Samsung Galaxy M30s review

Upgraded main camera and new ultra-wide snapper

One of the biggest upgrades the M30s has to offer over its recent predecessor is the camera setup. The main camera gets a huge bump from the 13MP sensor to the more up-to-date 48MP unit paired with an f/2.0 lens. The sensor itself is also significantly bigger - 1/2" and has 0.8µm pixels. We've seen what the sensor can do in numerous other phones, but it all boils down to software optimization.

The ultra-wide snapper has also been swapped with a better 8MP unit coupled with an f/2.2 lens. The old one was 5MP, so we expect minor improvements overall. The depth unit remains at 5MP.

On the notch lies the same 16MP snapper with f/2.0 aperture and 1.0µm pixels.

Camera menus

The camera menu isn't new by any means. Swiping left and right switches between modes and swipe up and down switches between the back and the front-facing camera. On the top of the viewfinder you will see the general settings menu icon, the desired resolution (if you are in Photo mode or Pro) and the various filters and beauty effects. Speaking of the Pro mode, it lets you tinker with just the ISO, white balance and exposure. The shutter speed and the manual focus options are missing.

Camera menus

There's a quick switch for the scene recognition option, and it's turned on by default. You can also do that in the general settings menu, which gives you pretty much all the options you'd typically expect to be there. The setting we found to be pretty interesting is the floating shutter button, which is pretty self-explanatory but still not something you see every day.

With the camera settings out of the way, let's dive into the photo samples.

Daylight samples

We expected that the new 48MP sensor on the M30s would perform much better than the old one on the M30, and we were right. Somewhere between the better hardware and the refined software, the M30s produces excellent daytime photos, and we are hard-pressed to complain about anything.

Images look sharp, dynamic range is impressive, and colors are punchy. Okay, maybe a bit over the top compared to real life. Let's just say that the colors make the pictures look instagrammable. Also, the level of fine detail isn't amazing, but this is just us nitpicking. For a phone that costs €230, those are some nice-looking photos.

12MP samples

The photos by the ultra-wide camera, on the other hand, disappoint a little by being a bit too soft. However, Samsung did a pretty good job of making its output similar to the main camera's. The processing of the ultra-wide camera is pretty similar when it comes to saturation, contrast and dynamic range. Although, the latter isn't as good as on the main camera.

Ultra-wide samples

Color fringing isn't as prominent as on some competing ultra-wide cameras on the market, and the edge softness isn't a thing we consider to be an issue at this price point.

Low-light samples

When the light goes down, the main camera retains the good dynamic range and handles light sources very well. Exposure is even and accurate, and colors are punchy. Upon closer inspection, though, there is some general softness and visible noise, but those are somewhat expected.

Low-light samples in default mode

The interesting thing is that the night mode didn't do anything for those images. In fact, in some cases, the night mode proved to be detrimental to the photos. The night mode images turned out softer - granted, with less noise - but didn't do much for highlights and shadows. The active HDR algorithm in the standard Photo mode is doing its job. And when you consider the fact that the software crops the night mode images down to around 8MP - probably due to some processing limitations of the ISP - it's hard to recommend using this mode. You won't be gaining anything, just use the default Photo mode.

Low-light samples using Night mode

At night, the ultra-wide camera loses all of its advantages that we pointed out - the dynamic range is severely lacking, the colors are dull and contrast is non-existent. In addition, the softness that we observed during the day is more prominent with some added noise on the side. You will find it challenging to make a good-looking photo with the ultra-wide in the dark.

Ultra wide-angle low-light samples

Now let’s take the time to compare the phone to some of its competitors in a more controlled environment.

Galaxy M30s against the Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro and Xiaomi Mi 9T in our Photo compare tool

Portraits

Portraits are quite good given the price of the handset. If there's enough light, you can expect good level of detail and natural-looking skin tone. But when conditions are suboptimal, image quality deteriorates fast as you start to lose some fine detail and sharpness. Also, we found the dynamic range a bit lacking.

Portrait samples

But edge detection is rather impressive. Even with a more complex background, the software does a pretty good job of differentiating the subject from the background elements. It handles hair nicely as well, as long as the background is uniform.

Seflies

To be honest, these are not the best 16MP selfies we've seen. The detail is okay but dynamic range isn't the best around. Also, going for low-light selfies will result in soft and underexposed stills. Then again, you can't expect much from a midranger like the M30s and here's a tip: take a couple of selfies from various lengths because the fixed focus could be a limiting factor and we found that some of the selfies come out of focus.

Selfies: Normal • Portrait • Normal • Portrait • Normal • Portrait

Video recording

The Galaxy M30s is capable of recording 4K videos at 30 fps or 1080p videos at 30 fps. Additionally, the handset supports Samsung's Super Steady video recording that was introduced with the Galaxy S10-series, buy it can only be used at resolutions up to 1080p. Oh, and Super slo-mo is also available at 720p@480fps. Now let's get to the sample videos.

The 2160p footage we took pretty nice with punchy colors, good contrast, wide dynamic range while noise is kept well under control. The level of detail isn't impressive for 4K resolution but it's not too bad either.

The sharpness and detail on the 1080p are understandably not on par with the 4K footage but the overall rendering remains the same with good contrast, punchy colors and wide dynamic range.

Recording with the ultrawide camera is also possible but we don't recommend doing so. The video is super soft and with limited dynamic range.

And here’s a handy comparison to other rivals in a more controlled environment.

2160p: Galaxy M30s against the Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro and Xiaomi Mi 9T in our Video compare tool