Motorola Moto G4 Plus: Review

• Posted By Amritesh
• On May 27th, 2016
• Comments: 3 responses

Motorola, now a Lenovo owned company recently announced the launch of their new G series phone, the Moto G4Plus. Motorola had a pretty ordinary previous year and would like to make amends this year, Moto G4 Plus definitely looks a step in the right direction. The phone is will compete with likes of Redmi Note 3, Lenovo Zuk Z1 and LeEco Le1s in the midrange segment and seems to be a very potent competitor.

The phone is available in two variant, 16 GB storage with 2 GB Ram priced at Rs 13,499/- while 32GB storage with 3GB Ram is priced at Rs 14,999/-. The device is exclusively available on Amazon India portal and unlike many other brands, it is readily available and one does not have to wait for flashsales or invites which is pretty annoying for most of us.

Build and Display: The phone comes with textured plastic back while the frame is made up of metal. The phone now sports a flat back as against the curved back seen in the earlier generations. The phone feels pretty compact for a 5.5 inch device and is very comfortable to hold. The physical capacitive key at the bottom is the finger print scanner. The design and build is similar to previous generation Moto G phones and weighs just 155gms. Although, this new device does not feel as sturdy as the previous generation devices but still retains the ergonomics and premium feel to it.

The display is also pretty impressive with vibrant color reproduction and crisp picture quality.

Battery Life: The battery life on this device is decent but not the very best. It will last you for a full working day under normal usage but heavy users may have to charge it twice a day. However, the good thing about the device is that it comes with Qualcomm quick charging and you don’t need to spend hours charging the device. Many of the devices in this price range do not support quick charging which definitely gives Moto G4 an edge.

Hardware Specifications: The phone is powered by the latest midrange chipset from Qualcomm. It uses the Snapdragon 617 chipset and Octa Core A53 processors which makes it adequately powerful device in this price range.

The phone comes in 2 GB and 3GB Ram variant which is sufficient to provide lag free performance and Adreno 405 is a potent GPU to handle most of the games. Even the most graphics intensive games will pretty smoothly at medium settings. However, for gamers it is recommended that they opt for the 3GB Ram variant.

The phone does tend to heat up on extended use mostly while gaming. But it is nothing alarming as the performance does not get severely impacted and remains within acceptable limits.

The phone comes in 16 GB and 32 GB variant and storage is expandable upto 128 GB on both the devices. So one gets ample storage option on the device and there is no concern regarding it.

Software and Features: It is one of the areas where Moto G leaves it rivals way behind. The device already comes with Android Marshmallow 6.0 OS and is expected to get the fastest Android updated for next one year atleast. Moto G4 Plus comes with minimum bloat wares and provides stock Android experience to the end users. Ram is well optimized to offer best end user experience.

The phone sports all the latest specs such as Quick Charging and highly responsive Finger print Scanner apart from the other basic sensors. However, the phone does not offer IR Blaster and NFC support.

The Call quality and network reception is also pretty good.

Camera: Apart from the latest OS updates and stock Android experience another aspect which will attract Individuals to this device is the Camera. Motorola have really worked on this area and camera performance is vastly improved on this device. It is backed by the Phase Detection Auto Focus (PDAF) and laser focus system which helps in capturing quality images. The phone is capable of taking very good pictures not only in daylight conditions but also in artificial and low light conditions.

In this price bracket you will hardly find any phone which can compete with the camera found on this device. Although, the video recording quality could have been better but as far as capturing still images is concerned it is impressive.

Service Support: One issue which concerns me is the after sales service. I feel Motorola needs to improve their after sales service. The after sales service is being provided primarily by the outsourced service centers and on many occasions don’t really provide the best possible service to the end users and end up taking too much time to resolve some of the critical issues.

If you compare with other top notch brands then Motorola does lag behind in this aspect and needs to address it in the future.

Overall Verdict: Motorola Moto G4 Plus is impressive device from a reputed brand. The device will primarily face stiff competition from devices like Redmi Note 3, Zuk Z1and Le Eco Le1S. Each of these devices is value for money products and offer great specs at very affordable price. However, they do have their share of strength and weakness, Individuals will have to decide based on their preference and features which they need the most.

If one is looking for a device within Rs 15k from a tier 1 brand with latest Android updates and a good camera then Moto G4 Plus is just the right phone for you.

I will post a comparison between Redmi Note 3, Lenovo Zuk Z1 and Moto G4 Plus very soon.

Key Specifications are given below:-

Processor	Octa Core A53 Processor (4 cores clocked @ 1.5 ghz and other 4 clocked @1.2ghz, Snapdragon 617 chipset
Storage	16/32 GB (Expandable upto 128GB)
Operating System	Android Marshmallow 6.0
Rear Camera	13 mp/HD Video Recording
Front Camera	5mp /HD Video Recording
Ram	2/3 GB
GPU	Adreno 405
Battery	3000 Mah
Display	5.5 inch (Corning Gorilla Glass 3 )
Type Sim	Dual Sim (Micro)/GSM 4G Support
Resolution	1080*1920(401ppi)
Touchscreen Type	Capacitive
Dimension(mm)/Weight(gms)	153 x 76.6x 9.8 mm/155