Moto G5 Review: Hard to beat, especially for the price

What is the Moto G5?

Although it has been on the market for almost a year, and is likely to see a replacement in the form of a Moto G6 later this month, according to the latest rumors, the Moto G5 is still a smartphone fantastic.

However, it has the least impact of any Moto G to date, so if you find a Moto G4 at an offer price, you should consider it too. But if you can not, this is the reason why the Moto G5 is worth your hard earned money.

This is our review of the Moto G5 2017, for the Moto G4 review jump to the final page.

Related: Best cheap phones

Moto G5 – Design

If you're new to the Moto G series, the Moto G5 is a perfectly harmless and nice phone with some elements that give it a touch of class. For those who are already familiar with this family of phones, there are some important changes.

The Moto G5 is a much smaller phone than the Moto G4, as it has a 5-inch screen instead of a 5.5-inch one. It is much closer to the size of the old Moto G3. I had the opportunity to compare the two directly, and the Moto G5 is actually a little wider, but a little thinner.

That extra width is what prevents the Moto G5 from looking radically more expensive than its price: bulk means & budget; These fragments of the surrounding screen are quite thick, and are highlighted by the chrome contour.

These chrome bits characterize what Lenovo has tried to do with the series, to create a bit. To date, all Moto G phones have been almost relentlessly practical, mostly plastic and similar to fleur de lis, but the Moto G5 has a lot more metal on display.

The main panel on the back is made of aluminum, but it's not a metal unibody phone. Remove the removable back to investigate and you will find that the metal is really just an aluminum chip enclosed in a plastic frame. Realizing this is somewhat disappointing when companies like Honor and Huawei make affordable phones where metal dominates more.

Having said that, Lenovo has designed the design well. The curves between the metal and plastic parts look good, as does the contrast between the black circle of the camera and the silver or gold back. It may not really be the radical compilation update that seems, but the style is much more deliberate. The old Moto Gs seem simple in comparison, although like many, I have a lot of love for the sensible style of the first three generations of Moto G.

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I recommend getting a briefcase for the Moto G5, After a few weeks of use I managed to put some scratches on the aluminum and a couple of cuts on the chrome edge of the screen. The pieces that can take the best are the glass in the front and the plastic in the sides. You have been warned.

Below the screen there is a very good fingerprint scanner. As a standard, it is not used as a Start button, but it delves into the Moto application and you can have it replace all the start keys. Swipe to the left to & # 39; back & # 39; to the right for & # 39; recent applications & # 39; and a touch for Home: works fine. It is also much more beautiful than the ugly scanner of the Moto G4 Plus.

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There is no NFC, so you can not use Android Pay, which allows you to use a phone as a contactless debit card. The Moto G5 also uses a microUSB instead of the newer USB-C, which in the last six months has become the norm for new phones. Data the G5 a bit, but for most people, ultimately, it does not matter.

Fast charging does not depend on USB-C (this phone has fast charging) and USB-C does not even guarantee super-fast file transfer. The main benefit in cheap phones is being able to block the plug in any way. Hardly a change of life.

The Moto G5 has 16GB of internal storage, which is all you can expect with the price, and has a microSD slot. You can also remove the battery, a rarity these days. I tend to recommend investing in an external battery instead of refills for your phone, but many of our readers love the idea of ​​being able to replace the cell when it starts to lose capacity two years later.

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Moto G5 – Screen

The Moto G5 has a 5-inch screen. It's a good size for almost anything, from reading articles to playing games and watching Netflix, without the bulk of a 5.5-inch screen like the Moto G4.

Its specifications are perfect for the money, with a resolution of 1080p where previous generations of Moto G with this screen size used 720p panels. It is sharper than an iPhone 7, with the same number of pixels as the iPhone 7 Plus. No complaints there.

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 Moto G5

When you turn on the Moto G5 for the first time, you could say it does not have the color depth so, say, a £ phone 500. However, the undersaturation is very, very slight and I stopped noticing it in a few hours.

Actually, there are two different color modes, Standard and Vibrant, and if you use the latter, the Moto G5 does not look too far. a phone twice the price or more. & # 39; Standard & # 39; It's a similar mode to sRGB, which gives a relaxed look, but I think most people prefer the heavier mode.

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The IPS LCD has no contrast or black level of an OLED, but only show obsessives and those who regularly watch Netflix in bed with the lights off will notice a lot. I would be happy to live with this screen, even if I had a high-end phone waiting to be used.

The viewing angles are great, with only a slight drop in light at an angle and the brightness is good enough to cope with outdoor use. Is it a degradation of the Moto G4? It is smaller and slightly less bright, but it would put them in the same class. It is also on par with some phones that exceed £ 200.

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