Motorola Moto G5 Plus 4GB RAM

Moto G5 Plus Review: Outdated but gets the job done

by Awad Ballaith

With the ever-expanding list of budget smartphones, sometimes its good to go back and check out the pioneers of the industry to take a look at how far we have come. Even after its acquisition from Lenovo, Motorola’s legacy still lives on in its various offerings in almost all segments of the smartphone market. The Moto G5 Plus was a great budget option when it first launched back in April of 2017. Since then, Motorola has launched the slightly upgraded Moto G5S Plus, while many other brands have also released impressive devices in the budget segment of the market. Let us take a look at Motorola’s budget offering to see if it is still a viable option in 2018.

Design and Build Quality

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Compared to its predecessor, The Motorola G5 Plus has major improvements in terms of its aesthetics as the device features a metallic unibody design. It looks a lot like the Moto Z Play, with a circular camera housing at the back of the device that sits just above the iconic M logo. Most of the device’s back is metal with the edges encased in a plastic frame, while the entire front consists of a glass panel. However, the metal and plastic don’t merge that well, and I personally found the gold colour variant to be quite tacky.

The curved build of the smartphone ensures that it will have a decent grip to it. There is the “Moto” logo in between the front speaker and the glass, very reminiscent of the Moto Z Play again. The fingerprint scanner just below the screen is slightly oval and easy to find. I did find it bothersome to have the power and volume buttons placed on the same side of the device and so close to each other as I accidentally hit the wrong button on numerous occasions. At the bottom, you would find a micro USB port alongside a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Display

When it came to the display, the Moto G5 Plus’s 5.2-inch Full HD IPS screen performed well in our testing. It provided excellent viewing angles with accurate colours. This was mostly thanks to the ‘Vibrant screen’ mode that I enabled immediately after I first started using the phone because the regular mode felt quite dull. Its brightness might be a bit of an issue, especially in direct sunlight. I was not a fan of the huge bezels either. Even with minor brightness issues and the large bezel, the G5 Plus’ display holds its own even when compared to many other offerings out there.

Camera

When it comes to the camera, however, things might not look so ‘bright’ for the Moto G5 Plus. Unfortunately, its 12-megapixel primary camera with its f/1.7 aperture struggles to hold up even with its many advance features. The primary camera is quick to launch and focuses swiftly with the ‘Dual Autofocus Pixels’ feature. Images taken in good lighting have commendable details. But the colours lack slightly and lean towards the dull side. In bright sunlight there is significant overexposure, while low-light introduces a lot of noise.

The front 5-megapixel camera with f/2.2 aperture takes decent selfies with good detail as long as the lighting is sufficient. The beauty mode also does a decent job. Auto-HDR on the rear camera is a welcome feature. The phone can also capture 4K videos, but the lack of OIS makes the videos quite shaky.

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Performance and Software

In terms of performance, the Moto G5 Plus is able to perform exceptionally well with its Snapdragon 625 processor. Coupled with 4GB of RAM and 32GB internal storage, the smartphone has a good balance of power and functionality. The phone was easily able to handle real-world task of moving through various web browsers and social media applications. The gaming capabilities of the device are also admirable as it can manage most CPU intensive titles. Split-screen also works well, although I did not find much use for it on the small screen.

Motorola decided to go with just one speaker unit on this device. The front speaker doubles as both the regular output for calls and offers a louder volume when using it as a media speaker. I really appreciate its placement but found the speaker to be adequate at best, providing decent volume levels but unimpressive details. On the other hand, the fingerprint scanner is really impressive as it is super fast and accurate at reading fingerprints. It was even able to correctly scan my thumb when I tested it with a wet hand.

I do admire the almost barebones Android 7.0 Nougat that comes with this device. The close-to stock OS makes it easy and simple to use the device, with the addition of intuitive gestures that did come in handy. The ‘One-button nav’ function is a smart use of the fingerprint scanner as a navigation button. ‘Double karate chop for torch’ sounded silly at first, but I will admit I did end up using it and found it useful. It would have been better if Lenovo had released the Android 8.0 Oreo update sooner.

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Battery

The battery backup on this device was admirable as well thanks to its 3000mAh cell and efficient processor. The phone easily lasted a full day’s use with still some charge left before plugging in before going to bed. I was able to get almost 6 hours of screen-on time with a backup of around 39 hours. An added bonus is the ability to turbo-charge this device, meaning the device can charge entirely in almost 80 minutes.

Verdict

When Motorola first launched the Moto G5 Plus, it was a great offering at an even greater price that competed well with other offerings such as the Lenovo P2 and Xiaomi Redmi Note 4. The G5 Plus also received a price cut recently and is available for Rs.10,999. However, recommending this device in 2018 is difficult as there are just better alternatives out there for similar price. You would be better off investing in the recently launched Xiaomi Redmi Note 5, which starts at Rs.9,999 and offers better performance in almost all aspects.