Cyber polygamy and the Samsung m30

If I were to write about my first impressions of the Samsung m30  I should begin with a little background.

I usually transition every few months to a different phone. In the past it was from Android to iOS, and back, but for the last few years, it has been from flagship Android to mid-end Android, and back again.

I found myself going from the Note 8 to Lenovo to Asus to Pocophone, Huawei and s10 plus and finally to the M30.

Based on the above crazy journey one would assume that I know exactly what I want and that I was getting different combinations of the above, each with some but none with all.

What I have come to accept is that I am not, as I have been telling myself, a "power user".

As I don't play games or edit video on the device or for that matter even care too deeply for video at all.

What I did, was use the device, all the time. Camera, Streaming video, social media news, and emails. This I believe is a better representation of the typical user to a varying degree. The big difference being the excessive screen on time.

What I needed was a long-lasting battery.
Decent screen.
Brilliant Camara.
Good solid Bluetooth headphone support
Would be nice if it was pretty and waterproof.

When I had the note 8 I swore that if it had a 5000 mah battery it would have been the best phone in the world.

Then came the low light performance of the Mate 20 Pro and the extreme zoom of the "periscope lens" on the P30 Pro.

When I had the s10 plus.
I liked the camera and the glorious screen but really didn't care for the fact that it needed a top-up every evening after a regular day. And there was no way to get call recording working with my blue tooth headphones. There seems to have been something new about the security and privacy features of Android pie. It was also quite boring.

The periscope zoom lens on the p30 Pro was something that made me feel I could do better. The oddly placed power switch on the s10+ was a lefties worse nightmare.

So I searched for the newest phones with 5000 mah batteries and discovered the m30 by Samsung that launched at about the same time as the s10 range.

This, made in India, for India, the phone had a few things going for it. 5000 mah battery, OLED screen, built-in call recording and the Samsung name.

After much hoopla with high demands and restricted limited release into the wild, I managed to get an Indian friend to buy one and take it to Mozambique where he worked. Then find a taxi that was crossing the border and smuggle it into South Africa. We then met him in the shady underbelly of Durban and got our hands on the prize.

Turns out it was everything I expected, kind of.

The battery life is amazing. The call recording just perfect. The screen is nice and punchy. I didn't notice too much lag and as I don't play games probably wouldn't have noticed even if it were slower than others. The cameras in good light are fine. In poor light, not so much.

The fact that it didn't have NFC or support Samsung pay. Even with a Samsung watch. Was really dumb. The Samsung watch allows any android phone to use Samsung pay, except the m30.

When I arrived in Abu Dhabi I found that the phone was region locked in some strange way.

It didn't have any hassle with my South African sim at home or while I was in UAE but as soon as I inserted an ETISALAT sim it came up asking for an unlock code. Even though the sim didn't require a pin.

So once again I have some of the items on my wishlist but not all.

And did I mention that it costs 3000 zar which is like 200 USD!

So the phone and the Samsung watch both cost me less than 500 USD.

So, all in all, I am still happy.

I should mention that while I waited for my m30 to arrive I used an iPhone for a week and it was very pleasant. The camera was simply perfect. Point and shoot. Since all the exotic stuff I would grapple with on an android were straight up off the table I found that I could easily get used to the experience. And oddly found me with lots of free time. Lol.

Then I briefly switched to my trusty mate 9 and found out amazing and despite being a few years old truly functional.

Now looking back out occurs to me that in a perfect world I could carry several phones. Get the best of each world. Digital polygamy. But alas I have one sim only.

M Parak
April 2019 Abu Dhabi


It's now Nov 2019 and I have upgraded the M30 to the M30s. Even bigger battery, higher density camera sensor, and faster CPU. Once again I am all in. The phone is amazing. What it does, it does well.

October 2020. 

This year I have had the legendary p30 pro (a China edition) and it was wonderful with call recording and the legendary zoom. I switched half way through lockdown to the new Samsung s20+ as I didn't like the Huawei colour palette and the strange way that even though I set the primary language to English every so often I would get something in Kanji. 

The Samsung was fragile (cracked the glass on the first day) and quite boring. Amazing screen and lovely camera but not exciting. Having used two flagships in a row I enjoyed being able to simply sanitise the phones (both had ip ratings). So with covid 19 that was a plus. Then my m31 arrived from India and I switched and loved it. Truly loved it. It had a few things missing (being a mid end device) bit it really put a smile on my face. 

Yesterday the m51 arrived and it seems to be the flagship of the mid range (of there is such a thing) Bigger better battery cameras and screen came at a hefty price. It's really heavy. 

Now I leave voip running all the time and don't worry about leaving the always on because of the 7000mah battery. It's battery management is less aggressive than Huawei and clearly there is more to battery life than the mah rating. Apple and Huawei have done so much with so little. But 7000mah! Eish. 

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