now motorola didn’t pick a great time to launch his fresh new moto g 5g plus because it’s hitting the uk at roughly the same time as the excellent real me x55g and the fresh new oneplus nord phone those are two other mid-range mobiles offering incredible specs and of course full 5g support for surprisingly little cash but hopefully the moto g5 g plus will still get the attention it deserves because this is at least in my eyes mod roller’s best blower of 2020 so far edge be damned i’ve had this 200 pound smartphone stashed in my shorts for the past week and here’s my full in-depth moto g 5g plus review and for the latest greatest tech please do put subscribe and ding that notifications bell cheers so first up it’s gotta be said the design is possibly the least impressive aspect of this moto mobile it’s an old plastic finish while quite a few rivals do offer a glass chassis for the same price which means also that the motor is more susceptible to scratches although i guess at least if you actually drop the bugger the motor g5g plus is less likely to crack into a million deadly shots and so far touchwood there’s only a few little light nicks on that ascend as well although of course over time they will build up quite substantially so i would definitely recommend
slapping on the condom case that motorola bundles in the box to stay safe and the 5g plus is at least water repellent as well so incorporate a good bit of everyday spatter uh but definitely don’t go submerging the thing that just that wouldn’t end well those bezels are a wee bit chunky and there’s next to no flare or fanciful design work here while the pattern rear isn’t nearly as fun as that swirly mine trip of the realme x55g and another slight design issue also arises with that edge mounted fingerprint sensor which sits really high up on that right hand side and it’s absolutely fine if you actually clutch the phone in your right hand because you’ll find your thumb just naturally falls on top of that sensor nice and easy however if you’re clutching it in your left hand then i did find i had to stretch a little bit in order to get my finger up there to actually get it to work that said over the past few days i did learn to adjust the way i actually picked up the moto 5g so i grasped the phone closer to the middle and then the sensor itself works an absolute treat now any motorola fans out there will get a serious case of deja vu when they play with the moto g5g plus because it’s essentially the same software experience as always nice bit of android 10 action with those mortar experiences slathered on top just like a delicious gravy poured all over a mountain of golden spuds and this serves up all of the usual nifty gesture shortcuts that we know and love and of course bit that moto game time feature as well which was introduced earlier in the year which is really good news if you do a lot of mobile gaming helps to block notifications uh
fine-tune the performance things like that really keep you focused on i don’t know reducing your mates to a bloody gory mess on the floor and then dipping your virtual nut sack in their face whatever it is that the kids are into these days and occasionally like on some previous mode roller phones the android experience can be a little bit glitchy here as far as sometimes you’ll tap a notification and it won’t actually load up the app in question and there was one memorable occasion where that game time show could actually refuse to go away even when i wasn’t actually playing a game but of course little bugs like these are usually squashed after a month or so in the first proper update so here’s hoping that they bugger off pronto now one of the first genuinely new features found here on the moto g5g plus is the power touch toolbar that sounds a bit pervy but what it actually is is this just a shortcuts bar which can be summoned by double tapping the edge mounted fingerprint sensor unlike long pressing on certain app icons this can jump you into specific features like composing a new email in gmail or checking out new videos from your subscribed youtube channels including of course good old text bird because naturally you’ve smashed that subscribe button as well as digging that little notifications bell there right buddy but anyway the power touch tool is all right although to be honest i mostly forgot it was even there it’s not exactly a game changer or anything and the model g5g plus also serves up a dedicated google
assistant key which is just one of a half dozen different ways of calling up the voice assistant in a jiffy it’s not really necessary to be completely honest and most likely just a favor to the mighty google overlords kind of a shame it can’t be remapped to any other apple feature as well in the settings at least not as far as i can bloody say but now let’s admire that incredibly spacious 6.7 inch screen which may be a mere ips panel but it’s still one of the best you’ll find at this sort of price point the cinema vision display sports the same stretch 21 9 aspect ratio as those super long sony xperia screens and as well as providing great multitasking with two apps side by side this is also ideal for kicking back with a compatible flick although all the stuff with a boxy aspect ratio does end up squished into the middle of the screen with massive pillar boxes either side which is rather less amazing however unlike sony’s glorious notch-free panel on the sony xperia 10 here you do unfortunately get two cut out pinhole selfie orifices wedged up here in the top corner and the moto g 5g plus full screen settings don’t always stop your apps from displaying around those weed buggers either personally i wasn’t too bothered by this but i do know that they are still rather divisive and thankfully the visuals themselves are crisp thanks to the full hd plus resolution and pack a bit of a punch on the saturated color setting too hdr10 video is also supported but currently con stream hdr shows on the likes of netflix only on the likes of amazon prime video where you will enjoy that sharp sexy contrast and you do also have a slick and smooth 90 hertz refresh for it as well just like on the real me x55g and the oneplus nord so everything just looks so buttery smooth and oh god yeah that’s the good
stuff on the audio front though it is just a single bottom firing mono speaker here on the moto g5 g plus you don’t get a glorious stereo speaker setup like you did on for instance the moto g8 plus which is a real shame although it’s still perfectly powerful enough if you’re just using the phone for a bit of zoom chat action or to watch bit netflix in the kitchen something like that and yeah verily the 5g plus dots deliver a headphone jack too unlike that they’re real me x55g or the oneplus nord and this works as expected and you’ve also got tsd bit of bluetooth 5.1 as well which again works seamlessly although i did notice the odd crackle in the audio whether i was using bluetooth or an actual connected pair of headphones as well usually when i was hibernating the phone waking it back up again or switching to something like the camera app nothing serious by any means it was just a little bit jaron is all so now on to the performance and the grunt here comes courtesy of qualcomm’s snapdragon 765 platform backed by either four or six gigs of ram this is the model with four gigs of ram and while on the whole it performed very admirably indeed i didn’t notice the occasional surprising little stutter usually when i was streaming audio or video and trying to do something else at the same time and one time for no apparent reason with no warning whatsoever the moto g5 g plus just had straight up it and rebooted itself as well uh wish to be fair i don’t blame it i felt like doing that since the start of 2020.
Here’s some of these little glitches all sorted in future updates although thankfully the 5g plus behaved itself when gaming sure the snapdragon 765 is a step down from the 765g as far as gpu speed goes despite once again rocking that adreno 620 but while there’s less emphasis on gaming here the moto g5g plus still proved a match for pubg and call of duty unfortunately pubg did top off at the high frame rate option in other words 30 fps as well as that hd detail setting no hdr for you jimmy but the frame rate was at least consistently smooth and i had no trouble picking off sniping weed bastards from afar take that you stupid eight-year-old likewise call of duty was fast and frantic with no drop frames at all so i stood more than a fighting chance against the legion of bold school kids on their summer holidays as with other recent motorola phones you also get that fresh moto game time feature that i mentioned before and this can be summoned at any time while blasting virtual chunks out of your mates to boost the performance block notifications and record your mad skills that skills with the z of course and of course you’ve got that integrated 5g modem as well so you can enjoy a nice bit of super nippy streaming when it eventually spreads its way across the land as long as the bloody tin foil hat brigade don’t burn down all the sodium towers first and the moto g5 g plus packs in a whopping 5 000 milliamp battery as well matching mode rollers on g8 power and beam quite a lot of rivals for capacity although i found that the battery life was pretty much on a par with the likes of the real me x55g a full charge will
once again last you a proper hardcore day with change to spare most evenings i did end up stumbling into bed with around 25 to 30 juice remaining and sure motorola’s 20 watt turbo power charge and might not be particularly trouser stone when you consider a lot of rivals are using 30 watt fast charge these days but you know what it’ll get the moto g5 g plus pumped up when it needs it and yeah the moto g5 g plus may only come back in 64 gigs of internal storage while a lot of its big competition offers 128 but you do get microsd memory card support here in the moto g5 g plus up to one terabyte in size which a lot of its rivals have actually culled so far so very premium and in fact the main difference in the hardware versus the mod roller edge flagship beyond the display attack is the quad lens rear camera that 48 megapixel primary shooter captures photos at 12 meg resolution by default using pixel bending to brighten up picks in more ambient conditions overall the quality of my test snaps was good even at 12 megs you get plenty of fine detail packed in there while colors are realistically reproduced the focus copes well with both near and distant subjects and even hyperactive kids don’t pose much of a problem motorola’s usual ai smarts are back in play here too sorting out any slightly wonky shots on your behalf although you can stick with the original if you prefer when the contrast proves tricky the moto g 5g plus thankfully doesn’t oversaturate the final image very often although on the flip side you also don’t get much detail in those darker areas but it is gonna use all around at night time because the dedicated night mode really boosts the overall quality of your picks you’ve also got an 8 megapixel ultra wide angle lens which produces slightly darker warmer picks in general but they still look fine and yes you do have a 5 megapixel macro lens on there as well for
shooting insects and flowers at a distance from about two centimeters whoo and the final lens in this quad camera setup is a basic 2 megapixel depth sensor which helps out with those portrait shots and again i like the results although you don’t get the full set of filters that mode roller normally provides and of course you’ve got the usual a great selection of bonus modes to piddle about with as well including full-on proper manual modes which just offers up full controls over the iso level the white balance all that kind of stuff it gives you the ability to shoot in raw format as well switch to video and you can shoot up to 4k resolution home movies with punchy colors and clear audio reproduction i was proper impressed by the image stabilization of that ultra hd level 2 which definitely does not suffer from puking juice and shaky cam action and if you’re a fan of the instas then the 16 megapixel selfie shooter does a bang up job as long as the lighting doesn’t get too crazy your mug shots will once again be packed with detail while there’s a second 8 megapixel ultra wide angle lens if you want to snag some more background action or just fit in a few minutes so are you tempted by the moto g5 g plus that’s my full in-depth review of this bad boy as you can see it’s pretty good competition for the likes of the real me x55g especially if you prefer more stock version of android hopefully a couple of those little bugs and quirks will be ironed out in a jiffy so be great to hear your thoughts please do slap them down in the comments below and stay tuned for my full in-depth oneplus nord reviews i’m going to be slapping my sim in that bad boy next to see how it stacks up to the likes of the real me and the motorola and for more than the latest greatest tech including that node review please do put subscribe and ding that notifications bell cheers this
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