Samsung Galaxy M30s review

Excellent Super AMOLED panel

We meet the same tall 6.4-inch Super AMOLED panel with 1080 x 2340px resolution and a small notch on the top. Samsung calls this design Infinity-U. We are expecting the same performance as the M30 screen.

The maximum brightness we recorded is 441 cd/m2 but when the adaptive brightness toggle is switched on, the controller can boost the panel up to 642 cd/m2. We find the Max Auto brightness comparable to that of modern flagships and it's enough to overcome the bright sunlight outside.

Color accuracy in the default Vivid mode, however, isn't stellar. The average dE2000 is 4.9 with the maximum deviation reaching 14.1. The usual suspects are to blame - white and gray looks blue-ish and reds and greens are way over the top.

Switching on the Natural mode fixes all of the issues mentioned above. The average dE2000 falls down to 1.5 and the maximum is 3.8 - excellent results. This is definitely the mode to use if you are looking for accurate sRGB reproduction but honestly, Vivid looks better for day-to-day use.

Battery life

Expectedly, battery life on this thing is amazing. The efficient 10nm Exynos 9611 SoC combined with the humongous 6,000 mAh battery will probably be enough to last you through at least two full days of normal use. And our tests prove that the handset's battery endurance is among the best we've tested in the office. We got excellent readings on the on-screen and off-screen tests.

Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSerDevice app. The endurance rating above denotes how long a single battery charge will last you if you use the Samsung Galaxy M30s for an hour each of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. We've established this usage pattern so that our battery results are comparable across devices in the most common day-to-day tasks. The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritty. You can check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.

Unfortunately, though, we can't say the same for the charging speeds. The standard 15W charging brick provided in the box isn't nearly enough to provide juice for a decent amount of time. It took 30 minutes to fill up 0% to 21% of the battery. It's the unfortunate mix of slow charging and huge battery capacity that has resulted in this low number.

Audio quality

Moving on to evaluating the output from its 3.5mm audio jack, the Samsung Galaxy M30s put in a great performance when hooked to an active external amplifier. Its scores were excellent and the loudness was nicely high too.

The volume dropped to just above average with headphones, though and the output lost some of its accuracy. A bit of intermodulation distortion and a slight nervousness to the frequency response appeared along with an average-sized hike in stereo crosstalk. A decent showing for the class, but not one that will make you reach for your wallet on its own.

Samsung Galaxy M30s frequency response

You can learn more about the tested parameters and the whole testing process here.