Moto G4 First Impressions

Moto G4 is finally out in India. This year, Motorola has introduced 2 versions of the Moto G, the regular Moto G4 and the higher end Moto G4 Plus, which has a 16 mp camera and a fingerprint scanner. Both phones are Amazon exclusive.

Moto G4 Plus starts at Rs 13,499 for the 16GB model and goes all the way to Rs 14,999 for the 32GB model. Moto G4, on the other hand comes only in the 16GB model at Rs 12,499. The memory in both the smartphones is expandable up to 128GB via microSD card.

Design and Display

If you look at Moto G4, it borrows a few design elements from its predecessor –Moto G3. However, the screen size is now bigger at 5.5-inches, and Moto G4 comes with a full HD display.

Moto G4 is ergonomically designed and the back cover gives it a good grip. This one has rounded corners and a silver metal frame running along the edges. The overall design looks clean, and minimal. In fact, Moto G4 looks a shade better than Moto G4 Plus as it does not have that weird square fingerprint scanner on the front.

The display in Moto G4 is crisp and the icons looks sharp. The display looks even bigger, thanks to thin bezels at the sides. It makes for great viewing angles even in bright sunlight.

Processor, Battery and Memory

Motorola has bumped up the processor in Moto G4 to an octa-core Snapdragon 617 processor, and the phone sure handles multi-tasking well. Playing games on Moto G4 or watching videos and switching between tabs isn’t quite a problem so far.

Moto G4 has 2GB RAM on-board and comes only in 16GB storage option. While the memory shouldn’t be a problem for most of the basic needs, there’s also an option to expand it to 128GB via microSD card.

Moto G4 is a dual SIM smartphone and doesn’t come with a hybrid SIM slot, which is good. So, there are different slots for the two SIM cards and a microSD card. The review unit that we got already had a nano-to-micro SIM converter; a small detail but it’s nice to see Motorola take care of these things.

Moto G4 packs a 3,000mAh battery with support for Turbo Charging. Moto is promising six hours of battery life with just 15 minutes of charging. I haven’t been able to use the smartphone extensively yet to reach to a verdict on its battery, but it should easily last for a day on a moderate usage.

Camera

The rear camera in Moto G4 is 13MP, and that on the front is 5MP. The back camera does a pretty good job, given the price point. The accurate colour reproduction and its ability to capture decent images in low light settings is quite impressive.

OS

Moto G4 runs stock Android OS, which is a refreshing change for me. This comes with Android Marshmallow with features like Permissions, etc.   I enabled gestures like ‘chop twice’ for flashlight and ‘twist wrist twice’ to open the camera from the Moto app. And they’ve proved to be quite handy.

Wrap Up

Moto G4 is a decent mid-range smartphone, and features an ergonomic design. I haven’t faced any major issue with the phone so far. But, it faces tough competition from other smartphones in the price range like Redmi Note 3, Le 2 and yes the Moto G4 Plus, which has a much better rear camera.

For prospective Moto G buyers, the question really is: G4 or G4 Plus? If budget is really tight, the former is an option, but the Plus offers a superior camera rarely seen at this price point.