Following Lenovo’s acquisition of Motorola, the fourth generation Moto G smartphone features Lenovo branding. The classic Motorola logo is still seen on the handset but it is clear that Lenovo wants to present Moto as its own sub-brand. In particular, the company plans to replace its Vibe series with Moto smartphones.
The Moto G (Gen 3) (Review) and Moto G (Turbo Edition) (Review) were very successful smartphones but we had some complaints about the camera performance. But Motorola has faced this problem in all its smartphones. The Moto G4 Plus has slightly better specifications than the Moto G4 and has better features in terms of camera and software. Today we will review this new smartphone of Moto G4 Plus and see how this smartphone of Moto is.
Look and design
Motorola’s familiar design can also be seen in the G4 Plus. Although it is not completely the same as before, it can definitely be identified as a Moto product. The rubber rear cover with a circular metal frame gives the phone a good grip. This phone is slightly larger than the previous Moto G smartphone, due to the 5.5-inch full-HD TFT screen given in it. The smartphone can be operated very easily even in sunlight and brilliant colors can be seen in the display. Corning Gorilla Glass has been provided for protection. The G4 Plus is quite thin and its thickness is 7.9 mm. But the phone does not feel heavy when held in the hand.
The Moto G4 Plus does not have the trademark grille found on the Moto G smartphones. But this new Moto smartphone does have a fingerprint sensor. It does not work as a physical button but works only on touch. The fingerprint sensor can recognize fingerprints from any angle and apart from the occasional misidentification, it works very well.
All the buttons on the phone are well placed so that they are easily accessible to the user. The headphone socket is on the top while the micro-USB port is on the bottom.
This phone has a flat rear instead of the curved rear design given in the previous Moto G model. The phone has a 16 megapixel camera with dual-tone LED flash and laser autofocus system, which can be called a good upgrade.
On removing the rear panel, a non-removable 3000 mAh battery can be seen in the phone. On the edge, there is a microSD card (132 GB support) and two micro-SIM slots. Moto G4 Plus comes with a nano-to-micro SIM card adapter. But this phone does not have IP67 certification (water resistant) like the previous variant.
The phone comes in the retail box with a TurboPower charger (25 watts) and a headset. But the wall charger is not modular so you will need a separate USB cable to transfer data. The quality of the headset is a bit poor and it did not fit our ears properly.
Specifications and Features
Moto G4 Plus has Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 617 processor which runs on 1.5 GHz octa-core chip. The same processor was also used in HTC One A9 (Review). This phone will have the option of 3 GB RAM and 32 GB storage and 2 GB RAM and 16 GB storage. For connectivity, options like 4G LTE (Category 4), Bluetooth 4.11 Low Energy, Dual Band Wi-Fi B/G/N, GPS, GLONASS, USB-OTG and FM Radio have been given. You will not get the feature of NFC in this phone.
Like all Moto smartphones, the G4 Plus runs a near-stock version of Android, but this time, Android Marshmallow 6.0.1.
The Moto G4 Plus has an LED on the right side of the fingerprint sensor, but we found that it works quite well while charging. Apart from this, other motion-based gestures work smoothly. There are not many pre-loaded apps in the phone, but file manager and standard apps from Google are provided.
Performance
The Moto G4 Plus is a good performer with hardly any drawbacks. The user gets 1.2GB of RAM to use. We did not face any issues with animations and app switching. The phone does heat up when playing games or when data/GPS is on but not so much that it becomes unusable. You may face some issues with the camera app when the phone heats up, which may be due to the system controlling the CPU speed to prevent the phone from overheating. We found the benchmark figures of the phone to be good.
The Gallery app has been replaced by Google’s Photos app, which we did not like, but it works. Full-HD videos play smoothly on the phone. Photos can be edited and videos can be trimmed in the Photos app. The Play Music app is provided for music but does not support FLAC files. Equalizers are also provided for wired headphones and speakers. The single speaker for general media playback and alerts in the earpiece gives good sound.
One of the biggest features of G4 Plus is its camera. The 16-megapixel rear camera comes with aperture F/2.0, phase detection autofocus (PDAF). The phone has a laser autofocus system to capture objects quickly. Tap-to-focus can be used to focus on the subject and a slider can be used to adjust exposure. Long tapping on the subject locks the focus which helps a lot. Apart from this, slow-motion video, panorama and a professional mode are available in the camera app. The camera app seems very handy when you can adjust focus, white balance, shutter speed, ISO and exposure in low light.
Landscape and macro photos taken in daylight are of better quality than before. Detailing is quite good and the camera can take photos with good colors. We would recommend keeping HDR set to auto as it helps in making the photos look very good. On the other hand, photos taken indoors look fine but the detailing and colors seem scattered when zoomed in. Video recording of maximum 1080 pixels can be done and photos come out well in daylight and low light. Selfies with good detail can be taken with the front camera in good light. Apart from this, barcodes and QR codes can be read directly from the camera app.
battery life
In the video loop test of the battery of Moto G4 Plus, the battery lasted for 12 hours and 4 minutes which is quite good. In normal use with both the SIM cards, we were able to use this Moto smartphone for about one and a half days with full charge. The phone supports TurboPower or fast charging, due to which the battery gets charged quickly.
Our decision
The new Moto G series smartphone, the Moto G4 Plus, is a welcome addition that comes with performance and feature upgrades. The phone has a decent processor that makes Android run smoothly. A good fingerprint sensor, good camera and excellent battery life make the phone great. In this price range, the Moto G4 Plus is a very good option.
The competition has become quite tough but in our opinion Moto G4 Plus has everything that makes it stand out. Its most special feature is the timely release of Android updates. G4 Plus could have been better if it had water and dust protection feature like the previous smartphone. The poor performance of the camera in low light could also have been improved.
If you are looking for a phone that comes with great features at a low price then Moto G4 Plus is definitely a good option.