Motorola Edge 30 Neo preview: accessible beauty

by techlowdown · 9 September 2022

The Motorola Edge 30 Neo is a brand new member of the Edge family, entering with the aim to introduce the same beautiful design of its Edge 30 Fusion and Edge 30 Ultra siblings, but at a much more affordable price.

Motorola has focused heavily on color with the Edge 30 Neo, partnering up with Pantone, which is a company leading in consistency and accuracy. For each color option that this affordable Motorola Edge comes in, you will find a Pantone chip inlay on the back of the device, which Motorola claims is subtle, but we beg to differ.

Motorola Edge 30 Neo Design & Colors

Speaking of colors, here are all the Pantone branded ones that you will find the Edge 30 Neo in:

Very Peri
Black Onyx
Ice Palace
Aqua Foam

Unlike the Edge 30 Fusion and Ultra, though, the back panel of the Edge 30 Neo is made out of plastic. Nevertheless, it does feel like good quality plastic, unlike some of the cheaper Moto G series.The frame is also made out of plastic, so it is easier to damage and needs to be protected. On the other hand, as it is made out of plastic, the phone is quite light in the hand and easy to hold, thanks to its thin profile. It is also quite compact, coming in at 152.9 x 71.2 x 7.75mm.

You don’t get the edge lighting notifications feature like you do on the other two phones, but Motorola has found another way to fill in that gap — an LED band wraps around the camera housing, lighting in different ways depending on the notification that’s being received.

Motorola Edge 30 Neo Display

Much like with its siblings, the display is one of the Edge 30 Neo’s stronger features. It is a 6.28″ pOLED display and comes with a resolution of 2400 x 1080 and a 120Hz refresh rate. The screen seemed perfectly fine while we gave it a quick test during our hands-on experience, but we will have to wait until our benchmarks, as the brightness is not mentioned and needs to be measured.

Motorola Edge 30 Neo Camera

The Edge 30 Neo comes with two cameras on the back and a selfie camera. On the back you will find a 64MP main snapper with optical image stabilization (OIS) and pixel binning, which helps achieve better low-light shots by combining multiple pixels into one to capture more light.You also get a 13MP ultra-wide that can also function as a macro camera thanks to Macro Vision. Unfortunately, you don’t get OIS on this camera, but that’s to be expected at this price point. As for the front-facing shooter, it has a total of 32MP.

We will test all of these cameras out during our full review of the Motorola Edge 30 Neo, so stay tuned if you want to find out whether they are good enough for everyday shots.

Motorola Edge 30 Neo Performance

The Edge 30 Neo comes with the Snapdragon 695 5G from Qualcomm, which is also found in other phones like the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite 5G. It should be a good enough chip for everyday browsing and tasks, and playing some light games every now and then.

In terms of RAM/storage combos you get two:

8/128GB
8/256GB

Of course, we will be putting the Edge 30 Neo through our benchmarks and tests for the complete review, so keep an eye out as we will have it ready for you soon enough.

Motorola Edge 30 Neo Battery and Charging

The Motorola Edge 30 Neo comes with a 4020mAh battery. The maximum charging speed is 68W via a cable and 5W via a wireless charger. Good news is that even this cheaper model comes with a TurboPower 68W charger right in the box, so you don’t need to buy one yourself.

It’s worth mentioning that even though there is wireless charging on the Edge 30 Neo, it should go without saying that there is no reverse wireless charging.