Motorola Moto G 3rd gen. Review

Motorola has been gaining the trust of its customers since the launch of its first Moto device, the Moto X, a couple of years back. The best part was that the company looked to deliver in every price range, and the mid-range devices from the company have been one of the best, despite not having the best specs for the price, but the performance never failed. We’re talking about the Moto G and its successor. This year, the third gen. Moto G tries to maintain the good name Motorola gained over the years.

Motorola focuses more on smooth performance and a simple UI in most of its smartphones, and although the specs won’t match the phones from Xiaomi and other aggressive players in the market, we hold the phone with some expectation. The expectation that the phone won’t lag, won’t drain the battery quickly, and at least now the camera gets better.

Moto G 3rd gen. comes with a 5-inch HD display, and is internally packed with Qualcomm Snapdragon processor along with Adreno 306 GPU and 2GB of RAM. The camera combination includes a 13-megapixel rear and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. A 2470 mAh battery gives power to the device. For the entire list, check the Moto G 3rd gen. specs.

Note: We are reviewing the variant that has 2GB of RAM and 16GB internal storage.

Motorola isn’t changing much on the design side, as the new Moto G carries almost the same design except for a strip on the back, housing the camera and Dual flash. The two grilles on the front don’t represent them, only the bottom one does, while the top one is the earpiece. These grilles are not as significant as the previous Moto G, but more like the Moto X 2nd gen.

On the back is the removable back cover, and the cover this time has a different texture, something like rubbery cross stripes, which give a good feel and help in grip. Upon removing the back cover, we notice the same non-removable battery, two SIM slots and a slot for MicroSD card.

The design is similar to how the earlier Moto G was, with a curving down body from the center to side on the back. You know you aren’t going to hate this one, because the phone looks sturdy and feels like one. No rough or sharp areas, and everything is well packed to make this Moto G.

The 5-inch 720p display of the device does its job with a decent color output, and though it cannot be called one of the sharpest of displays, it isn’t bad in any way. If only we could complain that Motorola should have chosen to go with a 1080p display, but this is not going to demand that battery which a 1080p display would, and if you ignore that little pixelation on closer look, you would notice a decent display for the price.

Lenovo’s displays in comparison aren’t bad, but they don’t come with any screen protection. The Moto G here, has a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection, so scratches will be kept away. Though, the smudges and fingerprints can be seen at times, needing occasional cleaning. Brightness is not really great, but okay if you aren’t looking at it against a bright light.

The best part of Motorola devices has been the interface, with them choosing to run a near-stock Android with just a few Motorola apps, and they are really helpful. This time, the Moto G gets even better with the Vanilla experience and even lesser apps. Three apps that aren’t Nexus-like, are the camera, gallery, and messaging.

You can go through the interface demo of the Moto G 3rd gen. that we did in our deep dive. In short, the interface of Moto G is the easiest to navigate and use, while the Moto app with its unique functions are very handy.

Two gestures that I absolutely love are Double karate chop for torch, and Twist for quick capture. The second one was a part of Moto X’s gestures, but the Double karate chop to quickly activate the flashlight even on turned-off screen, is a good one.

The camera department is where I have rarely been impressed with Motorola, and the thoughts don’t seem to change a lot even though the new Moto G comes packed with a 13-megapixel rear camera, along with a 5-megapixel front-facing one for selfies.

The selfie camera steps up the game at least for Motorola, as most of them were real bad for selfies and video calling. The 5MP shooter on Moto G does a great job as advertised, and it has HDR, flash options, though there is no direct flash available on the front but the screen acts up to make the entire subject brighter.

Check: Moto G 3rd gen. captures gallery

The 13MP camera is not that bad, but when you are getting a good sensor, you expect the capture to be comparable to the 13MP cameras on other smartphones. One major change this time, is the camera app. There is exposure control wheel that lets the user increase or decrease the brightness of the entire picture before it is captured. Something that we had seen on Xiaomi phones. But using that in even average light conditions shows noise in the picture when the brightening is done.

The performance is buttery, real smooth and that is why Motorola is the toughest to beat in the game when it comes to performance. Let’s be frank here, the highest level games we played, couldn’t hold up and there was a little lag noticed, but if you are okay with that and are looking at the swiftness of the actual interface, Moto G 3rd gen. never seems to disappoint.

We used two SIM cards together for only a brief amount of time, thus won’t comment on the battery performance. But on Single SIM, the phone was able to give about 4 hours 45 minutes of screen-on time with occasional data usage and Wi-Fi running in the background almost for the entire day. The battery saver function is a handy one, and while that was turned on, the Moto G 3rd gen.’s battery went from 15% to 13% overnight, in a span of 13 hours.

Addition of water resistance is one such factor that many might want to upgrade to this device for. Earlier to this, the Motorola devices were splash-proof but the company never boasted about this, just to keep users away from risks, but now, introducing the device in an aquarium said it all.

Moto G 3rd gen. is no different from the predecessor when it comes to build quality, but a lot better when it comes to functionality, camera, and the pricing. The price of Rs. 12999 for 2GB of RAM and 16GB internal storage is not a lot to ask for, keeping in mind that we have a lot of competitors around from well known brands, but Motorola is a go-to choice for many, for a long-term usage.

The front-facing camera would rather make you feel happy about the camera, but the rear camera should have done a better job. It was only Sony leading the race for waterproofing the smartphones, and trust me, when you aren’t asked for a big amount for a feature that might be a lot advantageous, don’t look around for alternatives.