Motorola, which is known for offering great smartphones at competitive prices, has decided to execute its winning strategy in a completely new segment: laptops. The Moto Book 60 marks Motorola’s first foray into the laptop space—a bold debut born from the brand’s winning formula in smartphones. Its chassis is composed of aluminium, doused in a Pantone-validated colour. The laptop features the Intel Core 5 210H processor, which is said to deliver adequate performance for everyday use. More importantly, it makes the OLED display accessible.
Moto Book 60
Rs 64,990
What Is Good?
- Sturdy built quality
- Great performance for everyday use
- Vibrant OLED display
- Lightweight
What Is Bad?
- Polarising chassis colour
- The keyboard lacks tactile feedback
- Underwhelming auditory experience
- Battery lags behind rivals
Most of its features, if not all, are found in much more expensive offerings. While Motorola has successfully replicated its trusted strategy in an entirely new segment, has it produced a genuinely good laptop that entices early adopters and the general masses? Read my review to find out.
Design and Build Quality
The biggest head-turner aspect of the Moto Book 60 is its paint job, more specifically, Pantone-validated colours. This aspect alone makes it a highly polarising product.
- Dimensions: 313.4 mm x 221 mm x 16.9 mm
- Weight: 1.39kg
- Ports (Right side): 1x microSD card reader and 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A
- Ports (Left side): 2x USB-C 3.2 Gen 1, 1x HDMI 1.4b, and 1x Headphone jack
- Connectivity Options: Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4
While vibrant colours can add personality to our everyday gadgets, laptops often carry a more understated aesthetic due to their association with work and productivity. The bold colour choice on the Moto Book 60 may not appeal to everyone, but it does signal Motorola’s attempt to break away from the conventional design language.
The Pantone Wedgewood variant, which I received, honestly looks tacky. I don’t know whether the finish or the choice of colour is to blame, but I would keep myself hidden from the public while using this laptop. The other issue with this paint job is that it attracts fingerprints and smudges like a magnet. Its owners always have to be on their toes to wipe it away.
While the Moto Book 60’s colour choice leaves plenty of room for improvement, its sturdy chassis doesn’t need any tweaks. It feels reassuringly durable; it can handle an accidental drop without causing panic. Despite having a screen that’s an inch larger than my 13-inch MacBook Pro, it weighs about the same, which is impressive.
The port selection is also a notable feature of the Moto Book 60, as it includes all the necessary ports.
Keyboard, Mouse, and Webcam
The keyboard on the Moto Book 60 felt underwhelming during my use. The feedback lacked the tactile quality I prefer, and while there was some responsiveness while typing documents, I often found myself applying more pressure than usual on each key.
In comparison, the Acer Swift Go 14 AI offered a noticeably better typing experience in our tests, thanks to its more satisfying key travel and improved tactile feedback. That said, the Moto Book 60 deserves credit for its well-spaced layout, which helps prevent finger fatigue during extended typing sessions.
The trackpad, on the other hand, is smaller than those offered by many other laptops in this range.
While the size is manageable, I did notice some friction while swiping and scrolling, which detracted from the overall experience.
Motorola has shipped a 1080p webcam with the Moto Book 60, delivering adequate quality for a normal web conference.
Display and Audio Quality
Motorola has brought its A-game with the 14-inch OLED display on the Moto Book 60. My content bucket list primarily includes anime series or YouTube videos, which are filled with vivid colours.
Watching them on this machine was splendid, as it gave justice to each scene appearing on the screen beautifully. Moreover, they were rich in details. The display is quite luminous too, so I watched almost all the content at 40% brightness or less.
- Type: OLED
- Size: 14-inch
- Aspect ratio: 16:10
- Resolution: 2880 x 1800 pixels
- Refresh rate: 120Hz
- Screen brightness: 300 nits
- Camera: 1080P FHD with Privacy Shutter
However, unfortunately, the stereo speakers on the Moto Book 60 fall short of matching the quality of its display. They feel tiny, lack the richness people look for in their music, and don’t emit a loud sound.
Performance
Under the hood, the Moto Book 60 utilizes the Intel Core i5-210H processor for its performance and comes with Intel Graphic card. Motorola has paired it with 16GB DDR5 RAM and 512GB SSD (M.2, PCI Express NVMe 4.0) storage.
Every day use didn’t pose a challenge to the Moto Book 60, as it effortlessly managed everything without lag. This was also accompanied by seamless app switching. It was quick and responsive in executing all the tasks.
However, we ran several synthetic benchmarks to evaluate its performance against its competitors.
In our comprehensive testing of various laptops, we have selected the Qualcomm-powered Asus Vivobook 16 and Acer Swift Go 14 AI to compete with the Moto Book 60 due to their similar pricing. The Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro is picked from the Intel frontier only because its processor performs similarly to that of the Moto Book 60.
In the Geekbench 6 benchmark, the Asus Vivobook 16 and the Acer Swift Go 14 Ai, powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon X and X Plus, respectively, outperform the Moto Book 60 and the Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro, powered by the Intel Core 5 210 H and Core Ultra 5 226V, respectively, at the multi-core phase.
The Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro outperforms all competitors in the single-core phase of the benchmark. The story repeats itself in the Cinebench 2024 and PCMark 10 Applications benchmarks.
We also ran GPU-based benchmarks to assess the performance of their integrated GPUs. In the Geekbench 6 GPU benchmark, the Intel-powered Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro and Moto Book 6finally gain the upper hand over the Qualcomm-powered Asus Vivobook 16 and Acer Swift Go 14 AI.
While the Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro maintains its lead over the Qualcomm-powered laptops in the Steel Nomad Lite test, the Moto Book 60 falls short of matching their pace.
Speaking of memory and performance, the Moto Book 60 fortunately comes with a swift SSD, whose speed we found to be comparable to that of most modern laptops in our testing.
Battery
The Moto Book 60, with its 60Wh battery and Intel Core 5 210H processor, was found rather unsuited for comparison against the Asus Vivobook 16 and the Acer Swift Go 14 AI in our testing.
The latter two laptops have earned a reputation for delivering more than a full day of battery life in our PCMark Battery Life test. Even the Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro ran much longer than the Moto Book 60 in our testing.
Realistically, I attained almost half a day of battery life with moderate usage from the Moto Book 60.
Verdict
The existence of the Moto Book 60 indicates that Motorola may have created a compelling first product in a newly ventured segment; however, it still lacks the quality offered by established brands. While the laptop’s overall aesthetic is polarising, its build quality is robust. The typing experience could benefit from more tactile feedback, and the stereo speakers offer average audio performance. Battery life is decent for light tasks but may fall short during extended use.
That said, Motorola has tried to compensate for these shortcomings by providing a terrific OLED display and adequate performance for everyday use. So, if your needs lean more towards performance, and you want to watch content on a great display, the Moto Book 60 is for you. However, any laptops from well-established companies may be more suitable for you if you’re looking for a well-rounded laptop.
