With Samsung refreshing its budget and mid-range lineups, the Galaxy A30 and the A50 are the first to surface. And you will notice immediately that these two phones are a breath of fresh air for Samsung. In this article, we will be analyzing the Galaxy A30 closely and see if this low tire mid-range smartphone can go through the cutthroat competition that surrounds it.
Table of Contents
Design
While the design of the phone is not something we haven’t seen before, it is new for Samsung. But I will tell you what is first of its kind; its ‘Glasstic’ body. This is a construction of plastic and glass molded together and its not as slippery as glass but it is durable as plastic. So you get the best of both worlds. But it is, however, a fingerprint magnet.
The phone is large, but has curvy edges and tapered sights. So it sits comfortably in your hand. Its not bulky and seems a bit lightweight but is sturdy enough. The rear mounted fingerprint sensor is also at the right spot and is fairly easy to reach.
By the looks of it it appears as a Samsung has put quite a thought on this one. It looks cool and is something that you can show off. Only to those who don’t like such big phones might not like it but for others it’s quite likable.
The notch is small and U-shaped. Samsung dubs this the Infinity-U and it looks a bit odd to be honest. Notch just aren’t my thing but V-shaped notches look better than the U-shaped ones. There’s minimal amount of bezels around the sides but there is a chin though which frankly looks disturbing.
Display
Up front, the display on it is a joy to use as well. Its an AMOLED panel, not something you will find in others for the price. That already gives it an advantage over the competition. so I think it’s safe to say that it is the best display around for the price category.
Its large 6.4 inch panel with FHD+ resolution makes for a good viewing experience. Its sharp colors are punchy and vibrant and there is not much you can complain about. Also there’s ample brightness that makes it easy to operate outdoors under bright sunlight as well.
One thing I’d like to mention here is that the night mode paired with AMOLED technology should provide more battery life. But more than that what it gives you is a more immersive user experience with more depth. Everything is inky black and that makes it so much better. Plus, if you’re not a fan of samsung’s color calibration, they also give you a bunch of modes to suit your needs. So overall, a display that’ll beat the competition easily.
Camera
As for the camera, there are dual cameras at the back, a 16MP primary and a 5MP ultra wide-angle lens. And because this is a Samsung device, I had quite the expectations from this one.
The images on it are quite good. Everything is good enough from white balance to dynamic range and color reproduction. They pack good amount of details and the sharpness is there. If anything the images might look ever so slightly washed out in some conditions. Overall, it does a good job under well-lit conditions.
With the wide angle lens, you can definitely have a bit of fun. The wide-angle lens on this one is better than what we saw on the Galaxy M20. And with it you can take some stunning pictures. The color accuracy and sharpness does take a hit, but it does serve the purpose.
The portraits too are nice. As usual, edge detection can be a bit of a hit and miss but it does more on the accurate side. Sometimes, backgrounds tend to be a bit blown out. Also you get the option to adjust the blur levels post pictures, so that’s a handy feature.
Low-light pictures is where it falls short by a lot. I would say that under low-light its basically unusable. The images lack sharpness and details and everything appears mushy, grainy.
If we talk selfies, generally they are great. The amount of details it captures are OK but the images tend to look cooler. For portraits it is mostly the same story as the primary camera, background appears a bit blown out but the edge detection mostly works.
So I wouldn’t say that the cameras on this one are the best in the price category. You do have an ultra wide-angle lens that you don’t get in others for a similar price. They’re not “wow” but they just get the job done.
Performance
Talking about performance, the phone packs Exynos 7904 processor, which kind of matches the benchmark scores of the Snapdragon 636 or Samsung’s own 7885. But I feel like this is not the processor that you should be getting for the price. I mean you can get Snapdragon 660 powered devices for the price which is a better performer in both CPU and GPU.
Well…while using it, the phone didn’t freeze or stutter anywhere but everything was a tad bit slower to my liking. For instance, apps take like a half second to launch and it can be really annoying at times. Its not that frustrating, it’s like something that won’t make that much of a difference but you can’t unsee that.
The performance from this one is also nothing exciting either. Multitasking and stuff is OK and you can game on it pretty well. PUBG runs on medium settings by default and every other game I tried like Real Racing 3, Asphalt 9 and a bunch of others ran without any problems.
The UI too is smooth to use. However, heavy multitasking is not something it can handle. For instance, if you get a notification on messenger while gaming then things starts to freeze and it can get pretty frustrating.
Honestly, I think Samsung could have given a slightly better SOC. But considering the price to package ratio, I think it is a bit too much to ask. It is still a good performer but hard to recommend if your topmost priority is performance.
Software
On the software front, you get the Android 9.0 Pie with Samsung One user interface. The UI is pretty standard and offers a lot of customization options.
There are a few Microsoft bloatware apps which cannot be removed but only disabled. But the Samsung bloatware apps like Samsung Notes and such can be completely uninstalled which is great to see. The UI is pretty lightweight and feels modern. Enabling gesture mode helps in one-handed usage.
There’s also a reduced animation option which can minimize the animation on your phone’s certain operations without turning the Developers Mode ON. That can help your phone get a tad bit faster.
I really like this UI from Samsung. Now, what I did not like is the fingerprint sensor. To me it appeared as if the fingerprint sensor was not responsive enough. Maybe it’s the screen unlock animation, but it feels a bit slow compared to the ones on other phones. The face unlock is also not as fast. While these features are showing up on a lot of phones, even on budget ones, Samsung has yet to improve on them. So this was a bit of a disappointment for me.
Battery
In terms of battery, you get a good size 4000 mAh unit with this one so the battery life does not disappoint. I usually got over 6 hours of battery life, even on heavy usage and that is very impressive.
Its pretty difficult to use up the battery in a single day but you will have to put it on charge at the end of the day. There is the always-on display option and if you keep that on it will eat up like 1% of your battery every half hour or so. But since there is no LED notification, that thing will have to stay ON even if it means sacrificing your battery.
You also get a 15-watt adaptive fast charging, which can take your phone from 0 to 100% in slightly under 2 hours.
Overall Experience
So for a price of around $250, the A30 offers you a great display, great design, excellent battery life, decent cameras, and a user-friendly UI. But what it lacks in the performance department and that is where phones like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 and the Realme 2 Pro comes in. Also those phones have slightly better cameras except for the wide-angle lens.
So that’s all for the review of the Samsung Galaxy A30. If you have any question, feel free to drop down in the comment section.
