Verdict
The Motorola Edge 30 Ultra is a successful return to the flagship fold for the stigma , offering a stylish handset with a o.k. exhibit , strong public presentation , and one of the clean and most pleasant - to - use UIs around . The camera set - up is just adequate , but Motorola goes above and beyond with its pumped and wireless charging planning .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
Motorola has been in an on - again , off - again human relationship with flagship headphone , choosing to devote most of its time and attention to the affordable Moto G family . If former Motorola Edge phone have seen the make tentatively attempting to rekindle that flagship fire , however , then the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra sees the stigma moving its stuff in and taking on some of the bills .
Launching in September 2022 , this is Motorola ’s most serious flagship committedness in quite some time , with almost - top - grade specs ally to a flowing design and a £ 749 terms tag that would have been classed ‘ exchange premium ’ not so long ago .
Of course , we ’re now some months on from the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra ’s launch , and a new breed of mainstream flagship phones has run into the marketplace . It ’s still selling for the same monetary value , which pitches it direct up against theSamsung Galaxy S23and theOnePlus 11 . Can the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra still mix it with the best ?
Design and screen
If Motorola is out of practice with attain a flagship earpiece , it does n’t show from the exterior . The Motorola Edge 30 Ultra sport a adorable premium design , albeit a somewhat derivative one .
Its treble - twist display , silken glass - and - alloy building , and slightly sparkly ‘ Interstellar Black ’ finish put me in mind of early 2022 ’s stealthyXiaomi 12 Pro . It ’s a skillful look despite that familiarity , and the phone feels proficient in the hand too .
There ’s a considerable premium presence to the Edge 30 radical , doubtless enhanced by a fairly substantial 199 gram body . On the flip - side , it ’s only IP52 rated , so you do n’t get the tier of warrant water and dust protection that rival flagship phones provide .
A quick note about that dual - swerve video display – it ’s not ideal for picture uniformity or , going by painful past experience , robustness , but nor is this the most pronounced curve of its kind . It work to make the Edge 30 Ultra feel swish , and it does n’t distort the picture too much .
Does it palpate any more fluid than the 120Hz OnePlus 11 oriPhone 14 Pro ? Not really . The dispute is literally modest and indeed much less noticeable than the leap from 60 to 120Hz , but it ’s a coolheaded bragging stage however .
More importantly , the Edge 30 Ultra ’s screen is skillful and colour - precise , especially in the preferred innate colour mode . It support HDR10 + output too .
Motorola claims a apex brightness of 1250 nits here , though with auto - brightness switched off I measured a maximum brightness of 477 nit . It is n’t up there with the very best and bright flagship phones on the grocery , then , but it stands up to day view just fine .
Camera
The Motorola Edge 30 Ultra ’s camera system is fronted by a headline - grabbing 200MP main sensor . Do n’t equalise this with the more late launched Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra , however .
We ’re speak about a lower form of ingredient here in Samsung ’s ISOCELL HP1 detector , which we ’ve also seen in the not - quite - flagship Xiaomi 12 T Ultra . It ’s deserving take note , though , that Motorola was technically the first to market with its 200MP sensor .
simulacrum taken with the Edge 30 Ultra ’s principal photographic camera are decent in honorable lighting , with the form of crisp item you ’d hope for with so many pixels float around . By nonremittal , you ’ll obtain 12.5MP shots , with a particularly extensive usance of the proficiency know as pixel binning . This have in mind that one picture element will take information from 16 surrounding pixel for improved lucidity .
Despite this headline - grab feature , shots taken with the Motorola are n’t noticeably better than the top upper - mid - range competition on the securities industry . They certainly do n’t mix it with broadly speaking tantamount efforts from Apple , Samsung , and Google .
That ’s doubly true when shooting in grim light . Night shots look respectable , with OIS smoothing out those extended shutter times , but I detected a noticeable amount of grain in darker arena . I also encountered a couple of juncture in less well - perch scenarios – let in unnaturally lit interiors – where the camera only failed to focus on the subject . Or anything , for that matter .
The phone ’s 50MP ultra - wide photographic camera is n’t tough at all , with reasonable detail and a tone that is n’t too far removed from the main camera . you’re able to see that there ’s less pop to colours , but it ’s a clear step up from the mid - range brigade . This component still accrue short of the good , but is a braggy step above the mid - range gang .
There ’s a 12MP 2x telephotograph photographic camera here too , which is n’t a given in a non - pro - tied phone these days . It apparently lack the degree of particular provided by that pixel - packed main sensor , but again , I was proud of to see the color musical note in roughly the same ballpark .
The most dissatisfactory television camera here is plausibly the one on the front . Like the main sensor there ’s a surfeit of pixels ( 60MP for 15MP pixel - binned shots ) on offering with the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra ’s selfie cam , and also like that main television camera , it does n’t produce the looker results you might expect .
I find my selfies to be weirdly fuzzy and warm , with little bound definition . An off - puttingly smudged skin tone suggested some sort of ‘ Beautify ’ setting was in play , though I could n’t find one to toggle off in the television camera UI . The proviso of a slimly wider selfie angle feel superfluous too , with not enough difference between it and the default slant .
Performance
The Motorola Edge 30 Ultra runs onQualcomm ’s Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 processor , which was the cut edge at the clock time of the headphone ’s launching in the latter one-half of 2022 . Since then we ’ve seen the launching of theSnapdragon 8 Gen 2 in phones like the Galaxy S23 and the OnePlus 11 , so Motorola ’s flagship can no longer pay heed with the sound .
It ’s still very capable indeed , though , and a notable step up from the bulk of last twelvemonth ’s flagship speech sound running on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 . The Plus revision runs faster and coolheaded , and thus more expeditiously . It ’s also much faster ( in even terms ) than the Tensor G2 chip used in theGoogle Pixel 7andPixel 7 Pro , with an average Geekbench 5 single - inwardness musical score of 1796 and a multi - core score of 4363 .
The only Edge 30 Ultra model available derive with 12 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage . While it would have been nice to have more storehouse options in finicky , that should be ample for most people .
The Motorola Edge 30 Ultra comes with stereophonic speaker and Dolby Atmos livelihood . They ’re not up there with the very serious in term of depth and depleted - ending oomph , but they ’re loud and clean and offer nice stereoscopic photograph separation .
It ’s a shame to see the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra still stay put onAndroid 12 in early 2023 , but I ’d take Motorola ’s clean take on this out - of - date OS over any number of heavily customised UIs run on top ofAndroid 13 . There will be an update to the latter at some point , too .
The simple , graceful , low - intervention approach that Motorola take with its software has always been suitable of congratulations , and it pee the Edge 30 Ultra find as classy as it expect . It ’s not totally stock , but even where Motorola has dabbled , it ’s loosely been successful .
I specially like Motorola ’s lock screen notifications , which permit you preview by tapping and holding . Meanwhile , those Moto gestures are as handy as ever in a pinch , particularly the double - turn television camera crosscut and a dual - chop torch .
Battery life
Motorola has pack its latest flagship phone with a slightly smaller - than - average 4610mAh battery . for sure enough , it ’s no stamina top executive , but it ’ll get you through a full solar day of regular usage without vexation .
In a 14 - hour day with four hours of screen on time – what I ’d call the upper destruction of moderate usage – I establish that the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra would be left with around 45 % in the tank . That ’s not the full stamp battery performance of any flagship telephone set , but it ’s still absolutely adequate – especially given that I had do the screen to run permanently at 144Hz rather than scale according to the labor at handwriting .
It stomach up well to media usage too , with an hour of Disney+ teem with the screen at 50 % cleverness sapping 5 % of its charge . One hour of YouTube Music cyclosis sapped 1 % . That ’s pretty normal for a gamy - end earphone .
The stand - out spec here is the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra ’s charging provision . You get a rapid 125W charger in the box which , in my experience , catch the earphone from totally empty to 71 % in just 15 minutes .
It occupy about another 10 minutes ( just under 25 moment in total ) to get all the way to 100 % , but we ’re still talk imposingly tight charging here . It certainly puts Samsung ’s and Apple ’s more expensive offerings to shame , and you get that charger in the corner too .
Perhaps even more impressive is Motorola ’s support for 50W wireless charging . It ’s not rare for headphone attempting to undersell the flagship brigade to omit any variety of wireless charging ( see the OnePlus 11 ) , so this is very respectable to see .
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Should you buy it?
The Motorola Edge 30 Ultra goes above and beyond with its bill provision . The bundled 125W battery charger will get you from 0 to 100 % in well under 30 bit , and also feature 50W wireless charging .
The Motorola Edge 30 Ultra is n’t bad at night shots by any means , but nor is it up there with the pass ring .
Final Thoughts
Motorola has tender us a well-timed admonisher that it ’s really quite good at this smartphone lark . The Motorola Edge 30 Ultra is its best phone in days , offering an accomplished almost - flagship experience for an almost - flagship price .
It ’s tight , good-looking , and features a hunky-dory 144Hz display . Meanwhile , the phone ’s charging position - up put many a mellow - visibility flagship rival to shame , with extremely rapid wired and wireless provision . Motorola ’s UI continues to be one of the best in the business sector , too .
thing are n’t utter : the phone ’s camera system is n’t quite as accomplished as it might seem , and its low IP rating is n’t exactly reassuring . But in Clarence Shepard Day Jr. - to - day operation , the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra is only a pleasure to use .
Trusted Score
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FAQs
It can last all daylight , and well into a second day .
Yes .
6.67 in .
Yes , and support for 50W wireless charging at that .
Android 12 .
