“The Samsung Galaxy M30 is South Korean giant’s answer to the Redmi Note 7 Pro but is it a fitting one?”

For the last couple of years, Samsung has been warding off competition from Chinese brands like Xiaomi in India’s smartphone market. And it was only a matter of time before the Chaebol to hit back, which it did and how. Kickstarting 2019, the South Korean giant introduced the M series, which brings some of the premium features from Samsung’s high-end lineup to the more affordable segment. The latest in the series — the Galaxy M30 goes straight up against the Redmi Note 7 Pro. Considering both of these smartphones are priced under Rs 15,000, which one should you be going for? Let’s find out in this comparison.

Design and display

To begin with, both these smartphones come with waterdrop notch, which Xiaomi calls dot notch and Samsung refers to as Infinity-U display. Both displays offer full HD+ resolutions and near identical size; 6.3-inch for the Note 7 Pro and 6.4-inch for the M30. However, the Galaxy M30 comes with Samsung’s Super AMOLED display, which definitely is better and crisper than the IPS LCD panel used on Redmi Note 7 Pro. You get much better colour production, deeper blacks and impressive brightness from the panel on the Galaxy M30. Furthermore, the Super AMOLED display also gets an edge as it produces an astounding 100,000:1 contrast ratio and adapts to the ambient lighting automatically.

In terms of the design, the Galaxy M30 and Redmi Note 7 Pro are being offered in attractive gradient hues, which look quite stunning.

Cameras

Coming to the cameras, the Galaxy M30 is one step ahead of its Redmi counterpart (quite literally). The smartphone comes with a triple-camera module on the rear panel as compared to dual rear shooters on the Redmi Note 7 Pro. Talking specifics, the Galaxy M30 flaunts a 13-megapixel primary shooter backed by a depth sensor and ultra-wide angle, both 5-megapixel lenses. The Redmi Note 7 Pro on the other hand, misses out on the ultra-wide angle sensor but comes with a powerful 48-megapixel shooter backed by a 5-megapixel depth sensor.

As for the front shooter, the Redmi Note 7 Pro comes with a 13-megapixel sensor that sits in the display notch. In comparison, the Samsung Galaxy M30 gets a more powerful 16-megapixel shooter, which is backed with smart AI-backed beauty mode.

Hardware

As far as the performance is concerned, the Galaxy M30 comes powered by the 14nm octa-core Exynos 7904 SoC backed by either 4GB or 6GB RAM, depending upon the variant. The smartphone is being offered in two storage configurations of 64GB and 128GB, respectively with support for up to 512GB microSD cards. In contrast, the Redmi Note 7 Pro is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 octa-core SoC, which is built with more efficient 11nm fabrication. The RAM and storage configuration remains the same.

Battery

With regards to the battery, the Note 7 Pro continues the legacy of Redmi series with a hefty 4,000mAh battery. However, the Samsung Galaxy M30 manages to one up its rival by offering a 5,000mAh battery as well as a 15W fast charger in the box. The Galaxy M30 also gets an edge over its Redmi competitor because of the three times faster charging enabled by 15W fast charger, which is provided with the handset.

Closing thoughts

It’s apparent that with a starting price tag of Rs 14,990, the Galaxy M30 has taken the fight straight to Redmi Note 7 Pro, which starts at Rs 13,999 for the base variant. While the Redmi Note 7 Pro has several pros (pun intended) that give it an edge over the Galaxy M30, the Samsung offering does seem to be a better all-round, power-packed device for most people with versatile cameras, better display and a beefy battery.