Lenovo-owned Motorola has updated its G series with the launch of Moto G5 smartphone in India. The device comes with a price tag of Rs 11,999 and will be available exclusively on Amazon. With this, the brand is all set to regain its position in the budget segment. The device follows the footstep of its elder sibling, the Moto G5 Plus, in many departments, and will be competing with the likes of Xiaomi Redmi Note 4, Honor 6X and even Lenovo budget smartphones. So, does it do any good? We spent some time with the device during the launch event and here’s is our first impressions.
Design and Display
Starting with the design part, the smartphone looks a tad similar to its elder sibling, but the company has made a noticeable change—it comes with a removable back cover, while Moto G5 Plus sports a metal unibody. Other than this, you get the same look and feel of the device as compared to the G5 Plus. The back is made of aluminium, which is comfortable to hold. The front sports a 5-inch screen along with a front-facing camera, earpiece and ambient sensor on the top, while at the base there is a fingerprint sensor, which can be also used for navigation as well, similar to what we have seen in G5 Plus, which is again inspired by Lenovo Z2 Plus. The right houses the volume controls and power on/off button, while the left is bare. At the top, there is a Headphone jack, while at the base there is a microUSB port.
At the back, there is a primary camera coupled with a LED flash and when you remove the panel, you will find a dual SIM slot and a dedicated slot for memory along with a removable battery. Overall, the smartphone is built out from the same chassis from which Moto G5 Plus was made, however, if you see its competition like Xiaomi, Honor and even Coolpad, they are giving a metal unibody design which surely looks sturdy and premium as compared to this one.
On the display front, the device is loaded with a 5-inch Full HD display with a screen Resolution of a 1980 x 1080 pixels. As compared to its predecessor, the Moto G4, the company has reduced the screen size of the device but has retained the 1080p resolution, which looks good during our initial testing period. Colour reproduction was good and so was the viewing angles, however, we will talk about this more in our detailed review.
Hardware and Camera
The Moto G5 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 Processor coupled with Adreno 505 GPU. The phone is backed by a 3GB of RAM and an option of 16GB of internal storage which can be further expanded up to 128GB via microSD card slot. On the connectivity front, the device support Dual SIM, 4G, VoLTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Micro USB port. We would like to highlight some points here. Firstly, the company has downgraded the processor when compared to its predecessor (it was loaded Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 processor). Secondly, the same specifications can be found in the Redmi 3s Prime which has a better 32GB storage option, a metal build, for just Rs 8,999. Yes, the smartphone does seem to be overpriced when compared to the above-mentioned device. And when compared to the likes of Xiaomi Redmi Note 4, Honor 6X and more, the device seems to be an underdog.
Coming to the camera, the smartphone boasts a 13-megapixel with Aperture f/2.0, 1.1-micron pixels and PDAF, while for the front, there is a 5-megapixel shooter with wide angle lens, f/2.2 aperture and display flash. The camera did a decent job here and took some good photos when lighting was good, however, detailing and sharpness was kind of missing from it. But we will reserve our judgment here and suggest to wait for our review.
Software and Battery
On the software front, the device ships with the latest Android 7.0 Nougat, which is a good thing. The user interface is quite smooth and comes pre-loaded with Amazon apps including Amazon Prime Videos, Amazon shopping and a widget to get all the latest deal. There are some interesting gesture features as well. For instance, one can turn on the flashlight by simply shaking the phone or can open up the camera through the double twist. Further, the fingerprint sensor can be also used for navigation and one can swipe left to go back, swipe right to open Recent menu tab and long press to lock the device and more.
On the battery front, the device comes with removable 2800mAh battery coupled with 10W rapid charger. Considering the fact that it uses a power efficient processor, we hope it would deliver some good battery backup, but still, we suggest you hold your horses and wait for our detailed review.