MOTO G5

THE PREMIUM PHONE WITH THE DISTINCINTLY NON-PREMIUM PRICE TAG IS BETTER THAN EVER

From $299, motorola.com.au, G5 and G5 Plus out now

The Moto G family has grown up for 2017. Motorola is finally designing its top-ranked budget phone with a metal chassis (albeit with rubber top and bottom; it’s not a unibody), giving the G5 (and bigger G5 Plus) the looks to match its performance.

You’ll forget this is an inexpensive device (prices start at $299 for the G5 and $399 for the G5 Plus) when you find out what’s inside that updated frame. We’re talking brand new software courtesy of Android 7.0, along with Google Assistant (so you can do things like send messages by tapping the home button). There’s also a fingerprint sensor on the front, which, cleverly, also serves as the navigation bar: tap the sensor for home, swipe left to go back, and

WE LIKE

Battery life – well, who doesn’t? Motorola has focused its efforts on getting the maximum juice from its handsets. Understandably, this isn’t one of the most exciting of features to start a dance about, but apparently, according to Motorola, people tend to buy phones that go for longer, so this is what you get. swipe right to view your recently used apps.

The Moto G5 has a budget-friendly Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 chipset. The 1.4GHz octa-core processor is fast enough for most tasks, but it’s not as powerful as the Moto G5 Plus which rocks a Snapdragon 650 2GHz chip. The G5 comes with 16GB of storage, while the Plus offers 32GB.

Around the back, the G5 features a 13MP camera with f/2.0 aperture and phase detection autofocus, while the G5 Plus gets a 12MP snapper with f/1.7; it’s a drop in pixels, but the wider aperture, along with 4K (30fps) video recording should compensate.

If you want refined design and top all-round abilities at a low price, the G5 could surely be your next phone.

WE DON’T LIKE

This is still a budget phone, so you have to expect some compromises along the way. The most obvious of these is the lack of a USB-C connector. Instead you get a microUSB connector; not the end of the world, but when everyone is moving towards the same standard it feels a little bit like a cheap move.