Motorola Edge 30 Neo Review

The Edge 30 Neo is the product that kicks off Motorola’s new colour partnership with Pantone, but is its charm more than skin deep?

Introduction

Motorola has recently announced a new partnership with the colour experts at Pantone, and this handset is the first fruit to come from the endeavour – as you can tell from the branded swatch on its rear.

Eye-catching in four different official shades, it does still of course have to hold up as more than just eye-candy for it to be a successful smartphone. After some hands-on time, here is my initial impression of the new handset.

Design and Screen

• Lightweight at 155g
• 6.28-inch display with 120Hz refresh rate

Evidently, the design is one aspect of this phone which has undergone significant consideration. After all, this is the handset chosen to launch Motorola’s ambitious new partnership with Pantone, and evidence of this is all over it.

There are four official Pantone colour options available: Very Peri, Black Onyx, Ice Palace, and Aqua Foam, and to prove it there’s a small but iconic swatch on the reverse side. The first of these shades, which our review handset was supplied in, is Pantone’s colour of the year for 2022 and, according to the brand, displays “a carefree confidence and a daring curiosity that animates our creative spirit.”

Whether or not you buy these elaborate explanations for the psychology behind these colours, it does at least make a striking impression on the user and is a neat way to stand out in a crowded market.

Beyond the colour, the phone itself is remarkably lightweight, weighing just 155g, and it’s thin too at 7.8mm, so it’s very easy to wield in the hand or slide into a pocket. However, due to its price point, it does feel a little plasticky. While its matte surface is highly resistant to smears or smudges, it has picked up a few scratches during daily use.

In line with its svelteness, the Edge 30 Neo has a relatively small screen for a modern smartphone, clocking in at 6.28-inches. However, there’s plenty to its credit here; the OLED panel supplies excellent levels of contrast, it’s got a plenty-sharp 1080p resolution, and it’s got a maximum 120Hz refresh rate for excellent smoothness when you’re scrolling and swiping your way through supported content.

It’s too early to give a definitive verdict on the display, but it certainly seems to hold up fairly well against other devices at its price point.

Camera

• 64-megapixel main camera
• 13-megapixel ultrawide
• 32-megapixel selfie camera

The Edge 30 Neo has a dual camera system, in contrast to its siblings in the new range, which boast three apiece. The sensors in question are a 64-megapixel wide-angle which has an f/1.8 aperture, and a 13-megapixel ultrawide with an f/2.2 aperture with 120-degree field of view.

It’s too early for me to tell you exactly how good these cameras are; I am going to need to try them out in a few different contexts first, to try and determine how well it would serve you when you want to take a snap.

However, In my early experiences, it seems that these cameras take good enough snaps in broad daylight, though there are certainly question marks around its lowlight capabilities. We’ll give you the full lowdown once the review process is complete, which will be in just a few days’ time.

On the front of the phone, housed in a holepunch notch, there’s a 32-megapixel selfie camera. This is a fairly high resolution for a front-facing snapper at this price point, so we’re looking forward to seeing how well our portrait pictures come out.

Battery and Performance

• Snapdragon 695 5G chipset
• 4020mAh battery
• 68W fast-charging

The Motorola Edge 30 Neo runs on a Snapdragon 695 5G processor, which is firmly in the mid-range of the available silicon, as you’d expect for the price. As its name indicates, you will get 5G connectivity from it, and furthermore, the handset also supports dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.1, and NFC.

In my limited time with the phone I’ve not yet tested it to the limits with specs-busting games for example, but in daily use and with undemanding apps it has not yet posed me any problems at all.

The software is almost as close to stock Android 12 as you can get, without the bells and whistles – or more likely bloatware – that is offered by some of its competitors. A nice touch is that the default theme mirrors the relevant Pantone colour that the handset is enrobed in.

Motorola’s mid-rangers typically have excellent battery life. This one has a battery capacity of 4080mAh, which is considerable though not quite the 5000mAh monster cells we’ve often seen in other handsets from this brand. It’s too early in the review process for me to give my final judgement, but I’m hoping that it will follow in Motorola’s tradition of typically good battery life.

This battery is supported by 68W fast charging, which is an impressively powerful rate that should see your phone topped up in relatively short order. This is potentially similar to the OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G‘s 67W fast-charging, which took just 12 minutes to top up by 50%, though the SuperVOOC charging tech on that one may have delivered different results. We’re looking forward to seeing if the Neo can measure up to this, as it could to some extent make up for any possible shortfall in battery life.