Moto G4 Plus review: A worthy Moto G successor

The G series of smartphones from Motorola have always been one of our favorites in the mid range segment . This year, Motorola announced two new devices in the Moto G series: Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus. Of the two, G4 Plus has been launched while the Moto G4 is expected to be available next month onwards.
The Moto G series phones are 5-inch or mainstream size while the Moto G4 Plus goes into phablet territory with a 5.5-inch display. The display has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels with good brightness levels, wide viewing angles and dual modes (normal or vibrant colour) -useful for watching movies.

It weighs 155 grams and is 9.8mm slim but feels much slimmer and lighter thanks to clever design. Unlike other phones in this price range that offer full metal unibody construction, the Moto G4 Plus sticks to a removable plastic rear panel. However, the battery is not removable.One thing we appreciate is the inclusion of a couple of nano to micro SIM adapters (Moto has pre-installed them in the slots).

The other big change on the Moto G4 Plus is that it's the company's first smartphone with a fingerprint sensor. The small square sensor is placed under the screen and is one of the most responsive and accurate sensors we have used. It recognises fingerprints in any orientation and is one of the few phones that manages to detect and unlock the phone 10 out of 10 times.

Another department where the Moto G4 Plus excels is the camera. You get a 16MP camera with f2.0 aperture and laser autofocus that takes photos with fantastic details, rich colours, great depth of field and minimal noise. It focusses on the subject in an instant and the shutter speed is zippy. You get an HDR mode as well as a professional mode with full manual control. Video recording is limited to 1080p but you get an option of slow motion video recording of 120fps (qHD resolution). Even the front 5MP camera is one of the better selfie cameras we have seen -it managed to take images with minimal noise, even though the amount of details captured were just average.

It is available in two hardware configurations: 2GB RAM with 16GB storage and 3GB RAM with 32GB storage. The processor remains the same on both models -an octa core Snapdragon 617.Our review unit was the 3GB RAM32GB storage variant and thanks to the stock user interface with zero bloatware, performance was top-notch. There was no issue in playing games such as Asphalt 8 or NOVA as well as 4k videos. However, the phone suffers from serious overheating issues. With just 5 minutes of gaming, the phone started getting warm and after 15 minutes of gaming it had become extremely hot. We also noticed that the phone became sluggish when hot -menu animations became choppy and there was a slight delay in the phone's response. This is a big letdown from the phone for power users and gamers.

The earlier generation Moto G phones impressed us with their battery life.However, the Moto G4 Plus's battery life is just average. The 3,000mAh battery manages to last from 9am to 5pm but requires charging post that. Thankfully a Turbo charger is included in the price which charges the phone from 10 to 75% in an hour. Another thing that impressed us is the audio output -both the earpiece speaker and the loudspeaker output is loud and clear.

Overall, the Moto G4 Plus proves to be a worthy successor in the Moto G lineup. However, its overheating issues are a letdown. For a lower price you can consider the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 that offers similar specifications in a metal unibody design but its camera is no match for the G4 Plus. If camera is your priority, then consider the Lenovo ZUK Z1 that offers similar specifications with an excellent camera but has non expandable 64GB storage and runs Cyanogen OS on a Snapdragon 801 processor.



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