Introduction
With the Motorola Moto G 5G Plus, the company ushers its most popular series in the 5G era. The company aims to rekindle its old glory by delivering the best value for money mid-ranger much like the original Moto G did back in its day.
For starters the Moto G5 5G Plus is supposed to be one of the most, if not the most, affordable 5G-compatible smartphone in the European market and at a price of around €350. Of course the 5G penetration greatly varies from market to market, so it can't rely on that alone to propel it to fame. Here's what else it has going for it:
Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
- Body: 168.0x74.0x9.0mm, 207g; Plastic frame and back; Splash resistant.
- Display: 6.70" LCD capacitive, 1080x2520px resolution, 21:9 aspect ratio, 409ppi; 90Hz refresh rate, HDR10.
- Chipset: Qualcomm SDM765 Snapdragon 765 (7 nm): Octa-core (1x2.3 GHz Kryo 475 Prime & 1x2.2 GHz Kryo 475 Gold & 6x1.8 GHz Kryo 475 Silver); Adreno 620.
- Memory: 64GB 4GB RAM, 128GB 6GB RAM; UFS 2.1; microSDXC (uses shared SIM slot).
- OS/Software: Android 10.
- Rear camera: Wide (main): 48 MP, f/1.7, 26mm (wide), 1/2.0", 0.8µm, PDAF; Ultra wide angle: 8 MP, f/2.2, 118˚ (ultrawide), 1.12µm; Macro: 5 MP, f/2.2, (macro), AF; Depth: 2 MP, f/2.2, (depth); Dual-LED flash, panorama, HDR.
- Front camera: Wide (main): 16 MP, f/2.0, (wide), 1.0µm; Ultra wide angle: 8 MP, f/2.2, (ultrawide), 1.12µm; HDR.
- Video capture: Rear camera: 4K@30fps, 1080p@30/60fps; Front camera: 1080p@30fps.
- Battery: 5000mAh; Fast charging 20W.
- Misc: Fingerprint (side-mounted), NFC; FM radio.
The huge 6.7-inch LCD panel offers 90Hz refresh rate and HDR10 support, it has two cameras on the front and a generous 5,000 mAh battery with fast charging support and last. That's an area where Motorola was behind for the past couple of years often using older, less competitive chipsets.
In fact, the Moto G 5G Plus costs as much as Xiaomi's phones with the same chipset, which hasn't been the case for a while. We now need to run our usual tests, because specs can often be deceiving.
Unboxing the Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
The box contains all the usual user manuals along with the 20W-rated charging brick and a USB-A to USB-C cable for charging and data transfer. There's also a transparent, silicone protective case in the box. Not a bad set of accessories, considering the price point.
Design
Although at first glance the Moto G 5G Plus doesn't really stand out, it has two distinctive visual traits - one on each side. On the front we have two punch-hole cameras that have their own cutouts rather than the usual pill-shaped common element. The gap is bigger than usual, but not big enough to be useful for anything so you are not getting any extra screen estate - in fact you are losing more than is the norm. It is an instantly recognizable feature of the phone, though.
Moving on to the bezels, we have two thin ones on the sides and a slightly thicker top bezel housing the earpiece, the ambient light sensor and the proximity sensor. The bottom frame is the thickest one but we can't say we are bothered by it in any way.
Another interesting bit about the display is that it's extra tall with a 21:9 aspect ratio. This comes with its own set of handling peculiarities - it's slimmer than usual for the size which makes stuff like reaching the entire keyboard easier, but it's also very tall, so reaching for the top is more of a stretch.
The power button that doubles as a fingerprint reader is located a bit too high on the side, meaning that you'll need to stretch your finger a bit to reach it if you don't have big hands. The volume rocker is higher still, so it's a two hand affair more often than not. The same goes for the dedicated Google Assistant button on the opposite side of the frame.
The frame itself, while made of plastic, does a decent impression of anodized aluminum, feels good in the hand and provides good grip levels too.
The back side of the phone is also made of plastic and maybe because of that, it feels a bit grippier than your average glass sandwich phone. And here's where the second distinctive design trait is - the square-shaped camera alignment.
It's reminiscent of the Huawei Mate 30-series but it's placed in the upper-left corner, similarly to the iPhone 11. There's also a big dual LED flash module right next to the camera square.
Sadly, there's only one color available - Blue. The good news is that it looks good with that subtle dot pattern and fingerprints aren't as big of an issue as on most other phones.
Despite all the plastic, the Moto G 5G Plus weighs 207 grams. Honestly, it doesn't feel like that much probably because of the good balance and even weight distribution across the chassis. And it's not too bad when you consider the big 6.7-inch display and ample 5,000 mAh battery.
It's probably important to note that the phone is splash resistant in typical Motorola fashion. Meaning, submerging the phone in water is definitely not advisable but any rain drops, splashes or even an accidental drop in a pond shouldn't be an issue.
Smooth LCD with two cutouts
The 1080 x 2520px resolution of the 6.7" display makes up for an extra tall 21:9 aspect ratio. The 90Hz refresh rate enables buttery-smooth animations and gameplay for supported titles and you get HDR10 support too. Interestingly enough, we couldn't make it to work in the Netflix app, but YouTube had no issues serving HDR content. Perhaps it's a glitch that Motorola and Netflix will quickly resolve as the Netflix's app clearly stated that the Moto G 5G Plus supports the Widevine L1.
Moving to the actual tests - with the slider cranked up manually to 100%, the display hits 443 nits and when set to auto mode, it can go up to 543 nits in bright environments. That's not very bright compared to other phones in the same class, but should still provide sufficient legibility in any lighting conditions.
| Display test | 100% brightness | ||
| Black, |
White, |
||
| 0.349 | 443 | 1269:1 | |
| 0.466 | 543 | 1165:1 | |
| 0.296 | 421 | 1422:1 | |
| 0.452 | 642 | 1420:1 | |
| 0 | 442 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 610 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 424 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 596 | ∞ | |
| 0.343 | 451 | 1315:1 | |
| 0.318 | 421 | 1324:1 | |
Color accuracy is the biggest issue of the display. With the default Saturated color mode, the average dE2000 is 6.3 and a maximum deviation of 12. As usual, whites and grays are way off, getting closer to blue while cyans, purples, yellows, blues and reds, are a bit overly saturated. Going for the natural mode does improve color accuracy quite a bit lowering the average dE2000 to 3.1 but also lowering the maximum brightness down to 392 nits. Whites, grays and cyans remain somewhat inaccurate.
Battery life
The Moto G 5G Plus boasts a 5,000 mAh battery, which proved to be more than enough to power up the current hardware for hours on end. We are pretty happy with the talk time and the screen-on tests. We ran the web browsing test at 90Hz while the video was at 60Hz because the adaptive refresh rate option switches back to 60Hz when you don't need the extra refresh rate - like with videos and with static images.
Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSerDevice app. The endurance rating above denotes how long a single battery charge will last you if you use the Motorola Moto G 5G Plus for an hour each of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. We've established this usage pattern so that our battery results are comparable across devices in the most common day-to-day tasks. The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritty. You can check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.
The 20W fast charging, while better than nothing only fills 35% of the admittedly large battery in 30 minutes, while a full recharge took approximately 2 hours and 10 minutes.
Speaker test
The Moto G 5G Plus has a single, bottom-firing loudspeaker as most phones do and it's not particularly impressive in any aspect. The whole sound experience can be described as average - in terms of quality and loudness.
Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.
Audio output quality
We've recently discontinued our audio output quality test.
The reason for that is that most phones that arrived for testing were already excellent in this regard and whatever difference there was, it was marginal and probably indistinguishable to anything but our lab equipment.
Vanilla Android 10 with some Moto features on top
One of Motorola phones' key selling points is the clutter-free, clean Android experience. If you like the look and feel of stock Android, you'll certainly like this one.
Motorola's customizations are very limited and mostly boil down to a few cool features it has added. Once you setup the phone and open up the general settings menu, you will be prompted with two messages on the top - one will take you to a menu to choose your preferred navigation method and also explaining the new gestures while the other takes you through the neatly organized Moto-specific features.
Home screen, general settings, recent apps, notification shade
The gestures are the usual ones from Google with the back gesture executed from either side of the display. There's also a slider for the back gesture sensitivity that determines how close to the edge you have to get for the system to register a back gesture. Or, if you prefer, you can stick to the good old software navigation buttons.
Moto features
Back to the Moto features - they are split into several categories with the Moto actions one being the biggest one. Among the usual ones like launching the camera with a twisting motion of the wrist or turning on the flashlight with a double chop motion, there's one fairly new addition to the list and that's the one-handed mode, which you can activate with a single swipe from the center of the screen.
Two other screen-off controls that are worth mentioning, although not new, are the lift-to-unlock and the media controls. If you have the face recognition unlock method set up, you can pick up the phone from the desk and once you raise it, the screen will turn on and the front-facing camera will start scanning for your face. That's a quick and easy way to unlock the device. The other lets you use the volume rocker for media control button when the screen is off. That's probably the only OEM that lets you do that and we really like it.
Another thing to stand out was the so-called Power Touch. It's a shortcut menu similar to Samsung's edge panel but you summon it by double-tapping on the power button, hence the name Power Touch. The panel can be customized by adding apps or tasks of your desire. One task, for example, would be to directly search in the YouTube app or perform a Google Search.
Moto Actions
Additionally, there's a whole new customization menu that wasn't available before. Similarly to OnePlus' OxygenOS, you can pick the color accent of the toggles, sliders and the quick toggles in the notification shade. You can even choose the shape of the said quick toggles. Icon shapes are also available and plenty of options to choose from and the same goes for the fonts. That's the first time Motorola lets you customize all those things on its phones.
Customizable themes
The Moto Display section lets you enable Attentive display, which will prevent the screen from dimming while you are looking at it. Peek Display, on the other hand, lets you interact with notifications and even reply to messages from the locked screen. The UI is reminiscent of an Always-on display and you can check real quick if you have a notification or just see the time by tapping on the display or moving the phone altogether. The apps and notifications that let you interact with them will appear in small circles in the lower half of the display. It's a really neat feature if you want to do a quick reply or dismiss a notification without having to unlock the phone. And, of course, there's the option to require unlocking the phone when sending a reply to someone.
Moto Display
We are glad to report Motorola finally fixed its Dark Mode. Now all settings menus are in dark gray and the notification shade as well. Previous iterations of the software didn't change the color of the settings menus for some reason so it's good to see the Dark Mode cover that too. Sadly, you won't be gaining any battery life in the process as this is an LCD panel. It will be much easier on your eyes at night, though.
Moto Display
We can't miss to mention that Motorola's adaptive screen refresh rate solution is one of the best we've seen so far. There are three options in the display menu - 60Hz, 90Hz and AI control. We recommend going for the latter option as it gives you the smoothness of 90Hz when needed, while dropping the framerate in other cases to save battery.
The fingerprint reader is kind of a mixed bag. It's pretty snappy and most of the times accurate. But on occassion it will just refuse to recognize a fingerprint. We found that a good firm press of the button instead of a light touch when unlocking the device works a little bit better.
Performance
Often in the past we've criticized Motorola of using outdated or underpowered chipsets compared to its direct rivals, but we are glad that's not the case here. The Moto G 5G Plus sports a Snapdragon 765 chipset based on Samsung's 7nm EUV process, which is quickly becoming the most popular mid-range 5G chip. Compared to the Snapdragon 765G, this one skips some of the gaming-related software features and settles for a slightly lower clocked GPU - both really minor differences.
The CPU consists of 8 cores split into two clusters. Two of the cores are the modified Cortex-A76 cores called Kryo 475 Gold and Prime. The Prime is clocked at 2.3 GHz while the Gold one is ticking at 2.2 GHz. The other six Kryo 475 Silver cores (based on the Cortex-A55) run at 1.8 GHz to preserve power and take care of the less demanding tasks. The GPU is the Adreno 620.
As far as 5G connectivity goes the Moto G 5G Plus is limited to just sub-6GHz bands, which makes sense considering that it's not coming to the US.
In terms of performance, the chipset is very similar to the Snapdragon 730G but offers slightly better single core performance. It scores just behind the Mi 10 Lite 5G across the board, but the differences are small enough so as not to matter.
GeekBench 4.4 (multi-core)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G
7963 - Realme 6
7815 - Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
7808 - Realme 6 Pro
7027 - Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
6639 - Sony Xperia 10 II
5679
GeekBench 4.4 (single-core)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G
2863 - Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
2783 - Realme 6 Pro
2643 - Realme 6
2606 - Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
2429 - Sony Xperia 10 II
1515
GeekBench 5.1 (multi-core)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G
1927 - Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
1898 - Realme 6
1726 - Motorola One Fusion+
1705 - Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
1694 - Realme 6 Pro
1666 - Sony Xperia 10 II
1413
GeekBench 5.1 (single-core)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G
616 - Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
589 - Realme 6 Pro
565 - Realme 6
548 - Motorola One Fusion+
542 - Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
521 - Sony Xperia 10 II
315
AnTuTu 8
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G
318117 - Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
299926 - Realme 6
288931 - Realme 6 Pro
268785 - Motorola One Fusion+
267980 - Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
253271 - Sony Xperia 10 II
196545
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G
38 - Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
33 - Realme 6
31 - Realme 6 Pro
30 - Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
30 - Motorola One Fusion+
27 - Sony Xperia 10 II
13
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G
32 - Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
29 - Realme 6 Pro
27 - Realme 6
27 - Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
26 - Motorola One Fusion+
25 - Sony Xperia 10 II
10
GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G
21 - Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
19 - Realme 6 Pro
18 - Realme 6
18 - Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
17 - Motorola One Fusion+
16 - Sony Xperia 10 II
7.1
GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G
17 - Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
16 - Realme 6 Pro
16 - Realme 6
16 - Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
15 - Motorola One Fusion+
14 - Sony Xperia 10 II
5.6
3DMark SSE Vulkan 1440p
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G
3080 - Motorola Moto G 5G Plus
2821 - Realme 6
2619 - Realme 6 Pro
2334 - Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
2248 - Sony Xperia 10 II
1121
48MP main camera, ultrawide and macro in tow
The Moto G 5G Plus employs the popular 48MP Quad-Bayer sensor mean to shoot in 12MP pixel-binned mode. It is reasonably big 1/2"-type sensor and sits behind a fast f/1.7 lens. The ultrawide camera, on the other hand, does 8MP stills with 118-degree field of view and f/2.2 aperture.
The third camera on the module is 5MP f/2.2 dedicated macro, which is a step up from the more common 2MP macro cameras. Mostly because it has autofocus, which makes snapping macros a lot easier.
Lastly, we have the 2MP sensor, which is supposed to gather depth information for the portrait shots.
And on the front, we have two units - the 16MP main one has f/2.0 aperture, while the 8MP ultrawide unit has f/2.2 lens.
Camera menus
Motorola's default camera app is quite different from most of its rivals. Swiping left and right cycles through only three modes - the default photo mode, video recording, and the last used special mode. Tapping on the squares icon lets you access the full list of camera modes including manual, portrait and night.
Moto Camera
The familiar settings icon in the upper-right corner of the viewfinder lets you adjust video resolution, aspect ratio settings, etc.
Daylight samples
Main camera
The main camera performs well during the day. Outdoor shots have good detail, great dynamic range, punchy colors and have that contrast-y overall feel and look. There's some corner softness and some noise in the shadows, but the overall results are certainly pleasing.
Main camera daylight samples
Ultra-wide camera
The ultrawide cameras has nowhere near the same resolving power as the main one - images are rather soft throughout - but at least it matches its good color rendition in favorable light conditions and has decent dynamic range.
Ultra-wide daylight samples
Low-light samples
Main camera
When light fades the image quality deteriorates quickly. The low-light samples are often underexposed in adition to lacking detail and having a fair amount of noise. We suspect an overly aggressive, but not particularly efficient noise reduction algorithm is at least partially to blame here, giving darker parts of the images the watercolor effect.
Main camera low-light samples
The Night Vision improves the quality significantly - it does a better job with the exposure and pictures come out way more detailed. There's more noise too, further backing the noise suppression algorithm issues theory. The sharpening part is maybe a little bit over the top, causing notable halos.
Main camera Night Vision samples
Despite its less than perfect processing, we'd recommend using the night mode whenever the scene allows it.
Ultra-wide
As was to be expected, the ultrawide camera isn't much use in the dark, producing grainy and soft images with limited dynamic range and washed out colors. It's got no Night mode too, making its use in limited lighting an emergency-only affair.
Ultra-wide low-light samples
And here's a comparison between the Moto G 5G Plus and some of its rivals in our photo compare tool.
Moto G Pro vs Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G and the Realme 6 Pro in our Photo compare tool
Macro samples
The 5MP camera is definitely a step up from the more popular 2MP sensor. The AF helps a lot too since you don't need to move your phone back and forward to get the subject in focus. Image quality is far from what the main camera can deliver, but the close up effect will certainly help you produce some interesting shots.
Macro samples
Portraits
The portrait shots lack sharpness and dynamic range, but have well rendered skin tones and very good edge detection. Noise levels are relatively high in anything but super bright lighting. That's why we recommend doing portraits outside or in a well-lit room if the image quality is important.
Portrait samples
Selfies
The HDR on the selfies seems more than competent as it keeps the subject's face well-exposed even in more challenging lighting conditions without clipping the bright background too. Sharpness and detail are well-preserved in the process while colors seem to be accurate enough. The ultrawide camera is noticeably softer with inferior dynamic range and colors look bleaker. Noise starts to creep in when light begins to drop.
Selfies: Normal • Ultra-wide • Normal • Ultra-wide • Normal • Ultra-wide • Normal
The portrait mode is a bit rough around the edges with the subject separation failing even when the background isn't particularly complex.
Portrait selfies
Video recording
The handset supports up to 4K video recording and it can be stabilized as well. For added dramatic effect, you can choose to record in cinematic 21:9 aspect ratio. The same can be done with the 1080p videos while the standard 16:9 aspect ratio allows you to shoot in 60fps.
We shot one 2160p video without EIS and we really like what we see. Colors are punchy, contrast is good, we can't spot noise, dynamic range is wide and sharpness is great. Nothing to complain about, really, especially given the price tag of the phone.
Strangely enough, flipping the stabilization switch, will considerably decrease the bitrate, which leads to some loss of fine detail, although the overall quality is still pretty good. It might be a bigger issue in more dynamic screens too, so we'd refrain from using EIS unless absolutely neccessary.
On the upside the EIS works very well so at least you are getting something in return for the drop in image quality.
The 1080p mode is all about saving space and it's rather compressed, lacking in detail and generally having unimpressive quality.
Then again the 1080p also lets you use the ultrawide camera, which lacks the resolution to do 4K clips. The ultrawide videos can give you an interesting alternative perspective, but are certainly the least impressive looking of the bunch.
You can take a look at how the Moto G 5G Plus stacks against the competition in our video compare tool.
2160p: Moto G Pro vs Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G and the Realme 6 Pro in our Video compare tool
Competition
As we said earlier, the Moto G 5G Plus is here to take the affordable lineup to 5G land, so support for the next gen networks is one of its biggest selling points. Its availability is limited to Europe for now but will likely reach other markets soon. This comes with a key advantage because there's a shortage of affordable 5G phones in Europe, but on the other hand the 5G penetration isn't nearly the same as in China or the US.
The most obvious alternative is the Xiaomi's Mi 10 Lite 5G. It sports the same chipset, the same set of cameras, but has far inferior battery life. The Xiaomi phone trades the 90Hz smoothness for the superior contrast of an OLED display with HDR10+ support. Oh, and also costs €50, which is no small sum in these price tiers. At the end of the day picking between those two will probably largely depend on your preference of lighter stock Android and the feature-heavy but occasionally clumsy MIUI.
There's also the freshly released OnePlus Nord. With essentially the same chipset and camera setup, the Nord offers a 90Hz OLED panel and faster charging, but smaller battery. Its UI looks similar to what Moto G 5G Plus has, even if underneath OxygenOS is customized beyond recognition. You'll be losing the 3.5mm jack and splash resistance too, while you'll also need to pay €50 more and, again, that can make a difference in this price range.
Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite 5G • OnePlus Nord
Of course, dropping 5G from your priority list would open up some more options like the Realme 6 Pro. It's a great all-rounder, perfectly fitting in the €350 price category with a proper telephoto camera in addition to the 64MP regular and 8MP ultrawide cameras, faster charging, similar battery life and still has that 90Hz smoothness. Its Snapdragon 720 is inferior to the 765, even without accounting for the modem, though.
Then there's the Snapdragon 730G-powered Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite, which offers an OLED screen and better camera than the Moto G 5G Plus and a similar battery life. It's €50 cheaper too, but only has a 60Hz screen and the question of MIUI versus stock will inevitably come up again.
Realme 6 Pro • Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
Verdict
If you are in market for a 5G phone now, but have a limited budget the Moto G 5G Plus is certainly shaping as a very sensible all-rounder. You get a decent 90Hz IPS panel, great battery life, clean Android with a couple of cool customizations and features on top and a capable chipset. And if the cameras didn't need some extra work and the screen was OLED, this phone would have been an outright steal at that price.
As things stand now it's trading blows with competitors from Xiaomi and Realme, which in itself is a great achievement for Motorola. The stock Android, 90Hz panel and great battery life will be enough to entice a lot of potential buyers, while a small price reduction similar to what Xiaomi did after the launch of its phones has every chance of turning this into a proper box office hit.
Pros
- Rather sturdy build.
- Smooth 90Hz IPS panel without visible halos around the cutout or the bezels.
- Great battery life, adequate fast charging.
- The main camera snaps good daylight photos, records great videos.
- Clean Android but with more Moto features and customizations than ever before.
- Has microSD card slot, 3.5mm jack.
Cons
- No telephoto camera.
- Mediocre camera performance in low light.
- Some competitors offer OLED screens.
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