Redmi and Realme. Those are still better all-rounders than the M30s, but if your use case calls for extreme battery backups, play a lot of games or ar brand conscious, the M30s might be well-suited for you. For everyone else, the Realme XT or the Redmi Note 8 series could serve better.
