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Get a Moto G5S Plus for $229.99

That's $50 off the already great price for Moto's latest, which comes unlocked with dual rear cameras. Plus: a free $29 survival horror game and more!

Rick Broida Senior Editor
Rick Broida is the author of numerous books and thousands of reviews, features and blog posts. He writes CNET's popular Cheapskate blog and co-hosts Protocol 1: A Travelers Podcast (about the TV show Travelers). He lives in Michigan, where he previously owned two escape rooms (chronicled in the ebook "I Was a Middle-Aged Zombie").
Rick Broida
3 min read

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moto-g5s-plus-front-and-rear

This metal-body wunderkind doesn't look or perform like a $230 phone -- but that's what you'll pay for it.

Motorola

Sure, you could spend $800 for a 5.5-inch iPhone 8 Plus . I'm sure it's very nice, what with its shiny design, dual cameras, fingerprint reader and so on.

Or you could spend a fraction of that on Motorola 's latest and get a phone that's nearly as capable.

I've proposed this idea before, when I temporarily traded my iPhone 6S Plus for a $180 Nokia 6. Of course, that model is now selling at $229, but the song remains the same: Why spend a small fortune on a phone when you can get something almost as good for a lot less?

The latest example: You can get the new Motorola Moto G5S Plus for $229.99 when you pre-order it. That's $50 off the regular price, which, let's face it, already rocks. That's also for the 32GB model; you can bump the storage to 64GB for an extra $70 -- though you can also pop in a 32GB microSD card for about $10, as this Moto has an expansion slot.

Aside from the price, here's what you need to know about this phone:

  • It runs Android 7.1.
  • It has a headphone jack.
  • It has a fingerprint reader, one that also supports gestures (like its predecessor, the "best budget phone" G5 Plus).
  • It has dual rear cameras.
  • It has a 5.5-inch full-HD screen.
  • It's fast-charging: up to six hours' worth of juice with just 15 minutes of charging, according to Motorola.
  • It's unlocked for use on any major U.S. carrier.
  • Delivery is scheduled for Oct. 5, so you won't have long to wait.

As with the aforementioned G5 Plus, however, you still don't get NFC , and there's just a single speaker. I honestly don't think NFC matters for anything except mobile pay, but if that's something you use (or want to use)...dealbreaker.

For everyone else...awesome deal! Okay, there are a few unknowns, like whether these dual cameras are anywhere near as good as others. But read the aforementioned G5 Plus review and you'll get a good feel for what this phone has to offer. The dual cameras are some of the icing on that delicious phone-cake.

There's yet another way I need to look at this: I could literally outfit my entire family with these phones for less than the price of a single iPhone X

Your thoughts?

outlast-giveaway

Can you outwit the horrors of Outlast?

Humble Bundle

Bonus deal: Game time! Man, do I wish I liked first-person survival horror games, because Humble Bundle has a gem: Outlast Deluxe Edition (Win/Mac/Linux) for free. This giveaway, which ends tomorrow, includes not only the core game, but also a DLC module called Whistleblower. Regular price for both: $29.

Awarded a 7/10 rating from GameSpot and an "overwhelmingly positive" review average from Steam players, Outlast is a seriously scary game that's not about weapons or killing; it's simply about survival. Here you engage in stealth-based gameplay, with parkour-inspired platforming elements.

You can get a DRM-free executable or a Steam key, your choice. Either way, the only thing you need is a free Humble account. Sweet!

Bonus deal No. 2: I'm trying not to go bananas while I wait for the new "Star Trek" to debut on Sunday (here's how to watch it). In the meantime, I'm satisfying my sci-fi needs with this: Today only, Audible has John Scalzi's "The Collapsing Empire: The Interdependency, Book 1" audiobook for $2.95. Regular price: $19.95.

Read by Wil Wheaton, this cool-sounding tale is all about interstellar travel. I'm a big Scalzi fan; his "Old Man's War" ranks among my favorite sci-fi novels. This one scored a 4.5-star average rating from over 5,700 listeners. For $3, I'm in!