Motorola Moto G5 Plus

Arriving with a great design and amazing features – Motorola is looking to break the ice with the budget audience with their new model from their budget G-series, Moto G5 Plus. Priced at Rs. 11,000, Moto G5 Plus is a handset that does not disappoint by delivering adequate performance while looking good.

Moto G5 Plus is a capable phone and can be an excellent handset for your daily tasks. While heating up is an issue with the phone, that is a minor shortcoming, for an overall budget handset with an appealing build and decent hardware.

The Moto G5 Plus has a build quality that does not make it look like an affordable phone.  It seems top-end with the glossy bezels and the metallic effect that it comes with. It is a significant modification over Moto G4 Plus, going through a complete makeover that makes the predecessor unrecognisable when placed side by side The chamfered edges make it easy to hold too.

Moto G5 Plus has 5.2-inch Full HD (1080p) screen. While a jump to QHD like most of its higher-priced flagships would have been a good step, Moto G5 Plus has an excellent display which provides detailed colours with accurate settings. It is bright enough to take outside and work with. VR experience with Google Cardboard can get immersive. The display is adequate at this price, though you can’t expect the deep colours present in a much-advanced AMOLED screen.

Moto G5 Plus has a 2GHz octa-core Snapdragon 625 chipset which is paired with Adreno 506 GPU. It is a popular chipset and has been used in phones like Redmi Note 4. Moto G5 can handle daily tasks efficiently, performs reliably when it comes to multitasking and loading different media files. It could also handle heavy games like Asphalt 8 and Dead Effect 2 without any stutters. However, when the phone is used for navigation or if it is pushed, it can get hot to the point that it becomes difficult to carry. Benchmark scores put it at an average of 3,824 points for multicore which is oddly above 2,600 score registered by the Moto Z Play, having the same hardware. Redmi Note 4 however, had better results than both.

Moto G5 has a 12MP rear camera equipped with a feature called Dual Autofocus Pixels that allows you to lock focus in a blink. The camera comes with an f/1.7 aperture and dual LED flash. It is easy and offers 8X digital zoom, along with an active viewfinder for QR codes and barcodes. The camera is decent and can capture good quality images with the help of its snappy focus. Macro shots were impressive too, and daylight landscape shots preserve plenty of details and punchy colours. However, some images can get oversaturated. In low light, the shots captured some visual noise and appeared a bit grainy, so it did not produce as great a quality as daylight shots possessed.

Moto G5 plus sports a 5MP front camera with an f/2.2 aperture and display flash. It has a surprising colour accuracy when used in ample lights, but it produced average results in low-light situations. The flash was mostly ineffective. The camera app also lacked filters which were a downer.

Moto G5 Plus can record 4K videos at 30fps, which is excellent at this range. You can also film FullHD videos at 30 or 60fps, but 4K videos look much better. However, there will be some heat buildup during video shooting, a flaw expected at this price range.

Moto G5 Plus is equipped with a 3000 mAh battery, which can last for one day as per the company’s claim. It matches real-time use, as a mix of heavy and light use can run it for a whole day. An HD video loop battery test found that it was able to last for 12 hours and 10 minutes, which is great for a battery of this size. It also has TurboPower charging with a 20-minute charge filling half of the juice of the phone. This fast-charging tech gives it a competitive edge over its rival, Xiaomi Redmi Note 4.

Moto G5 Plus is decent and gets it right with most of its features. It has a great camera and a good processor. The battery is a capable one, and TurboCharging is the icing on the cake. However, heating up is a serious issue in the phone. While the performance is great, it is still on the lower side, though it is expected from a phone at this range. It is a product suitable for people who are willing to sacrifice on performance to get a good-looking and trusted phone at an affordable range. However, Redmi Note 4 is a much better phone to go for when it comes to performance and overall features.