Motorola Moto G100 review: A capable mid-range 5G phone with desktop aspirations Review

Motorola’s Moto G handsets occupy a wide swathe of the reduced end of the smartphone sector, but the Moto G100 is some thing of a action up. With a Snapdragon 870 5G SoC, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage and a cost tag of £449.99 (inc. VAT), this is unquestionably a mid-selection handset. The Moto G100 also comes with a dock that’ll keep the cell phone in possibly portrait or landscape mode, which provides it opportunity for desktop viewing, which include use in movie phone calls, and a USB-C-to-HDMI cable. 

The Moto G100 is out there in picked Latin American and European markets (at €499.99), but has not been launched in the US. 

Motorola has supplied the Moto G100 an eye-catching colour plan, with the colour-reflecting again shifting among shades of blue and purple on my Iridescent Ocean critique device. A additional sedate Iridescent Sky complete is also out there. 

The four cameras at the again are housed in a marginally raised sq. lozenge on the remaining facet, with 3 of the lenses surrounded by a turquoise body. The again is less slippery than some, even though it did slide off the arm of my sofa for the duration of tests.  

This is a huge handset with a 6.seven-inch display sitting down inside of sizeable bezels all all around. It steps 168.38mm tall by seventy three.97mm extensive by nine.69mm thick, weighs 207g, and the screen-to-physique ratio is a reasonable eighty four.2%. 

The fingerprint sensor is incorporated into the energy button on the ideal edge, which also properties a reasonably modest quantity rocker. The remaining edge has a button that phone calls up Google Assistant, and there is certainly a 3.5mm headset jack together with the USB-C demand port on the bottom edge. If you happen to be seeking for defense against drinking water and dust, you is not going to obtain it below: on its site, Motorola states the G100 has a ‘water repellent design’, but there is certainly no formal IP ranking. 

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The bundled dock and HDMI cable appear as portion of Motorola’s new Ready For system, which is centered on sending the handset’s display to a observe and working with Bluetooth to hook up external products these types of as keyboard, mouse or recreation controller. You can also use the handset’s display as a touchpad to manage an app jogging on an external observe. Motorola suggests you can use your handset for mainstream productiveness responsibilities, even though additional realistic use cases contain movie contacting, display sharing and media catch-up, instead than major application-based mostly operate. 

The dock also has a a great deal less advanced but important use: with the Moto G100 docked, incoming messages, rolling written content,  even your social feeds, are all straightforward to check out. The dock alone, although plastic, feels robust.

The 6.seven-inch IPS display has a 90Hz refresh fee and a resolution of 2,520 by one,080 pixels (409ppi). It’s sharp and bright, and perfectly superior for viewing movie. The only draw back is the two punch-holes that residence the front-experiencing cameras on the upper ideal edge: the surrounds for both lenses are massive, and incredibly distracting.  

The cell phone can accommodate two SIMs, or one SIM and one MicroSD card. There is certainly 128GB of internal storage, 18GB of which is utilized out of the box, leaving 110GB cost-free. The chipset is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 870 5G, with 8GB of RAM. Under Geekbench 5 this platform scored 969 (single main) and 2889 (multi main), which is par for the mid-selection course in conditions of CPU general performance. 

The PCMark for Android Work 3. Battery Life test saved the five,000mAh hour battery going for 12 hours and 28 minutes, which is respectable. And when I questioned the cell phone to stream YouTube movie repeatedly for 3 hours it dropped 24% from a a hundred% demand, all over again suggesting battery lifetime of all around 12.5h. 

SEE: 5G smartphones: A cheat sheet (cost-free PDF) (TechRepublic)

These exams ended up with the handset dynamically modifying the screen’s refresh fee. If you drive it to stay at 90Hz, battery lifetime will undergo. All-day lifetime may perhaps even now be achievable, but if you habitually operate demanding applications, which include game titles, then daytime battery boosts may possibly be required. 

The Moto G100 has two front cameras: 16MP f/2.2 extensive-angle and 8MP f/2.four ultra-extensive angle (118°). Switching among the two is a simple issue of tapping an on-display icon underneath the display viewfinder, and the ultra-extensive-angle lens absolutely receives a large amount additional topic issue in. It’s awesome to have additional selfie selections, inspite of the distraction of the two lens reduce-outs in the display.

The four rear cameras are: 64MP f/one.seven extensive angle 16MP f/2.2 ultra-extensive angle (117°) a 2MP f/2.four depth sensor and a time-of-flight (ToF) sensor. Test shots ended up bright and nicely inside of the suitable selection for position-and-shoot. There is certainly practically nothing breathtaking below, but shots are perfectly satisfactory.

Motorola won’t go in for bloatware on its handsets, and extras are mainly limited to unique tweaks accessed through a single Moto app. This permits you to set up gesture controls, personalise gaming settings, set wallpapers and so on. You can perform all around with what’s on present, but if you happen to be just interested in working with the handset ‘as is’ out of the box, the Moto app is conveniently ignored.  

Conclusions 

The Moto G100 is a mid-selection handset that sits atop Motorola’s cost-effective G selection. It supports 5G, has a massive display which is straightforward on the eye, the two front cameras incorporate additional selfie overall flexibility than regular, and basic use is, as regular with Moto telephones, pleasantly cost-free of bloatware. The bundled All set For dock and HDMI cable really should both establish useful, way too.

The vital challenge with the Moto G100 is not the handset alone, but the levels of competition. The mid-selection sector is crowded, and there are loads of alternatives to opt for from. None appear bundled with a dock and desktop-mode functionality, but some may possibly have that very little bit of pizazz you happen to be seeking for.

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