Lenovo launched the Moto G5 in India at a price tag of Rs. 11,999 and it aims to offer the build quality & feel of a flagship smartphone on a budget. The Moto G5 is a great budget Android smartphone that offers a near-perfect solution for those who want a phone that comes with a metal body, rapid charging, and fingerprint sensor. The Moto G5 available on Amazon.in and it comes pre-loaded with Amazon app as well as a deal widget that refreshes every day to show new offers. In addition to this, the Moto G5 also comes with Amazon Prime Video app pre-loaded that means it will be marketed as a media consumption device.
In this post, sharing a detailed review of the Moto G5 and let’s find out if it’s premium or cheap smartphone that offers decent hardware like another budget smartphone.
Moto G5 Specifications:
The Mot G5 features 5-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels at a pixel density of 441 PPI (pixels per inch). Under the hood, it is powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor that clocks at 1.4GHz and paired with Adreno 505 graphics. There’s also a 3GB of RAM and has 16GB of inbuilt storage that can be expanded further up to 128GB via microSD card.
The rear camera is 13MP with LED flash and phase detection autofocus, while the front camera is 5MP for selfie & video-calling. Moto G5 users will be able to save photos online int here original size using Google’s Photo app.
The smartphone measures 144.3x73x9.5mm weighs 145 grams and comes with water-repellent coating.
The smartphone has dual-SIM support a and comes with connectivity features like 4G with VoLTE (voice over LTE), Bluetooth 4.2, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, GPS/A-GPS, GLONASS, and FM radio.
The smartphone packs 2800mAh removable battery that offers nearly full day usage. The smartphone comes with a 10W micro-USB rapid charger and supports TurboPower charging, which offers six hours of battery at the same time.
Below the display, there is a fingerprint sensor which doubles up as a replacement for Android’s on-screen buttons through nifty swipe controls.
Moto G5 Design And Build:
If you’re new to Moto G series, then the Moto G5 is a perfect and good looking phone. Those who are already familiar with Moto G series phone family, you’ll find incremental changes in Moto G5 when compared with previous models.
The Moto G5 looks practically identical to Moto G5 Plus, but there are few minor changes and it ships in the very similar retail package with “Plus” moniker is missing. Inside the retail box, you’ll find the smartphone, standard documentation book, a SIM ejector tool, 10W charger, a micro-USB cable, and earphone. The Moto G5 comes in two colors – Lunary Grey & Fine Gold.
The build quality is really good and it feels premium when you hold in your hands. It’s simple, elegant, and the curves between the metal & plastic look good.
The Moto G5 features 5.0-inch display that stretches to the sides of the body and there is highlighted chrome lining & it looks good. The rear panel on the back features an aluminum body and if you remove it, you’ll find that the rear panel appears to be hardened plastic with a metallic color. In addition to this, the rear of the phone is dominated by large camera aperture that sits above the brushed metal Motorola “M”.
The microUSB port is on the bottom while at the top there is a 3.5mm audio port. The power and volume buttons are on the right side.
The Moto G5 weighs 145 grams and it is quite thick at 9.5mm. The rounded edges make it comfortable and like previous models, it has liquid repellent nano-coating that helps to protect it from water spills or from rain.
The Moto G5 has a removable battery which means you have to turn off the device every time you want to switch SIMs or swap a microSD card. Beneath the display, there is a fingerprint sensor and a Moto logo on the top. The Fingerprint sensor cannot be used a Home button but if you go into Moto app, then you can replace all the home keys, swipe left for “back”, right for “recent apps” and a tap for home. The earpiece doubles as the loudspeaker.
Moto G5 Display:
The Moto G5 features 5.0-inch Full HD display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and offers decent 441 pixels per inch. The display is sharp and crispy and it is good for watching videos. The sunlight legibility is decent, and viewing anneals are fine. Text and images appear sharp. You can choose between Standard and Vibrant color modes in the display settings. The vibrant mode is the default and you can change this if you prefer less saturation.
Moto G5 Performance:
The Moto G5 is powered by an entry-level Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 chipset and it features an oct-core setup with 8 Cortex A53 cores running up at up to 1.4GHz. The processor is paired with 3GB of RAM, that is adequate enough for day-to-day use with most Android operations running smoothly. The phone didn’t show any lag in daily use and there is no compromise in the experience. Apps launch quickly and the multitasking is handled pretty well.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 handles Android games much better and casual gamers didn’t find any problems as it has Adreno 505 GPU. The Moto G5 has 16GB internal storage and it can be expanded further up to 128GB via microSD card.
Moto G5 Operating System/Software:
The Moto G5 runs on Android 7.0 Nougat operating system and it offers close to stock UI. The Moto G5 comes with gesture-based Moto Actions like “Karate Chop” motion turns on the torch, twisting the phone backward & forward twice activates the camera, placing the phone face down on a table sets it to “Do Not Disturb”. The Moto Display feature shows a preview of notifications while the phone is asleep. All these options can be activated or deactivated from the included Moto app. You can also swipe up from the bottom of the screen to shrink the display for easy one-handed use. To get access to the apps menu, you have to just flick up the home screen rather than using a button on the icon dock.
Apart from the gesture support, there are a number of Nougat features on Moto G5 like the ability to drag and drop text & images when working in multi-window mode, bundled notifications, and new data saver feature. In addition to this, there is Google Assistant is also there which can be activated by long-pressing the home button. Using split-screen mode, users can easily work on two apps simultaneously.
Moto G5 Camera:
The Moto G5 features 13-megapixel rear camera with f/2.0 aperture, a single LED flash, phase detection autofocus (PDAF), support for 1080p Full HD video and it there is 5-megapixel front-facing camera for selfie & video-calling.
The smartphone uses stock Google camera app and it fires when you touch the screen, double flick of the wrist or you can double click the power/lock key, and it is fast enough to take picture after picture without a stutter. The app comes with auto HDR option enabled, there is flash toggle as well as controls for the timer. The app is simple, easy to use and comes with options like QR code scanning, HDR mode, Professional mode, Panorama Mode, and Slow Motion video with the ability to take 1080p videos at 30fps. The camera supports up to 8X digital zoom for photos and you get access to settings by just swiping right from the edge of the camera.
The Moto G5 rear-camera only wants you to focus on picking up a subject, adjust the exposure if needed and after that, it’s time to leave everything onto the phone. If the lightening conditions are great, the camera performs splendidly well, and if there is low light, the camera didn’t disappoint and then the pictures clicked are decent with the condition that you don’t use HDR mode. The clicked pictures have good colors, sharp outlines, and has decent detail. The exposures are balanced and focus assured.
The built-in stabilization option is usually where affordable phones struck but with Moto G5, it works pretty well and the video-recordings look good.
The 5-megapixel front facing camera captures pretty good selfies and can work for social media.
At a price tag of Rs. 11,999, the Moto G5 camera results are good and the camera on the device is a decent performer.
Sound Quality:
The loudspeaker on the Moto G5 is built inside the earpiece on the front which means that the sound is coming directly at you when you are consuming video content or play a song. The output is not loudest but it is decent one and if we compare with another smartphone, that’s the case with almost all smartphone that falls under this category. There is a 3.5mm headset jack for headphones and it can be used to get much better quality of audio.
Battery:
The Moto G5 packs 2800mAh removable battery and Lenovo claim that it offers the full day of life with mixed usage. During my usage, the Moto G5 lasts for around 18-20 hours and after that, a notification pops up asking me to plug it in to charge it again. With light to medium usage, the Moto G5 managed to last for more than a day.
The removable battery on Moto G5 is pretty good it’s because if it stops holding a good charge after 18 months+, then you can simply replace it with newer one.
The phone supports rapid charging and the Moto G5 ships with 10W charger in the box. In just 30 minutes, the phone charged up to 50 percent from zero. The Turbo Power quick-charging system gives you several hours of battery life in just a few minutes.
Verdict:
The Moto G5 is the latest entry in the G-series and in the budget segment, it offers stock Android Nougat experience & Google Assistant feature. At Rs. 11,999, it is hard to find these features, and I assure you that you won’t be disappointed after using it.
The build quality is much more like expensive smartphone and the company has paid attention to the design of the smartphone. When compared with Moto G4, the Moto G5 looks good.
Overall, all I can say if you want to experience pure Android like the Nexus device (not discontinued) or Google Pixel (expensive smartphone), then you should buy Moto G5 as it comes with near-pure Android.
Interview With Nidhi Markanday, Business Head At Intex Technologies