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Hey Guys,
As you know, I bought the Moto G5S Plus and it was delivered today. Phone pics are below. I will briefly review the device in this post.
Box:
Device and Accessories:
Turning on and Home Screen:
Look and Feel:
Device looks premium with metal finish and it feels great to hold it. Back of the device is curved at proper places so that the device doesn't slip accidentally. The finish is excellent in this iteration of Moto G, the best among all generations. For my palm, the size is perfect however people with small palms might struggle with one handed usage since it is big.
Display:
Display is excellent and I think this is the best display till date on a Moto G.
Software:
Device came with Nougat 7.1.1 out of the box with June security patch level, no OTA updates available yet. As always been the case with Moto, it is pure android with almost all the native Google Apps. But I was surprised to see couple of unwanted apps (Microsoft Outlook and LinkedIn) this time. This is unexpected from pure android devices. These apps cannot be uninstalled. Keeping this aside, the software is smooth, fluid and well optimized. Touch response is excellent. Also, the pre-loaded launcher is Pixel launcher with Google Assistant integrated into the home soft navigation button. Assistant can be launched by long pressing the home button. Also, Google Now can be accessed by swiping right.
Thermal:
The initial setup did heat the device a bit, but not to an alarming level (At least not like G4 Plus). After this, device remained absolutely cool with normal operations. When using the Camera for the first time, some heat was observed though (More on this later).
Storage:
Approximately 14GB was utilized after installing the required apps. There is plenty of space left, thanks to the 64GB memory. Out of 4GB RAM, 3.6GB was available for use. The Free RAM was about 2.6GB.
Camera:
Here comes the main part of this phone, the much advertised DUAL camera. I have to say, my initial impression is really disappointing. Moto has built so much hype around this feature and looks like it turned to be a dud in the end. I'm not saying the Camera is bad, the Camera is good like in all the Moto G devices. But it's the DUAL camera portion which just doesn't feel as polished. So, basically there is a mode called Depth Mode when we open the Camera. When we take pics in this mode, the dual cameras are used and the pic is saved in Depth Editable mode. After the pic is taken, it can be edited with a Depth Editor in 4 different effects. I have posted the pics below with each edit. The pain here is that when we enable the Depth Mode and take a pic, it takes forever to save it, almost 5 seconds. By the time it is saved the moment that needs to be captured might very well be lost. Also, the device heats up when we use this mode. It looks like the Snapdragon 625 is not able to handle the load that these dual cameras are putting on it. Poor job here Moto. I hope this can be fixed by a Software update later and these dual cameras really turn out useful. But for now, this is NOT a feature to be considered while buying this phone. I have taken few pics with and without Depth effect. The pics without Depth effect generally came very good. I think this is still the best camera in mid-range with all the flaws in the dual camera setup.
Pic with No Depth Effect:
Background Change Effect:
Blur Effect:
Black and White Effect:
Day Light Pics:
Day Light Pics With Depth Effect:
Original:
BW Effect:
Blur Effect:
BG Change:
If we need to put this review into Pros and Cons
Pros:
1. Excellent Build Quality and Design
2. Excellent Display
3. 64 GB of storage and 4GB of RAM and plenty of this is available to the user
4. Software optimization
5. Good thermal management, no severe heating issues
Cons:
1. Dual Cameras feature is not optimized properly
2. BIG Camera bump, Case is a must
3. Bloatware that can't be uninstalled
Thanks for reading and I hope this review helps your purchase decision!!
As you know, I bought the Moto G5S Plus and it was delivered today. Phone pics are below. I will briefly review the device in this post.
Box:
Device and Accessories:
Turning on and Home Screen:
Look and Feel:
Device looks premium with metal finish and it feels great to hold it. Back of the device is curved at proper places so that the device doesn't slip accidentally. The finish is excellent in this iteration of Moto G, the best among all generations. For my palm, the size is perfect however people with small palms might struggle with one handed usage since it is big.
Display:
Display is excellent and I think this is the best display till date on a Moto G.
Software:
Device came with Nougat 7.1.1 out of the box with June security patch level, no OTA updates available yet. As always been the case with Moto, it is pure android with almost all the native Google Apps. But I was surprised to see couple of unwanted apps (Microsoft Outlook and LinkedIn) this time. This is unexpected from pure android devices. These apps cannot be uninstalled. Keeping this aside, the software is smooth, fluid and well optimized. Touch response is excellent. Also, the pre-loaded launcher is Pixel launcher with Google Assistant integrated into the home soft navigation button. Assistant can be launched by long pressing the home button. Also, Google Now can be accessed by swiping right.
Thermal:
The initial setup did heat the device a bit, but not to an alarming level (At least not like G4 Plus). After this, device remained absolutely cool with normal operations. When using the Camera for the first time, some heat was observed though (More on this later).
Storage:
Approximately 14GB was utilized after installing the required apps. There is plenty of space left, thanks to the 64GB memory. Out of 4GB RAM, 3.6GB was available for use. The Free RAM was about 2.6GB.
Camera:
Here comes the main part of this phone, the much advertised DUAL camera. I have to say, my initial impression is really disappointing. Moto has built so much hype around this feature and looks like it turned to be a dud in the end. I'm not saying the Camera is bad, the Camera is good like in all the Moto G devices. But it's the DUAL camera portion which just doesn't feel as polished. So, basically there is a mode called Depth Mode when we open the Camera. When we take pics in this mode, the dual cameras are used and the pic is saved in Depth Editable mode. After the pic is taken, it can be edited with a Depth Editor in 4 different effects. I have posted the pics below with each edit. The pain here is that when we enable the Depth Mode and take a pic, it takes forever to save it, almost 5 seconds. By the time it is saved the moment that needs to be captured might very well be lost. Also, the device heats up when we use this mode. It looks like the Snapdragon 625 is not able to handle the load that these dual cameras are putting on it. Poor job here Moto. I hope this can be fixed by a Software update later and these dual cameras really turn out useful. But for now, this is NOT a feature to be considered while buying this phone. I have taken few pics with and without Depth effect. The pics without Depth effect generally came very good. I think this is still the best camera in mid-range with all the flaws in the dual camera setup.
Pic with No Depth Effect:
Background Change Effect:
Blur Effect:
Black and White Effect:
Day Light Pics:
Day Light Pics With Depth Effect:
Original:
BW Effect:
Blur Effect:
BG Change:
If we need to put this review into Pros and Cons
Pros:
1. Excellent Build Quality and Design
2. Excellent Display
3. 64 GB of storage and 4GB of RAM and plenty of this is available to the user
4. Software optimization
5. Good thermal management, no severe heating issues
Cons:
1. Dual Cameras feature is not optimized properly
2. BIG Camera bump, Case is a must
3. Bloatware that can't be uninstalled
Thanks for reading and I hope this review helps your purchase decision!!
Last edited:
