Motorola Moto G 5G Plus review: The Verdict
The fact the Moto G 5G Plus is Australia's cheapest 5G phone doesn't really matter. What does is that it represents great bang-for-buck thanks to reliable performance and an excellent battery. If you're looking for a phone under $500, the Moto G 5G Plus is definitely worth considering.
What we love
- Great value
- Reliable performance
- Excellent battery life
What could be improved
- Awful lowlight camera performance
- Poor volume rocker positioning
The essentials
- Performance: Solid.
- Battery: Between a day-and-a-half and two days per charge.
- Screen: Pretty nice, but could be a little brighter.
- Camera: Takes good photos with enough light, but awful at night.
80/100
The Moto G 5G Plus' defining feature may be its tongue twister of a name, but it's also the cheapest 5G smartphone in Australia right now priced at just $499. Of course, 5G networks are still in their infancy. There's no need to rush out and buy a 5G smartphone right now, because the benefits just aren't there yet. There's no killer app, there's nothing you can't do on 4G other than flex with speed tests.
If the phone you're after has 5G, it's a nice little bit of futureproofing. It's just not a reason to upgrade in itself. So when it comes to a phone like the Moto G 5G Plus, it becomes a question of whether the phone itself is worth it outside of just offering 5G connectivity at a cheaper price than everyone else.
Fortunately, the Moto G 5G Plus definitely has more than a few things going for it. For one, it's powered by a Snapdragon 765G processor, an upper mid-tier processor that you typically find in phones that cost anywhere between $749 and $999. This is matched with 6GB of RAM and a 90Hz rate display (which makes all motion look a little smoother). The screen could be a little brighter, but it's pretty good nonetheless. For the most part, the Moto G 5G Plus offers a zippy, reliable experience. Better yet, the chonky 5,000mAh cell should easily last at least a day-and-a-half per charge, even with 5G and the 90Hz display switched on. In our testing, we found we were averaging around seven hours of screen time.
The design is nice enough, but the Moto G 5G Plus is a rather large unit. It has a 6.7-inch display surrounded by a not insignificant amount of bezel. Despite touting a fingerprint prone glasstic back, it’s definitely on the heavier side. It's fine, but definitely not a good option if you don't like big phones. Especially because it's not quite ergonomically sound. The volume rocker is too high up, so you need to awkwardly adjust your grip whenever you want to adjust. The power button has an integrated fingerprint reader, which can be a little hit and miss. I found you have to hold your finger on exactly the right spot, otherwise it doesn't work. Practice definitely helps, but it's not quite as simple as the rear-facing options on other Android devices.
The Moto G 5G Plus' biggest weakness is its camera. It's perfectly usable in good lighting and even does a great job with dynamic range, but lowlight performance is just rubbish. Even when I was shooting still subjects, most my lowlight photos were marred by camera blur. There's a dedicated night mode which can brighten up lowlight shots, but for the most part, it made my images worse. Photos taken using the Moto G 5G Plus' night mode are over processed and blurry, reminiscent of an oil painting. In addition to the primary lens, you'll also find a serviceable ultra-wide lens and a too-hard-to-focus macro lens.
All in all, the Moto G 5G Plus is a pretty decent phone for the money. You get beefier specs than you'd expect at the price tag, and 5G is a nice little bit of future-proofing. The only real red flag is the phone's lowlight camera performance. If photography is important to you, you should spend $100 more and go for the Pixel 4a instead. It doesn't have 5G - which again, far from essential right now - but it's a much better camera phone. Otherwise, the Moto G 5G Plus is a great value device that punches above its price-tag.
Moto G 5G Plus camera samples
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