Motorola Moto G6 Review – Looking beyond the specs

Moto G6 box contents Out of the box you get:

• Moto G6
• 15 W Turbo CHarger
• USB-C Cable
• User Manual
• Sim Ejector Pin
• Earphones
• Transparent back case

Moto G6 Design – The Glass affair

Bidding goodbye to the plastic and metal dressing in the past G series Smartphones, Motorola has embraced glass instead on both sides with a polished metal frame for binding them together on the sides. The end product is premium shiny Smartphone with a curved 3D glass back which is easily one of the best dressed in its class. While at 8.3mm it is also one of the thickest phone, the curved smooth sides can trick you into thinking its not-so-thick. It weighs 163 grams.

What I liked about the Moto G6 design?

• It has a USB – C port
• It has a triple card tray for 2 SIM cards and an SD card
• It has 3 mics around the body for voice, noise reduction and audio recording

The ergonomics of the Moto G6 gets it right and also the front and back has the Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. Being glass back, it is of course prone to fingerprint smudges. Like I always say about glass clad Smartphones, don’t forget to jacket it with a good case. Motorola says the G6 is splash-proof, but since there is no official word on the IP ratings, I would suggest you to not get unnecessarily adventurous and be on safer side.

Moto G6 Display – catching up with the trend

It’s mid-2018 and every phones except the ultra budget Smartphones comes with ‘tall’ display featuring 18:9 aspect ratio, fancifully called full vision display. It would only be surprising if the Moto G6 steered away from it which it did not of course and features a 5.7-inch IPS LCD display offering FHD+ resolution.  The screen is decently bright with good viewing angles but not so bright for an easy viewing under strong sunlight. By default the screen is a little on the cool side, in case you find it a bit more blue on the hue, you can head to display settings to get it a bit tweaked to your taste. There is also night

Moto G6 Software and Moto Features

Vanilla android might impress the puritans of the tech world but many of the end customers I have interacted feel there is little less in their Smartphones powered by stock Android especially those who have used one of the custom UI’s many popular Smartphone brands offer. To balance things, Motorola offers a clean near Android (Android Oreo 8.0 out of the box)  but with addons like Moto actions to enhance the experience. There is a new addition to the Moto actions, Moto’s take on three finger screenshot which is more easier and fun now by just having to tap with three fingers. Its easy-peasy.  Other notable Moto actions include:

• One button navigation where you can perform gesture actions around fingerprint sensor to go home, back or accent recent menus.
• Chop twice for flashlight
• Twist action to launch camera
• One-hand mode
• Lift the phone to witch incoming calls to vibrate
• Flip the phone facing down to enter DND mode

Also included are:

• Night Display, the blue filter for night screen use to protect your eyes.
• Attentive display , that keeps the screen on as long as you are looking at the display.
• Moto voice

The UI is fast, agile and shows no sign of lag.  It’s quiet snappy and performs well.

Moto G6 Performance

Indian Smartphone users are spoilt for choice right  now and the price segment The Moto G6 comes has many notable competing models equipped with Snapdragon 600 series. So it was a surprise for me to see Motorola opted for the Snapdragon 450 instead. During the interaction with the team, they justified it saying the 450 is almost equal to the Snapdragon 625 sharing even the same 506 GPU, both are on par with a 14nm architecture. The difference though SD 625 can go up to 2.0GHz while SD 450 peaks at 1.8GHz. Specs wise, there is not much of a difference except a few more brownie points for SD 625. The basic usage scenario for the end user might not be very drastic, still it might ring a wrong way psychologically when comparing peer to peer. For a lay man, 600 is always a bigger deal than 400 right. Ok so how it all boils down? With a clean and smooth software and neat set of optimisations, the G6 handles day-to-day use at ease. There is a bit of lag here and there, but not so much to put it down the pedestal. Thanks to the Adreno 506, the gaming capability is decent enough and can handle all the games, a keen eyes might point out to occasional frame drops and lags. The fingerprint sensor is fast and accurate, though it does not offer app lock.  The phone also comes with face recognition but it is not the quickest or something I would rely upon with, since there was many false recognition. I very well live with the fingerprint sensor. There is a Dolby audio app, where you can set up and customise sound profiles for different media. You can also create different profiles for film, music, game uses. The audio output is decent enough.

Moto G6 battery

The 3000mAh battery might look smaller but in real life use, the performance extracted out of it is impressive. Thanks to better battery optimization, the Moto G6 can sail through 1.5 days on moderate use and if you are a heavy user expect 18 hours to 22 hours of battery life. A 15 watts turbo charger is bundled with the box and it can power up the phone from 0 to 100% in around 1 hours 25 minutes.

Moto G6 camera

After Moto G5s Play, the Moto G6 is the second in the G series to offer dual camera setup. It features a 12MP camera with F/1.8 aperture combined with a 5MP for dept sensing. The rear camera can take videos up to 1080p in 60fps.  For selfies there is a 16MP front facing camera with LED flash but the global variant outside APAC region has a 8MP front camera. The camera features include:

• Pro mode
• Portrait mode
• Selective black and white, where you can highlight the subject with color and the rest of the background in black and white.
• Spot color, enables you to pick a particular color to be picked making the rest in black and whites.
• Live actions – take a seconds of video before and after you capture an image.
• Cutout, a feature that allows you to cutout a subject and place a different background
• Text scanner

There is also quirky AR filters to add a bit of fun to your pictures. The video mode includes – slo-mo, timelapse. There is also EIS (Electronic Image Stabilisation) for smooth video. [gallery columns="4" link="file" ids="13617,13621,13620,13619,13618,13616,13615"] The images are sharp with accurate color reproduction under good light conditions. At times, the camera struggles to lock the focus. Portrait mode edge detection needs some attention and is not perfect. he dynamic range is also slightly disappointing. Under low light, there is a bit of noise and one can expect a decent photos. The front camera performs decently well when lighting is favourable but struggles in low light. There is a tendency to overexpose shots in direct sunlight. Overall, the Moto G6 might not be the best in the segment in terms of camera abilities but it does not disappoint either.

Moto G6 Verdict

What works for G6

• Premium design
• Good build quality
• Splash proof
• 15 watts turbo charger
• Smooth UI and clean Android experience
• EIS in video

What does not work for G6

• While the SD 450 is equally good, it would be a hard sell against the SD 600 series options
• Portrait mode could have been better

In a nutshell, if you are looking for a Moto experience and ready to shell a little more for the brand legacy, the Moto G6 would impress you. It may not be the best out there, but it can get about the stuff you would put it through.              ]]>