Moto G9 Plus Review: Price, Look, Color and Buying Guide

Two-minute review

If you’re buying a phone on funds then you’ve got a whole host of handsets to choose from, and fairly a number of of them are made by Motorola. The Moto G9 Plus is here to hitch the likes of the Moto G9 Play and the Moto G 5G Plus down on the affordable finish of the market – it is a crowded area, however that does not less than imply there needs to be a phone out there for everybody.

What it’s good to know concerning the Moto G9 Plus is that it is £250 (around $325 / AU$460), and it has an enormous and brilliant display, a long-lasting battery, and an honest camera. If all of your smartphone priorities are ticked off in that list then by all means take into account this in your next improve – however clearly coming in at that value, some compromises have been made.

You do not get any fancy extras like wi-fi charging or IP68 waterproofing right here, and efficiency is middling. The camera holds it personal nevertheless it’s nothing particular, and the display is a good distance wanting the premium OLED panels that you’ll find in the event you spend a bit more cash for a mid-range phone. There is not any 5G right here both.

Each phone is a compromise between value and high quality, and the Moto G9 Plus will get the stability nearly proper, we expect – Motorola has been making top quality, low value phones for years now, and as one of many first entries within the G9 series, the Moto G9 Plus does not let down that custom in any respect.

Maybe the biggest problem for the Moto G9 Plus is that it has a lot competition: not simply the Moto phones we have already talked about and better priced ones just like the Motorola Edge, but in addition handsets such as the Samsung Galaxy A51 and the Oppo A9 2020.

For just a little bit less you can get the Nokia 5.3; for just a little bit extra, the Google Pixel 4a. There’s plenty of choice here and none of those phones are horrible.

All the pieces thought-about although, if the Moto G9 Plus is in your value vary, we’re completely happy to advocate it – or not less than advocate that you just take into account it. In nearly each key space it provides you a great deal of bang in your buck, and you may’t ask for far more than that.

Moto G9 Plus value and availability

• Available in the UK for £250
• Decent value for money
• Not currently available in the US or Australia

The Moto G9 Plus is out and available now within the UK, SIM-free and unlocked, from a variety of retailers – on the time of writing you can anticipate to pay around £250 for the phone, although test the widgets on this page for the newest offers.

That works out as around $325 / AU$460, though as yet Motorola hasn’t indicated that the phone goes to be arriving in the US or Australia.

Design

• Fingerprint sensor power button
• Solid build quality
• Google Assistant button

We’re fairly properly used to the look of Motorola’s fund’s handsets by this point, and the Moto G9 Plus does not mess with the formula too much: an enormous, brilliant display surrounded by bezels that are barely on the thick aspect, packed in a phone that is barely on the heavy and ponderous aspect.

Add in a shiny, plastic back and we could be talking about quite a number of Moto G phones over the previous few years.

It isn’t a foul look by any means. You will not mistake this for a premium handset, nevertheless it’s properly put collectively and feels strong within the hand. The size of the display makes one-handed operation tough, however not unattainable – so long as your palms are pretty massive. Do not get this phone if you want one thing compact to slide right into a pocket or a bag.

We’re happy to see the 3.5mm audio jack remains to be right here in your wired headphones, and there is additionally a dedicated Google Assistant button, just in case you want one.

On the backside we have got a USB-C port for charging and data switch, in addition to a single speaker. The quantity buttons and the power button are on the proper hand aspect – the power button doubles up as a fingerprint scanner.

It is something of a subjective name, however we’re not enormous followers of embedding a fingerprint sensor contained in the power button – it makes the button tougher to seek out and hit with your fingers, whereas the precise scanning all the time appears to be extra fiddly than sensors mounted on the again of phones and even beneath the display. To be honest to the Moto G9 Plus, this embedded sensor works quickly enough.

The rear cameras are situated up within the prime left nook, within the type of the Galaxy Note 20 phones. It is a completely fine arrangement, and the camera bump is not too pronounced – no camera bump in any respect could be better, but these days appear to be gone for good (one resolution to the camera bump problem would be a case – Motorola includes a primary clear plastic one with the phone).

Meanwhile, navy blue is the one color option – a rose gold model has been mentioned, however we have not seen it within the UK yet. The navy blue is slightly plain, but because the again of the phone is so shiny, it looks fairly good.

Bear in mind that there isn’t any IP68 waterproofing and dustproofing right here, so it’s good to watch out to not drop the handset within the bathtub, the swimming pool, the ocean or no matter different our bodies of water you end up in the vicinity of. It is price remembering among the corners that producers reduce to get their phones down to this kind of value level, and an IP68 score is normally one in all them.

Display

• Spacious 6.81-inch panel
• HDR10 help
• Stable brightness and distinction

The Moto G9 Plus boasts a big 6.81-inch display, one of many largest around in the intervening time. The IPS LCD panel helps HDR10 however sticks to a regular 60Hz refresh charge – there isn’t any 90Hz or above refresh charge right here – and it runs at a decision of 1080 x 2400 pixels.

The 20:9 side ratio is actually actually good for becoming plenty of textual content and web site chunks on the display directly, and in the event you flip it sideways you then’ve obtained an incredible widescreen display for watching motion pictures too.

It is a disgrace there is a punch-hole camera within the prime left nook to interrupt the display, but that is something we’re all simply going to need to live with till in-screen cameras arrive. The encircling bezels aren’t as skinny as they’re on the perfect mid-rangers and premium handsets, however they’re unobtrusive sufficient.

The Moto G9 Plus’s display is pleasingly bright and sharp for just about any task: watching streamed movies, shopping the net, flicking via images, enjoying games and so forth. Contrast is good and particulars are properly outlined even within the brightest and darkest areas of the display – one thing the HDR10 helps with, and it isn’t a function you all the time get with handsets on this value bracket.

Whereas this display is nowhere close to the kind of premium OLED expertise you get with the highest Samsung and Apple phones, it is really very respectable – particularly given the value you are paying. Motorola is touting the 6.81-inch display as one of many largest promoting factors of the Moto G9 Plus, and we will see why.

A quicker refresh charge could be good, and it is one thing we miss on these funds phones, however the Moto G9 Plus certainly affords probably the greatest (and largest) shows you will get at this value.

Camera

• Quad camera 64MP+8MP+2MP+2MP
• Respectable shots in good light
• Low light shots aren’t too bad either

Motorola has packed 4 cameras into the again of the Moto G9 Plus: a 64MP important, 8MP ultra-wide, 2MP macro and 2MP depth one. There’s no telephoto optical zoom, however you do get that ultra-wide possibility, and there may be 4K video recording at 30 frames per second. On the front you have obtained a fairly standard 16MP camera, and each front and rear cameras include built-in HDR processing.

Regardless of the quad-lens setup, there’s nothing notably special about the Moto G9 Plus camera – it does an acceptable job and that is about it. In the event you’re shopping for a phone down at this value level you then’re unlikely to be expecting a lot from the camera efficiency anyway, however it’s a kind of areas where spending a bit extra to stand up to the mid-range should buy you a noticeable leap in high quality.

The Moto G9 Plus’s rear camera can actually hold its own against cameras on phones that are equally priced in the intervening time.

Unfortunately our photo testing day occurred to be a very drab and gloomy day within the north of England, however the phone was nonetheless in a position to take some eye-catching photographs – landscapes and close-ups look good, and the HDR function generally manages to maintain darker and lighter areas of the image in view.

In the event you’re eager to snap and shoot pictures for social media use then the phone actually will not allow you to down. Particulars are moderately properly retained, noise is not a serious problem, and the shutter velocity is comparatively quick as properly. Ultra-wide is all the time helpful to have after all, though we discovered that switching to this lens does add some minor blurring to the shot.

The identical common efficiency extends to taking pictures in low mild – the outcomes are okay, however not more than that. We’re actually glad that even funds phones have gotten to the stage the place night time photographs aren’t an entire catastrophe, however you are not going to get the standard of the picture that you just do on phones that value just a little bit extra.

The Moto G9 Plus does include a devoted night time mode, and supplied you’ll be able to hold the camera still sufficient whilst you’re taking the picture, it is in a position to brighten up the darkest of areas. The processing feels a bit tough and prepared in contrast with the perfect algorithms of Google, Apple and Samsung, however it’s important to hold the value of this phone in thoughts always – it may normally get a usable shot, and that is sufficient.

Macro taking pictures could be a bit hit or miss, although there have been extra hits in our testing, and supplied you might have time to correctly arrange the camera and possibly tweak one or two of its settings, the Moto G9 Plus can get some impressive images – notably in the event you’re taking pictures on a stunning brilliant day outdoors (which we weren’t).

Camera samples

Specs and performance

• Budget Snapdragon 730G chipset
• Satisfactory day-to-day performance
• Android 10 on board

The Moto G9 Plus comes running the lower mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G processor, which is paired here with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.

That is above the naked minimum it’s good to run Android comfortably, however do not anticipate lightning-fast efficiency right here – the Moto G9 Plus struggles just a little bit with extra demanding games by way of loading speeds and frame rates, although it’ll run them.

Motorola has included a microSD card slot in case you need to broaden the storage additional, though 128GB needs to be sufficient for most individuals’ wants. We recorded Geekbench scores of 540 for single-core, 1690 for multi-core, and 1129 for OpenCL – that is in the identical sort of area because the Oppo Reno 2, which makes use of the same chipset.

Day-to-day use with the Moto G9 Plus is about what you’d anticipate from a phone with these specs (and at this value point): there’s the occasional stutter in app scrolling or webpage switching, and some further milliseconds of loading time here and there, but nothing that majorly impairs your use of the phone.

As long as you’re not anticipating the super-smooth responsiveness you’d get from a phone with a 90Hz or 120Hz refresh charge display and a top-end processor, it is fantastic.

There’s no 5G right here, which can or might not matter to you – the tech is not widely available yet, however that stated, you will get some very affordable 5G phones at the moment (a few of them made by Motorola).

While it is a function you can in all probability live with out in 2020, it will be extra vital within the years forward, and can probably be accessible in nearly every handset in the next couple of years.

The phone comes with Android 10 on board slightly than Android 11, which is a bit disappointing however not wholly unexpected. The good news is that Motorola does not mess about an excessive amount of with the inventory model of Android that Google pushes out – all of the Google apps are current and proper and there’s a minimal amount of bloatware.

You do get the usual Motorola clock widget on the house page, and a slightly garish live wallpaper put in by default that appears designed to point out off the qualities of the big, brilliant display on the Moto G9 Plus. We weren’t all that impressed by it however after all you can simply modify it and nearly everything else concerning the Android interface within the house of some seconds.

Battery life

• 5,000mAh capacity battery
• Almost two days of use
• 30W fast charging

With a 5,000mAh battery packed in right here, you’d expect the Moto G9 Plus battery to last, and so it does – you’ll be able to simply get well right into a second day on a single cost with a medium stage of use, even with the big display to power.

On most days we had loads of battery juice left by the evening, and Motorola has done well in terms of minimizing battery usage whereas the phone is not being actively used.

Our usual video streaming check suggests you would get about 10 or 11 hours of streaming in whole from the phone – an excellent result. We run the check with the display on most brightness and the quantity set low, so with a bit of tweaking you would get more outing of the handset.

There’s no wi-fi charging accessible, as you’d anticipate with a phone at this value, although the handset does help 30W quick charging – certainly not the highest speeds on the market by way of battery charging, however decent sufficient. It is best to be able to get the battery from zero to full within the house of about an hour.

Battery life is an space that latest Motorola phones have usually stood out in, and it is maybe one of many important causes to choose up the Moto G9 Plus over one other phone – this can be a handset that is actually going to last you.

That stated, with recharging taking much less and fewer time on modern-day smartphones, the period of time you get in between is not fairly as vital because it was.

Should I buy the Moto G9 Plus?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…