Samsung Galaxy M30s


The Samsung Galaxy M30s is an Android phablet manufactured by Samsung Electronics as part of its first-generation Galaxy M series lineup, as a successor to the Samsung Galaxy M30. The phone is shipped with Android 9, Samsung's proprietary One UI skin, 64 or 128 GB of internal storage, and a 6000 mAh Li-Po battery. The M30s was released on 18 September 2019. It features a rear triple camera array composing of a 48 MP wide angle camera, 8 MP ultra wide angle camera, and a 5 MP depth sensor.

Specifications

Hardware

The Samsung Galaxy M30s comes with a 6.4” FHD+ Super AMOLED Infinity-U Display with a U-shaped notch for the frontal camera, similar to the Samsung Galaxy M30. This results in a screen-to-body ratio of 91%. The display has a contrast ratio of 78960:1 and a max brightness of 420 nits. The phone has 4 GB and 6 GB RAM versions, with 64 GB or 128 GB of internal storage, respectively. The storage for both versions is expandable up to 1 TB via microSD card. The phone has a 6000 mAh Li-Po battery supporting wired 15W fast charging. The battery is the largest ever for a Samsung smartphone, and the largest for a smartphone released in India. A fingerprint scanner is mounted in the back. The phone has an octa-core 10 nm Exynos 9611 system on chip with a central processing unit of 4×2.3 GHz Cortex-A73 & 4×1.7 GHz Cortex-A53. It also has a Mali-G72 MP3 GPU.

Camera

The rear camera array is mounted on a rectangular bump. There is one 48 MP f/2.0 wide angle camera with a pixel size of 0.8 µm and phase-detection autofocus. There is a 8 MP f/2.2 ultra-wide angle lens with a focal length of 12mm and 123° field of view. Finally, there is a 5 MP f/2.2 depth sensor. The area in the rectangular bump not filled by the cameras and flash contains the characters "48 mega pixels". There is a night mode that increases the brightness at low light levels, while reducing noise, and a live focus mode that creates a Bokeh effect through the depth sensor. The camera supports 4K video recording at 30 fps, super-steady video, hyperlapse, and slow motion video. Additionally, it features Samsung's scene optimizer technology, which recognizes 20 different scenes using AI and automatically adjusts the camera settings.

Software

The Samsung Galaxy M30s runs on the Android 9.0 operating system, with Samsung's One UI skin, which repositions the touch area in stock Samsung apps towards the bottom, making the interface easier for one handed use with a large screen. The M30s' features include Bixby, Google Assistant, Samsung Health, and Samsung Pay.

Reception

Critical reception

The phone received generally positive reviews from critics, with its camera receiving most criticism. NDTV gave the phone a score of 8/10, praising the battery, display, and performance, while criticizing the camera. Android Authority gave the phone a score of 8.2/10, praising the display, audio quality, and performance, while also criticizing the camera and the phone heating up during heavy usage periods. The Mobile Indian also positively described the display, battery, and performance, while negatively describing the camera's low light performance and plastic back design. Finally, Business Standard India positively described the general aspects of the phone including the battery, while criticizing the camera.

Issues

Some users reported that the phone faces issues regarding connecting to LTE networks. Also, some users reported the phone heating up during heavy usage, which was also criticized by some reviewers.