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Moto G5 Plus first impressions: The Moto G series in metal

The new Moto G5 Plus is here in India and we get to check it out. Read on for our initial impressions of the smartphone.

Kunal Khullar|Mar 15, 2017, 18:03:18 IST

The Moto G series has been an important device for the brand. The company returned to the phones business with the smartphone in 2013 when it was still Motorola. It has seen updates over the years and the company (now owned by Lenovo) has managed to improve it with every consecutive year.This year, the Moto G goes metal. The fifth generation of the smartphone sees well needed design update and just like last year, gets two variants, the G5 and the G5 Plus. The smartphones were unveiled at MWC earlier this year and today the G5 Plus was made official for the Indian market, at a starting price of Rs 14,999.Here is my initial impression of the new smartphone.Build and Design

As I mentioned before, the G5 Plus comes with a metal finish. This is a first for the Moto G as all the previous generations featured a plastic finish. The unibody design feels good, and premium. It isn't that bulky or heavy either and feels just right for its size. Speaking of which, the Moto G5 Plus (and the G5) is smaller compared to the last year's models. The G5 Plus gets a 5.2-inch display which is somewhat better for single hand usage.

Another prominent update in the design is the camera. It is now a large round bump, I am not sure why the company chose to do this, but it does remind me of the Moto Z camera design.As for the design elements, the SIM card tray sits on the top edge, the volume and power buttons are on the right edge and the microUSB and headphone jack sit at the bottom edge. At the front, there is 5.2-inch display, with a rectangular fingerprint scanner with rounded edges sitting below it. The front camera, earpiece and light sensors are placed above the display.Moving to the back, the metal body has a matte finish and is mostly rounded around the edges. Moto has also added a chrome strip along the edges. I've already mentioned about the round camera bump and of course there is the Moto branding logo which is no longer a dimple.I think this is a good design change for the Moto G. There are so many budget smartphones in the market that offer a metal finish and Motorola really had to overhaul its budget offering to match them.

DisplayThe G5 Plus sports a 5.2-inch IPS LCD display, which is a reduction in size compared to the 5.5-inch on the G4 Plus from last year. Personally I think that was a good decision from Moto. The resolution remains at 1920x1080 pixels with a pixel density of 424ppi. For protection there is a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 on top.As for the quality, the panel looks nice. It isn't super bright or vibrant, but for its price it looks top notch. Text looks sharp and viewing the display doesn't wash out when viewed from various angles. The touch response also seemed to be quite snappy.

Of course, we need to test the smartphone properly to get a better idea of how good the display actually is.Chipset, RAM and StorageThe Moto G5 Plus is powered by a Snapdragon 625 SoC which features an octa-core 2GHz processor with Cortex A53 cores and an Adreno 506 GPU. This is the same chipset that we saw on the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4.As for the RAM and storage, Moto is offering two variants. There is a 3GB + 16GB option and a 4GB + 32GB option. Both the variants come with expandable storage so you can use a microSD card of up to 128GB to expand the storage further.

OS and SoftwareThe Moto G5 Plus runs on Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box. Motorola keeps its UI simple and clean so you get a stock experience. Of course, the company adds some of its nifty features like double-chop to trigger the flashlight, quick twist to turn on the camera, voice assist features and the Moto display feature which is similar to ambient display.Moto has gone ahead and also put a launcher that looks similar to the Google Pixel/Pixel XL. This means you can just swipe up to open the app drawer and of course you get the Google Now cards on the left of your main homescreen. I didn't notice any bloatware either and the UI felt smooth.Moto also mentioned that the G5 Plus will get the new Google Assistant but once Google rolls out an update. This makes one of the many devices to get the new AI assistant.Camera

The Moto G series got a really good camera bump last year and this year the company claims to have taken a step further. The camera on the Moto G5 Plus features a 12MP sensor with an f/1.7 aperture with a dual-tone LED flash. While it does feature face detection, panorama and auto-HDR, sadly there are no enhancement features like stabilisation or even phase detection autofocus. The camera can also shoot video at 2160p or 4K resolution. I clicked a few pictures at the launch event and was left unconvinced. While the camera app fired up quick and even the shutter speeds were good, the quality didn't impress. Same was the case with the front 5MP camera.The camera app comes with a manual or pro-mode as well which lets you adjust ISO, shutter speed, exposure compensation, white balance and manual focusing.I am not saying the camera is bad, but I think I expected more out of it. The pictures, shot indoors, lacked details and sharpness. But of course, I need to thoroughly test the camera to come to a conclusion.Battery and ConnectivityThe battery on the Moto G5 Plus is a 3,000mAh unit which sounds decent and has become a very common capacity. Moto also offers Turbo Charging which is claimed to offer 6 hours of battery backup on a 15 minute charge. Sadly, there is no USB Type-C port yet again, so you have to do with a microUSB 2.0 Port. Hopefully the combination with a 1080p display should churn a full day's charge.As for connectivity, the smartphone support 4G LTE networks, dual SIM card slot, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.2, NFC, GPS/A-GPS/GLONASS, USB OTG and FM Radio.ConclusionThe Moto G5 Plus is yet again a great product from Motorola. The evolution from plastic to metal, which started with the Moto M, was much needed on the Moto G series as well. Moto has done a good job of it on the G5 Plus as well. On paper, it sounds like a great smartphone but the pricing could be a little sour. The 16GB variant with 3GB RAM is priced at Rs 14,999 while the 32GB with 4GB RAM variant is priced at Rs 16,999. This is expensive than the highly popular Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 which was launched in January. In fact, Xiaomi offers a 4GB RAM and 64GB variant at Rs 12,999.I think the Moto G5 Plus is a good upgrade if you are coming from an older Moto G device. It sees an upgrade in almost every department right from the design down to the hardware. However, if you want the best value out of your money, then the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 is a clear winner. I can't say if the performance or the experience is better on the Moto G5 Plus, but stay tuned for my review to get an in-depth analysis.