Moto G5 Plus

£259 inc VAT • motorola.co.uk • out now

Lenovo’s Motorola Mobility used MWC 2017 to show off its new Moto G5 and Moto G5 Plus, which are brilliantly priced smartphones that offer some of the features of its flagship but without the cost.

We spent some time with both devices on the show floor to give you a closer look at the new smartphones and offer our initial thoughts about them. Here, we bring you our hands-on review of the Moto G5 Plus.

Design

This is a good-looking phone that manages to stay compact despite its 5.2in display. That’s smaller than the

previous G4 Plus’s 5.5in display and is an unusual choice considering the much cheaper G5 has a 5in display.

The G5 Plus measures 150x74x7.7mm and weighs 155g, which is suitably thin and light and felt comfortable to hold, particularly thanks to its slightly rounded back and edges. That’s also significantly thinner than the G4 Plus’s 9.8mm, but keeps the same weight.

Unlike previous models of the G range, Lenovo has opted for a metal body to add a more premium feel to the smartphone, and it is available in stylish Lunar Grey or Fine Gold colour options. We like the circular, centralized camera housing on the rear of the phone, too.

Features

The G5 Plus’s display is Full HD and made with Gorilla Glass 3, and we found it to be bright and crisp during our testing, although of course not quite as outstanding as the flagship Moto Z’s Quad HD offering and other flagship rivals.

Inside the Moto G5 Plus is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 2GHz octa-core processor with Adreno 506 graphics, which should mean reasonably speedy performance for a mid-range phone but it might struggle with some heavyduty tasks and graphics-hungry games.

It didn’t lag at all during our testing, even when switching between apps and launching the camera, but we’re looking forward to getting the G5 Plus back to our lab to test its speed fully.

That chipset is paired with 3GB RAM in the UK, and there are 2GB and 4GB configurations available for US customers. We’ll get 32GB built-in storage with the ability to add up to 128GB via microSD card. In the US,

there’s also the option of a 64GB model, but it doesn’t look like that’s coming to the UK.

We’re particularly interested to see just how much better the performance is compared with the G5, which costs £80 less than the G5 Plus. The main differences between the G5 and G5 Plus are the tiny increase in screen size (the G5 has a 5in screen compared with the Plus’s 5.2in), the more powerful processor and its better camera, so comparing them is going to be key to our final verdict because that’s no small price difference.

The Moto G5 Plus’s rear camera offers an improvement over its smaller sibling but not when it comes to megapixels. It’s a 12Mp snapper compared with the G5’s 13Mp, but with Dual Autofocus Pixels for a sharper image and speedy focusing. It also has a large f/1.7 aperture and bigger pixels to let in more light in darker conditions.

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The front-facing camera is the same though, at 5Mp with a wide field of view and an f/2.2 aperture. It has its own flash, too.

When it comes to video, the G5 Plus can capture 4K Ultra HD (and improvement over the G5’s 1080p full HD).

There’s a 3000mAh battery that Lenovo claims will last all day, and there’s TurboPower charging too to allow you to give the smartphone up to six hours of battery power in just 15 minutes.

You’ll find 4G LTE connectivity and Bluetooth 4.2, and it charges via Micro-USB.

Software

The Moto G5 Plus runs Android 7 Nougat with Moto experiences, which include Moto Display and Moto Actions. Moto Display lets you see a preview of your notifications and updates without requiring you to unlock your phone to let you decide whether you need to take action now or leave it for later.

Moto Actions, on the other hand, lets you access apps much quicker with a simple movement or gesture. You could open the camera by twisting your wrist, for example, or chop down twice to turn on the torch.

But what we really loved was the ability to use gestures on the fingerprint sensor to go back or open multi-tasking, which means the company has been able to do away with the physical or capacitive back and multi-tasking buttons you’d usually find flanking the

home button on an Android device. That in turn means the device manages to be more compact, but better yet we found it incredibly intuitive to use. In fact, it’s one of our favourite features on the Moto G5 Plus.

It comes complete with Google Assistant, too, which means there’s even more that can be done on the phone much more quickly than ever before.

Verdict

Overall we’re really impressed by the design of the Moto G5 Plus and the specs are good considering the price tag, but we’d still consider opting for the G5 instead. It’s a whole £80 cheaper and we’re not sure the extra power and improved camera are worth that extra cash. The 0.2in difference in screen size is hardly noticeable, either. That’s not to say this isn’t a good mid-range phone, though. It can certainly compete with the Galaxy A3 and the Nokia 6, but so can the Moto G5 with that lower

price. It’s a tricky one to recommend when its smaller and cheaper sibling is so great. Ashleigh Macro

Specifications

5.2in (1920x1080, 424ppi) touchscreen Android Nougat 7.0 2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 octa-core processor Adreno 506 graphics 3GB RAM 32GB storage 12Mp main camera, dual-LED flash, support for 4K video at 30fps 5Mp front-facing camera Bluetooth 4.2 4G LTE Nano-SIM GPS 3000mAh non-removable battery 74x150.2x7.7mm 155g