Motorola Edge 30 Neo review: the prototype of the pop smartphone

Motorola recently got into a new gear, I tried Edge 30 Ultra, I have Edge 30 Fusion here on my desk and the protagonist of this review is Edge 30 Neo, they are all products that have a lot to say, for several different reasons. The Neo is compact enoughit is very nice, it has a 120 Hz OLED display, stereo audio, fast charging and some compromises hidden under the hood which, however, allow to contain the price list.

I’m pretty sure in the next few months I’m sure it will enter the pockets of many, now I’ll try to explain why.

Some smartphones are nice to me from the first glance e Motorola Edge 30 Neo is one of these, quite compact, very light (155 grams), thin, almost symmetrical in the front frames and very fashionable in the Very Peri color, that is the color of the year identified by Pantone. The American company has also signed us with the classic color card on the rear body. There are four colors available, in addition to the Very Peri there is a very fresh aqua green, opaque black and silver gray.

It is in plastic both in the frame and in the back cover but the finishes are delightfully curatedwith the right mix of satin and glossy and rounded corners but not too much, so as not to betray the family feeling of the latest Edge 30. There is no IP certification but the smartphone is still given as resistant to splashes and dust.

I point out with in the package you will find a rigid plastic cover, very elegant compared to the usual soft TPU. There is no pre-installed film, however, the oleophobic treatment is excellent. For the record, in addition to the cover you will also find the 68 Watt power supply, Type-C cable and a pair of wired headphones.

The Motorola Edge 30 Neo display is a 6.3-inch P-OLED in 20: 9 @ 120Hz with 2400 x 1080 resolutiona very bright and easily readable screen even outdoors thanks to a peak of brightness that touches 1000 nits, the chromatic accuracy is not perfect, with a certain tendency to green on the grays, but overall in reference to the price range we are facing one of the best solutions, certainly for luminance.

The refresh rate is managed automatically or in a forced mode at 60 or 120 Hz. The automatic adjustment is not always perfect, in particular it often remains enchanted on 90 Hz even when it could drop to at least 60 Hz, in AOD instead it behaves correctly, perhaps with a software update Motorola will be able to calibrate all in a definitive way.

MULTIMEDIA AND AUDIO

The audio is stereo and it is amazing considering the size (and the price) of the smartphone, the two speakers are powerful, full-bodied and well balanced between left and right. There are also several Dolby Atmos EQ settings, which is fully supported. The Bluetooth is in version 5.1 and I have not encountered any particular problems.

The multimedia part obviously also counts on the display, as we said the luminance is high but the calibration especially on grays is not too accurate, moreover, support for HDR videos is completely missing, which is a bit penalizing.

Motorola Edge 30 Neo arrives with Android 12 and security patch of September 1, 2022, the company provides two major Android updates and 3 years of security patches for this model.

Motorola’s customization is always very effective in my opinion, all the additional features compared to the pure version of Android can be found within the Moto app, ranging from gestures to customization, passing through the beautiful Moto Display (an always on advanced and very comfortable).

Surprisingly, I also found the modality Ready For available in this case only via wireless, as video output on the Type-C port is not supported.

• display: 6.28-inch pOLED, 20: 9, Full HD + (419 ppi) at 120 Hz
• chip: Snapdragon 695, octa core with 6 nanometer production process, 2.2 GHz maximum frequency
• memories: 8 GB of RAM, 128 or 256 GB of storage
• cameras:
  • rear main wide: 64 MP, aperture f / 1.8, optical image stabilization (OIS)
  • ultra wide rear + macro: 13 MP, FoV 120 °, f / 2.2
  • video: Full HD at 60 fps, slowmo in Full HD at 120 fps
  • front: 32 MP, f / 2.4, Full HD video at 60 fps

• connectivity: Dual SIM (5G + 5G), 5G, Wi-Fi ac, Bluetooth 5.1, GPS, AGPS, LTEPP, SUPL, Glonass, Galileo, USB-C 3.1, NFC
• audio: stereo, tuning by Dolby Atmos, 3 microphones
• battery: 4.020 mAh
• charging: 68-watt TurboPower (supplied), 5-watt wireless
• impermeability: IP52
• interface: My UX based on Android 12
• size: 152.9 x 71.2 x 7.75 mm
• weight: 155 grams

Here I repeat the speech I made with Motorola Edge 30 Ultrathat is, with this latest batch of smartphones, the winged house has been careful to balance the specifications as best as possible, avoiding sacrificing key points such as autonomy, charging, display, audio, design and build quality. Looking at the specifications, the camera department should also be added (OIS, no unnecessary cams, AF on the ultrawide), however we will see that the photographic performances are not exactly the top and in part I believe that the problem is to be found in the true compromise for Motorola Edge 30 Neo, the SoC.

We have already met this Snapdragon 695 in the past and it had not already made a great impression on me. Here I am going to confirm it, it is a relatively modern processor but on the graphics side it struggles, the performances are not excellent and above all on the ISP side it leaves something to be desired going to negatively affect what would actually be a respectable photographic hardware.

The two photos below were taken with Edge 30 Neo and Edge 30 Fusion, same sensor on the ultrawide, different SoC.

I believe there is room for performance improvement, which are not bad in themselves, but often the smartphone is a bit indecisive, not very reactive to the inputs, as if it were calibrated in a conservative way. Things get better by activating the 2GB RAM expansion, but an upgrade can give it that boost it needs. Certainly part of this dragging sensation is due to memories that are not very fast, UFS 2.1 that are certainly there for the price list, but probably constitute a bottleneck.

Attention, with this I am not saying that it is impossible for example to play, or that you will necessarily find it awkward, it all depends on your needs and expectations.

TELEPHONE PART AND CONNECTIVITY

It takes well, it manages the two nanoSIM in a meticulous way, also allowing you to set work or private profiles or to automatically choose the best SIM based on the call history for the various contacts.

No problem on WiFi, which unfortunately does not support the 6 and 6e standard, ok also GPS and NFC.

SENSORS AND APTIC FEEDBACK

The fingerprint reader is perfect, very fast and precise, good also the brightness and proximity sensor that are effective in their task, only I noticed a minimum brightness not so low, so much so that I often had to resort to the “display dimming” function of Android 12, which however requires manual activation.

The haptic feedback is not exactly at the top, but on the other hand we are in a price range where it is impossible to find products that stand out positively in this particular element, perhaps only removed from Google Pixel 6a.

AUTONOMY AND RECHARGE

The battery module is 4020 mAh which are not very many in an absolute sense, but we are considering the dimensions and weight of Motorola Edge 30 Neo. The truth however is that autonomy is perhaps what amazed me the most about the smartphoneyou arrive in the evening quietly with at least 5 hours of active display, and you go even further in reality with a little attention.

I remind you of the way in which Motorola has set the automatic management of the refresh rate and probably some parameters of the SoC: the engineers are well aware that they do not have a large margin in terms of energy capacity and therefore they have filed where it was possible. Goal achieved.

68 Watt chargingyou can not ask for better since the power supply is supplied in the package and there is also the 5 Watt wireless charging, very slow but there is.

Motorola Edge 30 Ultra’s main camera has a 64 MP sensor which should be a Samsung Isocell GW3, the conditional is a must but it can be deduced from the specifications released by the house, accompanied by a optically stabilized lens. There ultrawide instead is 13 MP with autofocus and FOV of 120 degrees.

The choice of hardware is a bit strange, low-end sensor but embellished with optical stabilization and ultrawide with AF, which many products that cost more than double do not have.

The results are so-so, in the day all in all you can not complain even if you can notice some difficulties in the highlights, at night the quality drops quickly even by activating the night mode. It is therefore not a smartphone that stands out for the quality of the photos, even considering it within its reference range. Having said that it is definitely not inappropriate e I am convinced that most of its buyers will be satisfied, on the other hand around 300 Euros, which is the price at which I recommend it, you cannot expect magic. Selfies don’t look great but are average for the price range.

I haven’t had time to scan the Gcam database to find a fully compatible version, but I think some working version exists and can also give you great satisfaction.

The video quality is very low, both in terms of image rendering and in terms of stabilization. Unfortunately here the processor puts a hand in it, we reach the maximum at FullHD at 60 fps but in any case the resolution is not the main problem.

Motorola Edge 30 Neo is a smartphone that I liked almost in everything and that is almost part of the game anyway if purchased at the right price. In a nutshell I found a lot of positives and only two sacrificesthe SoC that leads to non-exciting performance and the photo sector, which again could be better, despite being quite interesting on paper.

With a Snapdragon 778G + and a different sensor on the main one, it would have been a smartphone to be recommended with your eyes closed, even at higher figures. Unfortunately, however, these two aspects limit it a bit and more than anything else require some more consideration on the price.

I doubt he will stay there for long, but his list price of 429 Euro there are more bodied products, Pixel 6a above all, but around 300 instead it becomes a practically perfect product for most people, a real pop smartphone. And I say this from experience, because in this Motorola Edge 30 Neo there are all those features that people always expect when they ask me for advice.

PS: take a look at the price box, it is no coincidence that I said that there would be little left at the list price.

(updated October 22, 2022, 09:20 am)