Moto G 5G Review: A $400 Phone That May Have Everything You Need

Speaker 1: The $400, Moto G 5g includes a lot of great features, chief among them a huge amount of storage space for the price, but that's, as long as you can deal with a lot of other features that it doesn't have. Let me explain Speaker 1: The Moto G 5g includes some key features that might fulfill, and even Surpas your expectations for a $400 phone. It has 256 gigs of space, which is practically unheard of in this price range. [00:00:30] By comparison. Last year's pixel five, a with 5g, and this year's galaxy a 53 5g, both ship with 128 gigs of space and cost slightly more at four 50, it's still a good value, but half what Motorola is offering. If somehow that's not enough storage, you could even throw in a micro SD card to add even more. It also includes six gigs of Ram, which matches Samsung's galaxy eight fifty three. The phone 6.5 inch screen allows you to set a 90 Hertz refresh rate, which is plenty smooth for scoring through [00:01:00] websites and apps. And the phone's 5,000 milliamp hour battery should last you an entire day, possibly two, depending on your usage. Speaker 1: I wrapped up five hours of screen time in one of my days of testing, where I had the phone streaming, YouTube taking video calls, playing games and reading articles. And I still had roughly 30% of battery left after that. There's a headphone Jack two, which is important for audio flexibility lately. It seems like every time a report that a phone in this price range still has the headphone Jack. Another one seems to take it away like the upcoming 4 49 [00:01:30] pixel six, a the Moto G five G is also one of the cheaper phones to ship with Android 12. And with that you'll get new features like customizable menus. The phone also includes Motorola's custom gestures like the chopping motion for turning on the flashlight and a twist motion for quickly accessing the camera 5g support on this phone also includes sub six and C band, but there's no support for millimeter wave. Speaker 1: That's pretty common in this price range. And frankly, millimeter wave is only available in very specific areas like sports stadiums. [00:02:00] Several of my colleagues have explainers on CNET about the different flavors of 5g. If you're interested in that, all of these features could very well be everything you need in a phone. And in some cases like the huge amount of storage be even more than you need, but there are caveats and they start with the camera. The Moto G 5g includes the same 50 megapixel camera as the $500 Moto G stylist 5g, but lacks optical image stabilization. The Moto G 5g also comes with a lower resolution, two megapixel [00:02:30] macro camera, and two megapixel depth sensor that helps with other camera modes like portrait mode. There's also a 13 megapixel selfie camera. I took the phone on a ferry ride in New York, south street Seaport, and my photos look fine, but they are clear step down in terms of image quality from the photos taken with a stylus 5g, considering the main camera on each phone is otherwise the same. Speaker 1: I was a little bit surprised by the differences. I wish my Mo G 5g photos just had better detail. Motorola does include several software enhancements [00:03:00] in its camera app, including a night mode, which is very nice to see in a $400 phone video, quality is not good, which is the same criticism that I had on the motog stylist 5g. While I was shooting video on top of a windy New York city fairy audio sounded washed out and the video quality only captured some details of the water or the buildings. It's good enough to share in a group chat, but I consider finding a separate video camera. If I were taping an event, the phone also lacks an NFC chip and considering how contactless payments are now [00:03:30] being taken everywhere from convenience stores to transit systems, I feel like $400 phone should include that feature. It's becoming more of a necessity and it's worth pointing out in case it's something you need many phones, $400 and less also don't include NFC, but it's time for that feature to hit those price ranges. Speaker 1: I'm not big on the phone's main speaker, either music and video sounded a bit tin like, but that's easily alleviated using headphones over Bluetooth or a wire. The phone also ships with a media tech processor. [00:04:00] And I actually had no issues with lag or speed when using it across apps and games. While the phone is technically less powerful than the motog stylist 5g S Qualcomm chip it's performance is likely aided by its six gigs of memory. The Moto G 5g will only get one major OS software update to Android 13 and three years of security updates. This means after about three years, you'll likely wanna move on to a different phone when Motorola stops providing support against security vulnerabilities for its price. [00:04:30] That might be totally okay for you, but if you're hoping to hold onto this phone for longer, you should keep that in mind. Speaker 1: The Moto G 5g could be a great pick for $400, especially if storage is your primary concern, a phone with 256 gigs of space for $400 is a fantastic value. Plus it runs well. And the screen's 90 Hertz refresh rate is a nice bonus. On top of that. Motorola told us that the phone we discounted even further to 350 for a limited time. So you might even find it for less, depending on when you get [00:05:00] it. But we now know that Google's pixel six a is arriving this July at 4 49 as well. Looking much like Google's pixel six and including its in-house tensor chip. If you're shopping with $400 as you're ceiling, the Moto G 5g could be a good option for you, but if you're shopping within the 400 to $500 range and you aren't in need of an Android phone right now, it'll be best to wait until July. At which point we'll have a better idea of what's available this year in that price range for more about the Moto [00:05:30] G 5g, check out my review on CNET or check out the links in the description. And so far in the 400, 500 range, we now have this Moto G 5g, the Samsung galaxy, a 53 and the Moto G stylist 5g, which of these phones are you the most into? Tell me about that in the comments and for more guides and review videos like these, like, and subscribe to CNET on YouTube.