Motorola Moto P30: All you need to know

Many smartphone vendors have been accused of blatantly copying designs from Apple and the most recent high profile company to do so was Huawei and the P20 series. A look at the P20 and P20 Pro is a mirror of what the Apple iPhone X looks like and to make things even more interesting (or not) is the newly announced Motorola Moto P30, a smartphone that is basically a copy of a copy. That makes sense, right?

After a handful of leaks that also involved the company mistakenly publishing details of the Motorola Moto P30 on its official website ahead of time, the phone has finally been launched in China. Like we had seen in the leaks, the P30 is indeed an iPhone X rip-off, even going further to mimic the wallpaper used on the iPhone X press images. However, on the inside, it’s completely something else, as seen below.

Moto P30 specs

6.2-inch 19:9 FHD+ LCD display
Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 processor
6GB RAM
64GB or 128GB expandable storage
Dual 16MP + 5MP main camera
12MP front camera
3000mAh battery
Android 8.0 Oreo
Extras: Bluetooth 5.0, USB-C, 3.5mm audio jack, rear-mounted scanner, 18W fast charging, etc.

The Moto P30 ships with a notched display screen, with the front camera among the sensors that are housed by the cutout, and an iPhone X-like vertical dual-lens camera on the back alongside a fingerprint scanner. Even more interesting is that the official marketing images have wallpapers that resemble what we’ve seen before on the iPhone X.

Still, Motorola can claim it’s following in the lines of the Lenovo Z5 handset that went live in China back in June, but then again, we’d still be talking about a copy of a copy. On the inside, there’s the powerful midrange chipset, Qualcomm Snapdragon 636, mated with a massive 6GB RAM and two storage options of 64GB and 128GB with room to expand via a microSD card.

Keeping the Moto P30 alive is a 3000mAh battery unit that is charged via a USB-C port and to ensure you don’t have to wait for ages before you get back on the road, there’s support for 18W fast charging technology. As for software, there’s Android 8.0 Oreo running the show out of the box and since Motorola is owned by Lenovo, the P30 has the latter’s ZUI skin on top of Oreo.

Moto P30 price and availability

Prior to its launch, there wasn’t much talk about the Motorola Moto P30, but the phone is now among us. However, this initial release is targeting the Chinese market, meaning this variant has no support for Google apps and services. Still, we expect that the Moto P30 will find its way to the rest of the world soon, probably via the IFA 2018 event in Berlin this September.

In China, the Moto P30 has a price tag of CNY 1,999 (about $290) for the base model and CNY 2,099 for the superior variant with 128GB storage. The P30 can be had in three color variants of Bright Black, Ice White, and Aurora Blue, which draws even more inspiration from the Huawei P20 Pro.