Motorola Moto G4 review

Motorola Moto G4 review: It's the ONLY budget smartphone worth buying

The latest instalment in the Moto G saga is a superb smartphone. A little large, perhaps, but for the money, it's basically flawless

The Motorola Moto G4 follows a long line of successful budget smartphones that stretches all the way back to 2013, but it’s got its work cut out in 2016. With Samsung and others joining the budget fray, the Moto G4 needs to do something special to maintain its position at the top.

Lenovo (the new owner of the Motorola brand) hasn’t made life any easier for the Moto G4 by bumping up the base price. The cost of 2016’s model is £169 inc VAT, up £20 on last year's Moto G (3rd gen). That might not sound like much – it's the price of a small round of drinks in central London, or a Domino’s Extra Large pizza – but it represents a 13% rise, which is not insignificant.

Motorola Moto G4 review: It's big, very big

What does that extra cash get you? For starters, a larger screen. The Motorola Moto G4 has a 5.5in display, making it a whole half-inch bigger than last year’s model. It’s now up there with the giants of the smartphone world such as the OnePlus 2 and the iPhone 6s Plus in terms of its dimensions and, there’s no denying it, it’s one hell of a slab.

Rather impressively, however, Motorola hasn’t just upped the size without considering the consequences. At the same time as embiggening the screen, it has slimmed down the case significantly, and now measures 2mm thinner than the Moto G3. The Motorola Moto G4 is a mere 9.8mm thick, and best of all it feels sturdy with it, with curved metal edges adding to the high–quality feel.

In terms of the overall aesthetics, it isn’t as brash and loud as previous Moto G handsets and, for me, that's a bit of a shame. I loved the rounded contours, ribbed rear panel and bold camera surround of last year’s model, and the more subtle look of this year’s Moto G4 feels like Lenovo is playing it a bit safe.

Still, if the plain black and silver finish you see in the photographs here doesn’t float your boat, it is possible to customise the Moto G4 via the Motorola Moto Maker website. In all, you have eight rear-panel colours to choose from (including black) and five “accent” colours, which should give you ample opportunity to add a bit of personality.

The only big downer when it comes to the design is that the Moto G4 isn't IPX7 water-resistant like the Moto G (3rd gen). It's still splash-proof, courtesy of a special coating, but don't go dropping it in the bath.

It’s also mildly disappointing to discover that there’s still no NFC or fingerprint reader (you’ll have to stump up for the Moto G4 Plus if that’s on your shopping list), so you won't be able to take advantage of the wonders of Android Pay.

Motorola Moto G4 review: Specifications, performance and battery life

The key reason for the Moto G family’s success has been the combination of sensible design and build quality with a keen sense of value, and the Moto G4 maintains that tradition. Inside is an octa–core Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 running at 1.5GHz, and this is backed by 2GB of RAM and either 16GB or 32GB of storage.

First impressions of the phone are that it’s pretty responsive, but with the odd glitch here and there. There’s some lag while zooming in and out of images in Google Photos, while scrolling quickly through image-heavy websites isn’t as ultra-smooth as on more expensive handsets with 8-series Qualcomm chips.

There’s nothing here, however, to make you grind your teeth or curse under your breath, and in the benchmarks, the Moto G4 is clearly faster than last year’s model.

In fact, of the budget models I’ve pitched the Moto G4 up against here, it’s the Honor 5X that gets the closest in terms of overall performance. The Moto G (3rd gen) is significantly slower across the board.

On battery life, however, the Moto G4 has overall performance sewn up. Although the Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 is only a 28nm part, it seems to be highly efficient and, coupled with a 3,000mAh battery, comfortably delivers a day of moderate use. When we ran it through our standard video-rundown test, the Moto G4 lasted 13hrs 39mins, which is an above-average score and almost three hours longer than the Honor 5X lasted in the same test.

Motorola Moto G4 review: Display

In terms of its speed and battery life, the Moto G4 is a budget tour de force, and it continues that trend with its screen. Its 5.5in IPS screen has a resolution of 1,920 x 1,080, and it’s sharp enough that you can’t see any pixels unless you squint really hard (or get out the magnifying glass). Best of all, though, Motorola has clearly spent some time perfecting how it performs.

In fact, for a phone that costs a good deal less than £200, the Moto G4’s screen is astonishingly good. Maximum brightness reaches right the way up to 540cd/m2, outstripping the best phones in this price bracket by a huge margin, and it’s almost twice as bright as its predecessor.

The contrast ratio is great, too, and although the sRGB coverage isn’t quite as good as phones with OLED displays (the Galaxy J5 and OnePlus X, for instance), it’s good enough that colours still look vibrant and easy on the eye. This screen’s only weakness is that it dims to only 22cd/m2 – if you’re in the habit of checking your phone in a darkened cinema, this will earn you the ire of your fellow movie-goers. Otherwise, it’s an absolute cracker.

Motorola Moto G4 review: Cameras

Happily, the camera is also great. You get a 13-megapixel rear camera with an f/2 aperture and a dual-LED flash for low-light indoor shots. There's no laser or phase-detect autofocus here (for that you have to move up to the pricier Moto G4 Plus), nor optical image stabilisation, but there’s no problem with image quality.

Photographs shot on the Moto G4 are packed with detail and well exposed. Noise is kept under control in all but the darkest of scenes, and the HDR mode works well to equalise extremes of shadow and highlight (as long as you hold the phone steady).

I especially like how easy it is to drag the focus and exposure point around the screen and adjust the exposure compensation to suit. The only problem I had was that autofocus was somewhat slow to lock onto a subject, and occasionally a little jumpy and erratic.

And don't kid yourself that you’re getting Nexus 5X or 6P levels of quality here. The Moto G4’s photographs lack the fine detail and low-light performance of those phones.

For the money, however, what the Motorola Moto G4 is capable of is nothing short of stunning, and it’s significantly better than the Moto G (3rd gen), capturing far cleaner, sharper and less noisy images.

Motorola Moto G4 review: Software

Of course, what usually puts the Moto G head and shoulder above its rivals is the quality of its Android skin, and the refreshing lack of any irritating or unnecessary eye-candy. Fortunately, nothing has changed on this front. The Moto G4 runs on a base of Android 6, and it looks, largely, as Google originally intended.

Motorola’s own features, such as they are, are mostly highly useful and unobtrusive. The gestures, for instance, which allow you to quickly switch on the torch by lightly karate-chopping the phone’s screen, or activate the camera by quickly twisting it twice in succession, are pure genius.

The Moto G4’s Active Display is just as handy. It displays recent notifications, the time and the date whenever you pick up the phone, so you don’t have to go fumbling around finding the power switch.

Motorola Moto G4 review: Verdict

As an all-round package, it’s very hard to find fault with the Motorola Moto G4. It may be a touch more expensive than last year’s Moto G, but since it’s better in most ways – with superior battery life, a better camera, a brighter, bigger screen and a sleeker, more grown-up design – you won’t find me complaining.

There may be some who moan that the Moto G is now too big, and yes, for those with smaller hands and pockets it may be a stretch too far. But let’s not get too hung up about what the Moto G4 isn’t and celebrate what it is: it’s one hell of a smartphone, and delivers more bang per buck than any smartphone to date. If you’re looking to spend less than £200 on your next handset, there’s simply no better choice than the Motorola Moto G4.


source: www.alphr.com