Motorola, despite being acquired by Lenovo, has been making some great smartphones since the past few years. The last Motorola phone I used as my daily driver was the Moto G5 Plus, back in 2017, which indeed one of the most popular budget smartphones at that time.
Now that we’re in 2019, the competition has gone to the next level for the 2019’s offering, i.e. the Moto G7. While the phone looks quite good on paper, there’s no denying that its rivals have almost taken over the buzz in the market. Having said that, let’s check if the device still holds any good after three months of its launch, in our full Moto G7 review.
Before starting with the Moto G7 review, let’s have a glance at the phone’s specifications, pricing and things we get with the device.
Price: Rs. 15,999
A complete list of items you get inside the box:
Design & Display
Moto G7 is indeed a beautiful phone, and we discerned that right after unboxing it. With an all-glass back and the traditional Moto design, the G7 looks like a much more expensive phone than it actually is.
The frame is still polycarbonate as opposed to aluminium, but then again it makes the phone lighter while having a slight compromise on the skeletal strength. Note that the back has a swift curve which makes it better to hold than the Redmi Note 7 Pro.
As evident, the camera gets a classic Moto design, and the setup looks more like a skinny turtle’s face. Below it is the fingerprint scanner, disguised in the batwing logo which is quite comfortable to reach.
Coming to the front, we have a water-drop notch which is in-line with the current midrange trend. Following the same, there’s a broad bottom chin that Motorola has cleverly used for branding, accompanied by thin bezels running all around the corner. Lastly, the earpiece is located right above the notch, which unfortunately doesn’t double as a stereo speaker (as on the G7 Plus).
The display used here is a 6.2-inch IPS LCD panel with a Full-HD+ resolution, protected by Gorilla Glass 3. Just like the Pixels, Moto G7 gets an option to choose the display colour in the settings from Natural, Boosted, and Saturated. By default, it’s on saturated and gives nice, vibrant colours.
Besides, the display offers right viewing angles and is reasonably visible under sunlight. Moto display is an added advantage for those who can’t live without always-on display. Inclusion of the USB Type-C port is another welcome change, and while there’s no IP-rating, the device boasts of a splash-resistant P2i coating, reminiscent of the Redmi 7 and Redmi Note 7 Pro.
Powering the phone at its core is an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 632 SoC, paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. Remember the SoC? Well, we’ve seen it before on much cheaper phones like Redmi 7 and Honor 8C.
While the chipset is not made for heavy-duty, we didn’t experience any issues whatsoever in our regular usage. Day to day tasks like browsing the web, listening to music, watching videos, and surfing social media was flawless.
The area where the phone actually struggles is heavy gaming. Yes, the Moto G7 is not made for gaming and the same is visible in real-world use. Having said that, we still managed to play titles like PUBG and Asphalt 9 in the lowest possible graphics settings. Note that the phone does get warm over an extended period of gaming and navigation.
On the software front, the phone runs stock Android 9 Pie. And it indeed is one of the strongest points of having a Motorola phone. Just like any device from the company, the G7 to gets the support for Moto gestures including chop to turn on the flash, quick camera toggle, one-button navigation and more.
In the camera department, the Moto G7 flaunts a 12MP primary camera with f/1.8 aperture, accompanied by a 5MP depth sensor. For selfies, there’s an 8MP shooter housed in the water-drop notch. And while the device runs stock Android, Motorola is relying on its own Camera app for capturing images.
In good lighting, the Moto G7 yields some great results. The pictures are sharp, have plenty amount of detail and colours are close to reality. Dynamic range, by default, is just average; hence, we had to switch to the HDR mode manually, which not only improved the dynamics but also resulted in lower noise levels.
As we expected, the G7 struggles a bit in low light situations. Pictures, in this case, show a decent amount of detail but exhibit narrow dynamic range, washed-out colours and a prominent noise. Besides, the portrait shots are good, but then again, edge detection is quite finicky.
Moving further, the phone supports 4K video recording but lacks OIS. The electronic image stabilisation, however, does a pretty good job in compensation, albeit at the cost of cropping the frame.
As for the front camera, selfies are walloped by the limited resolution and aperture. While images in daylight are good with spot-on exposure and contrast, moving indoor results in softening of the picture. Overall, while the rear camera performs very well, we were kind of disappointed with the selfie experience.
Speaking of the battery life, the Moto G7’s built-in 3000mAh cell leaves us demanding more for most of the part. If you’re medium to heavy user, you’ll surely end up searching for the charger by night.
That said, Motorola has included a 15W TurboCharger in the box which tops the battery really fast. Plugging in for 30 minutes allows for a top-up of around 45-50%, which is a great thing indeed. Full charge, on the other hand, takes a little longer at one and a half hour.
Coming to the different aspects, both the fingerprint scanner as well as the face unlock work consistently. Besides, audio from the single bottom-firing speaker gets loud enough, and we didn’t experience any issues regarding the call quality. Not to forget, the G7 gets a dedicated SD card slot which is handy for those who want to use two sim cards and a microSD card simultaneously.
While not the best value for money in the market, Moto G7 is still a great budget smartphone. Yet, it has its own set of pros and cons as discussed above. The phone looks as well as feels premium, has good enough cameras, gets fast charging and offers a smooth, Vanilla Android experience.
If you’re someone who wants an expensive looking phone that can get you through a day of use without any issues, then you should definitely check it. However, there’s no denying the fact that the phone is simply not made for gaming enthusiasts. Hence, if you’re a hardcore gamer or want more performance and battery life, you should be looking at either of the Redmi Note 7 Pro and the Realme 3 Pro.
Buy Moto G7 from Amazon.in