It’s hard to see the Motorola Moto G 5G Plus belongs to the same line with the Moto G Power and Moto G8 as the former has some certain changes to make it stand out.

Display

Moto G 5G Plus is Motorola’s experiment with a longer aspect ratio of 21:9 in the Moto G line.

The most obvious drawback here is the long form factor of the phone, making it hard for users to fit it in their pockets. However, that disadvantage comes with a benefit too. Since the phone is fairly thin having a good grasp is easy.

Viewing content on a 21:9 screen is more enjoyable as you won’t see the annoying black letterbox bars.

The 6.7-inch display makes the Moto G 5G Plus one of the biggest handsets on Motorola’s portfolio. The resolution here is 1080 x 2520, which is average for the price of the device.

The dynamic range is ensured by the HDR10 rating and the 90Hz refresh rate making using the phone feels incredibly smooth. To have a longer battery life, consider lowering the rate to 60Hz.

Processor

Under the hood, Moto G 5G Plus is powered by the Snapdragon 765G chipset, the one often found in high mid-range handsets, paired with either 4GB or 6GB of RAM. This combination makes for a snappier feeling than other Moto G phones.

Apps open quickly and you can switch between them with little delay. Gaming is smooth on this device. However, this isn’t a high-end chipset so expect apps to slow down and crash sometimes.

Moto G 5G Plus’s benchmark test returns 1822, not too high but typical with this price bracket. This performance puts the phone just below the Honor 9X and above the Oppo Reno 2.

RAM

While the choice between 4GB and 6GB of RAM does give you some flexibility, the lack of the 8GB option makes some people worry about gaming with the phone.

However, in reality, gaming is decent on the Moto G 5G Plus as most common titles run smoothly with a bearable level of stutter.

Battery

Motorola usually gives smartphones in the Moto G line a big battery and the Moto G 5G Plus is no exception. The handset draws power from a 5,000mAh cell.

This much capacity promises a full day use whatever you do with the phone, from checking social media to playing games and watching Netflix.

However, whether it can last to the second day depends on many other aspects. Sometimes you have no problem leave the charger at home when you leave the house. On other days, you will feel safer to charge the phone before starting your day.

The speed of charging is a leap compared to other handsets in the Moto G line, standing at 20W. While this is nothing compare to what other bands have achieved, you will certainly feel the Moto G 5G Plus snappy.

The phone can be charged to full in less than two hours but you can expect to have roughly 65% after the first hour.

Camera

The Moto G 5G Plus has a total of six cameras, two for selfies, and four on the back. However, before you go awe over the number, quantity doesn’t necessarily an indication of the quality and this phone attests. What we have with the phone is an ok performance.

On the front, we have a 16MP camera with an aperture of f/2.0, paired with an 8MP ultra-wide snapper with an aperture of f/2.2.

Overall, the quality of the shots is decent when the environment has enough light. Things start to fall apart and grain appears when the light level drops. Selfies pack lots of details and the bokeh effect looks good.

The Beauty mode is on both the ultra-wide and regular camera. However, the results are not something you want others to see as it tends to over-smooth the details.

On the back, the camera setup consists of a 48MP/f/1.7 primary snapper, an 8MP/f2.2 ultra-wide lens, a 2MP/f2.2 depth sensor, and a 5MP/f/2.2 macro camera.

The amount of detail is decent but the same cannot be said about the dynamic range and the contrast. Dark areas look murky and green ones usually show only one tone instead of a wide variety.

There is no optical zoom but we are surprised at how well the 8x digital zoom works. When you zoom in, pictures don’t look grainy at all.

The same color of vibrancy we see on the selfie cameras extends to their counterparts on the back. But at least we don’t have to deal with edge distortion, a problem that runs rampant on other Moto phones.

The macro camera offers a quite pleasing experience. It focuses quickly and although it has a low resolution, pictures taken with it look punchier than those captured by the main camera.

Motorola’s new Smart Composition feature will crop the photos you take according to the rule of thirds, with the help of AI to improve the framing. However, how handy this function is will depend on your photography skills.

The Moto G 5G Plus can record 4K videos, not something too special but the perk here is you can record with the 21:9 aspect ratio, something not many other phones can do.

While some other smartphones have the same 21:9 aspect ratio, not many of them offer it and the ability to shoot 4K video at the same time.

That is the ratio many movies have and those who love to have the same effect with their homemade video will want to take a look at the Moto G 5G Plus.

Motorola phones aren’t known for their cameras, due to the weak AI-powered post-processing. So if you want to have better shots with this phone, you had better download some photo-editing apps to enhance what you take.

However, it isn’t to say that the Moto G 5G Plus is lagging behind its competitors in this respect as on this price bracket, not many other phones can offer a better photography optimization software.

Overall, the phone’s cameras are on par with its rivals.