motorola one Action

For Action Lovers on the Go

The essence of competition in the Indian smartphone market is not something which we can see in the smartphones rather it lies outside it which we can perceive by understanding how the market has shaped itself over time. Motorola over the time has also served its customers by delivering various ranges of products and smartphones. Once, lost its place in the competitive market, Motorola now with its ‘One’ series has successfully trying to rebuilt its reputation in the market. The latest target by all smartphone companies has been the midrange price section and now Motorola also has released its horses in this race by launching the new Motorola One Action. Does, the new Motorola One Action has got what it takes to take the lead in this competitive race, we will find out in this review of ours.

Design

One thing about Motorola which I always admire is that their policy to stick to the aesthetic appeal of the phone with no fancy design or bright shades and the new

Motorola One Action also has the same DNA in terms of look just like its predecessors and resembles very much like the previous Motorola One Vision. The first impression which anyone would get after watching the new Motorola One Action will be that it is tall and it is surely tall as it has slim and tall body design which comfortably fits in your palm but reaching the top of the screen is impossible to do with one hand. The body weight is light as the body of the phone is composed of plastic. The tall display at front is quite inquisitive also the punch hole camera on the display is quite obvious to be noticeable because of its size. There are slim bezels running all around the body as well. At the backside lies the triple rear camera sensors which is for the first time ever seen in Motorola smartphones and following the slightly bulged cameras is an LED flash. The logo of the company is very well placed in the fingerprint sensor which is very easy to reach and fast to respond. At the top of the phone lies 3.5mm headphone jack whereas at the bottom lies speaker and Type-c USB port. The power button and the volume rockers are lying at the right side of the phone whereas at the left side lies the hybrid SIM slot.

Display

The company has decided to provide Cinema Vision display in the new Motorola One Action and if you have read our review of Motorola One Vision you would know why the display is termed as Cinema Vision Display but in case you did not read our that review we will tell you what it is. Well, the 21:9 aspect ratio of the display by the company has been referred to as Cinema Vision Display which enhances your experience of viewing movies, playing games, etc. The tall display might not be liked by everybody who is accustomed to using wide screens but then also Motorola One Action offers impressive wide viewing angles. The punch hole on display having selfie camera in it might get in the ways of playing games and we even faced such challenge when the game settings were full view display because the control buttons seem to get in a tricky position. The look is tall but doesn’t get deceived by its tall look as the screen size is of 6.3 inches with the screen type being LTPS IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen. The visibility of the screen is quite good, color reproduction is good as well but in intense daylight, the screen might look a little darker. The screen resolution is of 1080x2520 pixels and has 432 ppi density. The screen to some extent is even splash-resistant protecting the phone from taking unnecessary moisture.

Platform

Motorola One Action is part of Android One program of Google which means it will get assured updates up to Android 11 and three years of the security patch. The OS is Android 9.0 Pie in Motorola One Action.

The processor of Motorola One Action is the same which we saw in Motorola One Vision which is Samsung’s Exynos 9609 chipset. There are eight octa cores present where four cores are clocked at 2.2GHZ Cortex A73 and rest four cores are clocked at 1.6GHZ Cortex 53. The processor did perform well without any glitch but we wonder till how long Motorola will use the same chipset. Multi-tasking was very smooth and the gaming experience was good as well. We did not encounter any drop-down in the graphics level of the games though there might be some degradation when it comes about big games overall the games ran in their prime graphics form. The phone does not get heated up easily and it showed some kind of heat when we played big games for hours. The GPU on board for graphics is Mali-g72 MP3. Supporting the processor is the 4GB RAM of the phone which works very well in maintaining the equilibrium of the phone. The internal storage is very impressive which is 128GB and can be further expanded with the help of microsd card.

Cameras

The camera power of Motorola has always been to be a big factor in its phones as they always managed to impress me even without any hype about them. The new Motorola One Action is the first from the company to sport triple rear sensors. The primary sensor is of 12MP with an aperture of f/1.8 with wide angles, and PDAF, the secondary sensor is of 16MP with an aperture of f/2.2 with ultrawide angles which is also being called the ‘Action Camera’ with a 117-degree field of view, the third sensors are 5MP depth sensor. The images

capture maintains jut not the proper details, quality, colors but also it has some sense of originality intact with it. The daylight shots were accurate with sharp colors without over-saturation of the subjects being captured. The night shots though loses the magical touch of high detailing and accuracy as the images captured were of average quality and noise effects and graining were quite easily visible. The likes of Vivo Z1 Pro, Redmi Note 7 Pro, and others have capitalized on this aspect which Motorola One Action fails to do so whereas the selfie camera is of 12MP with an aperture of f/2.0.

The selfie camera does a good job of capturing selfies with originality in them without extra smoothening or changing the real touch of the selfies. The daylight selfies were brilliant with accurate details of colors, edge detection and surely possess crisp element in them without oversaturating the image. The night selfies were quite of average quality as with close range and in well lighting conditions they turned out to be good but the lack of proper lighting conditions show the noise effect coming into play. The camera of the phone can shoot videos up to 40fps and 4k at 30fps and the EIS helps to capture smooth videos by canceling the movements of the hands.

Battery

Motorola was one of the first company who revolutionized the battery power in smartphones and it’s almost every smartphone possess long-lasting battery life. Similarly, the new Motorola One Action also possesses nominal battery which is of 3,500mah. When tested rigorously the battery of the phone still stood out to last a day with 10-20% of battery power left. Surprisingly, the phone does not have the option of fast charging which is a loop in the new Motorola One Action which might seem to cause the phone to fall behind in the race of midrange smartphone section.

Conclusion

Motorola One Action is an extension to its predecessor, One Vision, having 21:9 Cinematic Vision display, amazing video shooting capabilities with control of

EIS to add on it and a smooth all round chipset performance where the phone does not let you down while playing games with higher graphic rate or routine tasks. The OS is clean and lets you to enjoy the power of Google to full effect along with security and other updates. The battery is sufficient for normal usage but, drains down when put to heavy usage. The charger isn’t that fast to tank it up.

The smartphone looks brilliant especially the White variant with minimalistic design which is durable. Photography remains a pleasant experience in most scenarios. At Rs 13,999, Motorola One Action is for those who loves to shoot on the move and for those who are in action. ■