Motorola Edge 30 Ultra Review: An excellent flagship from Motorola that can set newer benchmarks!!

Motorola Edge series has been very popular in every price segment, we find Motorola smartphone and this year with the Edge 30 series, Motorola has gained a strong foothold recently with the Edge 30 Fusion (Review) which brings along some very good specifications thus giving strong competition in the budget flagship segment.

The Motorola Edge 30 Ultra has created a big hype in the smartphone industry as it brings with it a 200MP camera which has been the highest resolution in any smartphone in today’s date. Other than the cameras, it packs in some powerful specifications like a powerful Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset, a good pOLED display, premium build and design and a large 4610mAh battery with support for 125W fast charging.

Is the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra worth buying compared to other smartphones that have the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset? Let’s find out the full review.

In terms of build and design, the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra sports a premium build as it has a glass sandwich design with both the front as well as back Gorilla Glass 5 for protection. The back of the smartphone has a frosted finish instead of a glossy finish that provides a good grip and does not catch fingerprints. The Motorola Edge 30 Ultra is available in two different colours – Interstellar Black and Starlight White.

If you consider the Interstellar Black variant, the back sparkles when light strikes it at different angles. The camera module is rectangular where on the top, there is the main camera and below it lies the telephoto camera and an ultrawide camera. Besides the cameras, there is a LED flashlight present and the camera bump is felt slightly when kept on a flat surface.

The back of the smartphone has an IP52 rating which makes it splash and dust-resistant up to some extent but still considering the price segment, Motorola could have given an IP67 rating. Around the sides, there is an aluminium frame that houses the power button and the volume buttons on the right side whereas the left side remains completely cleaner. The smartphone has slight curves around the edges.

At the bottom, there is a USB Type-C port, a primary microphone, a dual SIM card slot and a loudspeaker grille. There is neither a slot for a microSD card for storage expansion nor a 3.5mm headphone jack present. On the top, there is a secondary noise-cancelling microphone present. Since the display is curved and the side frame is slimmer at 8.4mm, it is easier to hold in hand.

However, the smartphone weighs around 199 grams but still, it feels lighter while held in hands. On the front, there are almost minimum bezels around the sides and you get a single punch-hole display.  

The Motorola Edge 30 Ultra sports a larger 6.67-inches Full HD+(1080×2400 pixels) pOLED display with a screen-to-body ratio of 20:9. Since this is a pOLED display, the bezels are barely present around and you get good colour reproduction and viewing angles are excellent. You also get a 144Hz refresh rate just like all Motorola smartphones.

Talking about the refresh rate, there is the standard refresh rate with three different settings – 60Hz, 144Hz and an Auto option where the display automatically switches between 60Hz and 144Hz depending on the content in the display. However, you miss out on the adaptive refresh rate but Motorola could have provided an LTPO panel which would have made it better.

Combined with the 144Hz refresh rate, you get a 576Hz touch sampling rate which provides fast touch responses and also in gaming. In terms of brightness, the display on the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra can reach a peak brightness of 1250nits which is good but still not the segment best. However, the display has good visibility under direct sunlight.

The display has two different settings to choose from – Natural and Saturated where if you switch to Natural, the colours look more realistic and it also covers the sRGB colour space whereas Saturated mode provides saturated colours that look punchier and also it covers the DCI-P3 gamut scale. Since you get a pOLED display, there is an optical in-display fingerprint which works accurately.

The display on the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra supports HDR on YouTube and also you get Widevine L1 so you can stream HD content on OTT platforms like Netflix, Prime, etc currently Netflix does not have support for HDR content and maybe Motorola fixes this issue in a future software update. Overall, the curved display looks premium and is great for media consumption.

Like the OnePlus 10T (Review) and the iQOO 9T (Review), the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra is also powered by the latest and most powerful Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset which is a small upgrade over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset used on many flagships of 2022. As a result, all the tasks like scrolling through webpages, playing games, rendering videos, and other multi-tasking feel smoother and it could handle all things smoothly.

All heavy games like Apex Legends, BGMI, etc ran at the highest graphics setting smoothly without any stutters or lags. BGMI could easily run at HDR graphics with Extreme frame rates and after long hours i.e. 3-4 hours, the back does not feel much warmer as Qualcomm has controlled the overheating much better on the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset.

In benchmarks, the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra scores very well and in the CPU throttling test, the smartphone could achieve a sustained performance of around 70-80 per cent which is not the best for a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 powered smartphone but still very good compared to Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. In terms of network connectivity, you get good carrier aggregation and have support for 13 bands of 5G.

The Motorola Edge 30 Ultra is available in only one variant – 8GB LPDDR5 RAM with 128GB storage of UFS 3.1 speeds. However, this is a big disappointment as Motorola could have provided 12GB RAM with a 256GB storage variant as found on other flagships in this price segment. Overall, the performance is flagship level and very good.

The Motorola Edge 30 Ultra runs on Android 12 out of the box with Motorola’s own custom skin MyUX which resembles Stock Android found on Pixel smartphones. MyUX provides a lot of features like a Moto application where you get all the gestures like a karate chop to turn on/off the flashlight, twist back and forth to open the camera, double tap on the power button to enable Power Touch, etc.

There is also the Peek Display and Attentive Display where the latter shows the notifications when tapping it on the lock screen. Other features include changing icon shape and size, different animations for fingerprint scanner, different wallpapers and themes, and also you get Dolby Atmos for enhanced sound output, etc. There is also the Moto Gametime feature which provides touch sensitivity while gaming.

You also get Motorola Strongbox built on ThinkShield which provides security between hardware and software. Some of the Android 12 features are Auto-theming where depending on the wallpaper, the colour gets applied throughout the user interface, Android 12-based widgets and an enhanced Privacy Dashboard where you can see which applications are using the camera and microphone and also location. 

There is also the Ready For feature where you can use the smartphone interface on a PC or laptop. However, one thing that makes the user interface most striking is that there is no bloatware or ads present which provides a cleaner software experience. In terms of software updates, the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra will receive another three years of Android OS updates and four years of security patches which is good. 

The biggest hype that Motorola has created is the cameras on the Edge 30 Ultra as it is the first smartphone that brings a 200MP main camera. The Motorola Edge 30 Ultra houses a 200MP f/1.9 Samsung HP1 sensor for the main camera, a 50MP f/2.2 Samsung JN1 sensor for the ultrawide camera, and a 12MP f/1.6 telephoto camera with 2x optical zoom.  

On the front, there is a 60MP f/2.2 camera which has an OmniVision sensor. The images from the main camera come out with a good dynamic range and the details also look sharper. The contrast is very good and the colours come out natural without any oversharpening. The default images come out at 12.5MP and in HDR mode, the colours look oversaturated slightly with almost no noise present.

At night, the images from the main camera come out with details that look sharper and have a good dynamic range and contrast with very less noise in the background. The low-light exposure is well under control and there is an Auto Night Vision mode which turns on automatically or can be turned on the images have very good dynamic range and almost no noise present.

The 50MP ultrawide camera does a good job in terms of details that look sharper but the dynamic range could have been better. There is some distortion present around the edges and also when you zoom into the images, slight noise is present. The colours look natural with no oversharpening as such. At night, the ultrawide camera does a good job in terms of details that look sharper but the dynamic range comes out average.

There is some amount of noise present and also the exposure is not so good but if you turn on the Auto Night Vision, the dynamic range improves and also the details come out slightly sharper with better colours in the background. The ultrawide camera also doubles up as a macro camera which takes images with sharper details and since it has autofocus present, the dynamic range is excellent and has almost no noise also.

The third camera is a telephoto camera which takes images with a good amount of details that look sharper and have good dynamic range but colours look slightly oversaturated. The noise is less in the background also. At night, the images from the telephoto camera come out with good colours that look natural with sharper details and excellent dynamic range though there is no Auto-Vision Night mode.

In terms of portraits, the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra uses its telephoto camera and the images have good dynamic range and edge detection with proper background blur. The human skin tones look natural and there is almost no noise present. You can also use the main camera for portraits which gives a slightly more broken effect and subject separation is more from the background with less noise present.

On the front, the selfies come out with sharper details and excellent dynamic range as the default selfies come at 15MP. The skin tones look natural and there is no oversharpening in the background as such. The portrait selfies come out with good edge detection and the dynamic range is spot on. However, the blur is very much which needs some improvement.

The main camera can record 8K videos at 30fps and the videos come out with decent dynamic range and details look sharper with almost no noise present since there is OIS present, the videos look stabilized and colours come out natural. If you switch to 4K recording at 60fps, the footage comes out with a great dynamic range but details do look slightly softer sometimes.

The ultrawide camera and the telephoto camera can only record 1080p videos at 30fps and the videos from the ultrawide camera come out with good dynamic range but at times the details look softer. However, the noise is well under control and colours come out natural but at this resolution, the ultrawide camera implements EIS to reduce noise in the background.

The telephoto camera takes videos with good stabilization though there is no OIS and the colours come out natural with good dynamic range and the details also look good. The front camera can record 4K videos at 30fps which results in sharper details and good dynamic range. Overall the cameras are very good on the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra.

The Motorola Edge 30 Ultra sports a 4610mAh battery which is well-sized and in terms of heavy usage includes rendering videos, playing games like BGMI, and Call Of Duty Mobile and also recording videos with taking images, the smartphone easily lasted for one and a half days with the display set to 144Hz and switching to 60Hz, the smartphone lasted for two days.

With normal usage which includes streaming social media, scrolling webpages, and other lighter multi-tasking things, the smartphone easily lasted for two days with the display set to 144Hz and if you switch to 60Hz, the smartphone lasts for two and half days. The standard screen-on time was around 6.5-7 hours which is very good considering the good battery optimization provided by Stock Android.

The Motorola Edge 30 Ultra has support for 125W fast charging which is really good as it takes the smartphone from 0 to 100 per cent in around half an hour which is slightly slower compared to other 120W fast chargers with other smartphones that take around 15-20 minutes but still it is fast. Other than this, you also have support for 50W fast wireless charging and 10W reverse wireless charging also.

The Motorola Edge 30 Ultra sports a dual stereo speaker setup that sounds very loud and clear. The level of bass is very good and at the loudest levels, the sound does not feel muffled or distorted. However, it lacks a 3.5mm headphone jack. There is support for Dolby Atmos for enhanced sound output. 

Overall, Motorola has built a successful product that brings in a premium build and design, a nice 144Hz display for media consumption, flagship-level performance and gaming, a great set of cameras and also good battery life with fast charging features. On top of it, you also get a clean software experience with no bloatware or ads.

But there are a few areas where Motorola needs to do improvement. You are restricted to only one variant i.e. 8GB RAM with 128GB storage since other smartphones do offer 12GB RAM with 256GB storage variant also, there is no LTPO display which would have been better and also in terms of software updates, Motorola is not the fastest compared to brands like Samsung.

If you are looking for a stylish smartphone with a curved display, more focused on gaming and a good camera experience with clean software experience, then the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra is worth buying.