The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 was launched about a week ago and now, we have the first smartphone to officially use the new flagship chipset. In the Motorola event today, the company launched the Moto Edge X30, the Edge X30 Special Edition, and the Moto Edge S30. The Moto Edge X30 and the Edge X30 Special Edition are identical but the Special Edition sports the trendy under-display selfie camera while the regular Edge X30 has a punch-hole. The Moto Edge S30 is a cheaper alternative to the X30 series and it comes with the previous-gen flagship chipset.
Without further ado, let’s get right into the specs and price of the Moto Edge X30, Edge X30 Special Edition, and Edge S30.
Motorola Moto Edge X30
The Motorola Edge X30 sports a 6.7 inches OLED display that has a FHD+ resolution with a 144 Hz refresh rate and HDR10+ support. The display uses a 10-bit panel so it can display up to a billion colors.
On the regular version, there’s a tiny punch-hole cutout at the top which houses the 60MP selfie camera with a 1/2.8 inch sensor and 1.2μm pixels. The Special Edition uses the same 60MP selfie camera but now, it is hidden under the display. This implementation has been inferior to other options but let’s see how they’ll stack up against each other.
On the rear, there’s a triple camera setup that features a 50MP main camera, a 50MP ultrawide camera, and a 2MP DoF camera. The main camera has an OmniVision’s OV50A 1/1.55-inch sensor with OIS and 2.0μm sized pixels when 4-in-1 pixel binning is applied. The ultrawide has a Samsung ISOCELL S5KGM1 sensor with AutoFocus so the ultrawide cam doubles as a macro camera. The camera can up to 8K resolution video natively.
The Moto Edge X30 and its Special Edition version are powered by the newly launched Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset. Based on tests carried out by Motorola, the Edge X30 should give up to a 20% boost in CPU performance, up to 30% better GPU performance, and a massive 400% boost in AI tasks when compared to the SD888+ chip.
Motorola shared the Edge X30 AnTuTu score of 1,061,361 which is the highest on an Android phone to date. This chipset is paired with 8GB or 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 128GB or 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. On the software front, the Moto Edge X30 runs on the latest Android 12.
As for the battery, the Motorola Moto Edge X30 has a 5,000 mAh battery with support for 68W wired charging via its USB-C port. The phone has the Qualcomm X65 5G modem so it can reach download speeds of up to 10 Gbps.
As for price, the Motorola Moto Edge X30 comes in at CNY 3,199 (≈$500) for the base 8GB 128GB model, CNY 3,399 (≈$535) for the mid 8GB 256GB model, and CNY 3,599 (≈$565) for the high-end 12GB 256GB model. The Moto Edge X30 Special Edition with its under-display selfie camera is priced at CNY 3,999 (≈$628). The phones will go on sale in China from December 15.
Motorola Moto Edge S30
The Moto Edge S30 is an upper-midrange smartphone and a great inexpensive alternative to the Edge X30.
While the more expensive X30 has the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, the Moto Edge S30 is powered by its predecessor, the Snapdragon 888+ 5G chipset coupled with the Adreno 660 GPU. It is paired with 6GB or 8GB or 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 128GB or 256GB of UFS 3.1 internal storage. Unlike the X30, the Moto Edge S30 runs on Android 11 out of the box.
The Moto Edge S30 sports a large 6.8 inches IPS LCD display that has a FHD+ resolution with support for HDR10+ content. The display has a variable refresh rate of up to 144 Hz and a touch sampling rate of up to 576 Hz. The screen has a punch-hole cutout at the top center which houses the 16MP selfie camera.
On the rear, there’s a triple camera setup just like the Moto Edge X30. It now features a 108MP main camera alongside a 13MP ultrawide camera and a 2MP depth camera.
The phone comes with IP52 certification so it is splash resistant.
The Motorola Moto Edge S30 also packs a 5,000 mAh battery but it only has support for a slower 33W fast wired charging via its USB-C port.
Other features include a side-mounted fingerprint sensor, NFC, Bluetooth 5.2, Wi-Fi 802.11ax (2.4GHz/5GHz) MIMO, and more.
As for price, the base 6GB 128GB model comes in at CNY 1,999 (≈$313) and the 8GB 128GB model comes in at CNY 2,199 (≈$345). The 8GB 256GB model comes in at CNY 2,399 (≈$377) and the top-of-the-line 12GB 256GB model comes in at CNY 2,599 (≈$408). It is going to go on sale in China from December 21.
There’s no information on when any of these phones will be available globally but we’re betting on it making a global debut in early 2022.
