While Samsung has always been an active player in the flagship smartphone market, they’ve been making great strides in providing bang-for-buck devices in the mid-range segment. The A-series has always been Samsung’s weapon of choice in the mid-range smartphone market space, but recently, the M-series devices in their line-up have seen a lot of success.

The Galaxy M30 and A30 are two such devices, and this article will help you choose the right smartphone for you.

Processor and GPU

Both the Samsung Galaxy M30 and A30 come with the Exynos 7904 SoC, which is a highly efficient octa-core processor that packs just enough power for typical day-to-day tasks. It is configured with 2 Cortex-A73 cores clocked at 1.8GHz, while the other six cores are Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.6GHz. This setup is tuned to extract maximum possible screen-on time, but it takes a toll on the performance when compared to the competition in similar price brackets.

The Mali-G71MP2 isn’t that great either, offering mediocre performance in comparison with similarly priced products from Redmi, Vivo, among others. This causes frame-drops and bottlenecks during games and intensive tasks. For the casual gamer, the GPU should do fine, but hardcore gamers should look elsewhere.

Display

Both the Samsung A30 and M30 come with an almost identical Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen. The panel measures at 6.4-inches diagonally (84.2% screen-to-body ratio), with a resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels, and 19.5:9 aspect ratio (403 PPI density).

The only noticeable difference is that the Samsung A30 officially mentions that the glass used on the front for the display is Corning Glass 3. At the same time, the M30 has no official mention regarding display glass protection ratings.

RAM and Storage

The Samsung A30 is available in two variants: one with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of onboard storage while the other comes with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage.

The Samsung M30 is available in two variants: one with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of onboard storage, another with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage or the most expensive variant with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of onboard storage.

Both devices offer onboard storage expansion via microSD cards.

Cameras

Samsung offers a versatile and practical dual-camera system on the A30. The A30 packs a 16MP primary camera with an aperture of f/1.7 and PDAF. The secondary lens is an ultrawide 5 MP lens with an f/2.2 aperture. The front-facing shooter is a 16MP lens with an f/2.0 aperture.

The Samsung M30 offers a triple-camera setup that is practically unheard of in the segment. The M30 packs a 13MP primary camera with an aperture of f/1.9 and PDAF. The secondary lens is an ultrawide 5 MP lens with an f/2.2 aperture, while there is a third, depth sensor that uses a 5MP lens with an f/2.2 aperture to process depth information. The front-facing shooter is a 16MP lens with an f/2.0 aperture.

Both devices can record 1080p video at 30fps on both rear-facing and front-facing cameras.

Battery and OS

The Samsung A30 comes with a 4000 mAh Li-Po battery, which supports fast charging at 15W. The device ships with Samsung’s One UI on top of Android 9 Pie.

The Samsung M30 comes with a 5000mAh Li-Po battery, which supports fast charging at 15W. The device ships with Android 8 Oreo and can be upgraded to Android 9.0 Pie for access to Samsung’s One UI.

Verdict

With both phones priced almost identically, it becomes tough to recommend the A30 to prospective buyers over the M30. Getting the Samsung M30 will offer better battery life and take better portrait shots with the depth sensor without compromising on all the core aspects such as an excellent display and SD card slot availability.

Also read: What is Samsung Secure? Tips and Tricks to get the most out of it