The Moto G8 Plus is an interesting option for users looking for a near-stock Android experience on a budget. It brings all-day battery life, an interesting action camera setup, and reliable performance to the mid-range segment. However, devices by Xiaomi and Realme offer better hardware at the same price, which makes the Moto G8 Plus a tough sell.
Following the Moto One Macro , Motorola is back with yet another option in the mid-range segment. Will that be enough to challenge the wide range of excellent options available to consumers? About this review: I wrote this Motorola Moto G8 Plus review after spending a week with the phone as my primary device. Motorola India supplied the device, which was running Android 9 Pie out of the box. Show More. The Moto G8 Plus brings sweeping changes in terms of design, internals, and the camera modules. Building on the design legacy of the Moto G7 , the phone manages to push forward in all the right ways and tick all the checkmarks for current-gen mid-rangers.
Phones like the Redmi Note 8 Pro have pushed what the definition of a mid-range smartphone should be. Between the high-quality imaging, excellent performance, and top-notch build quality, it is hard to overlook the Redmi hardware. Given the lack of Gorilla Glass or a similar solution, it would have been nice to see a screen protector thrown in the box as well. There are no headphones. The 6. Equipped with a waterdrop notch, it keeps up with current design trends. The large earpiece grille at the top has me concerned about water damage, but Motorola claims that the phone has a water repellant design so you should be alright.
IP68 certification, it seems, is still reserved for higher-end devices. The headphone jack is placed on top of the phone, while the USB-C port and speaker grille are placed on the bottom. I have mixed opinions about the quality of materials used in the construction of the Moto G8 Plus. On one hand, the polycarbonate feels strong enough to take a beating. However, the plastic is a fingerprint magnet and definitely cheapens the look of the phone. Motorola placed a fingerprint scanner in the middle of the rear panel and it has the classic Motorola batwing logo in the center.
The scanner was as fast as anything else on the market, and unlocking the phone is fast and hassle-free. The phone supports NFC as well, which comes in handy when trying to quickly pair with headphones and wireless speakers. The first thing you notice about the display of the Moto G8 Plus is the extreme skew towards blue tones. The color accuracy is way off, and with peak brightness levels of about nits, outdoor visibility in bright sunlight can be challenging. Switching over to the natural color profile compensates for the blue tint to a degree. Beyond that, this is a strictly run-of-the-mill panel.
There is also a bit of color shift when viewed at extreme angles. The Moto G8 Plus is powered by a Snapdragon chipset, which is a minor update to the Snapdragon platform. The chipset architecture is based on the 11nm process, compared to the 14nm process of the Snapdragon This should make the chipset a bit more frugal. Elsewhere, the GPU received an upgrade, too. Interestingly, this is the same chipset powering the Redmi Note 8 and the Realme 5. Both these phones retail at much lower price points. Performance on the Moto G8 Plus is aided by the stripped-down, clean Android build.
In my time with the phone, I did not observe any noticeable lag or deal-breaking issues with performance. Daily use of music streaming apps, email, and social media presented no challenge for the phone. However, if you plan to hold on to your hardware for a year or longer, this could become a multitasking pain point down the road. I tested out popular games such as PUBG on the phone and the performance was satisfactory.
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Pushing graphics to high settings definitely puts a strain on the hardware, and you can easily see a drop in frame rates. The phone heats with extended gaming, too, but never to the point of being uncomfortable. Benchmark results were exactly in line with what we expected from the Snapdragon chipset. Regardless, the overall performance is well behind the Redmi Note 8 Pro, which is the real competitor for the Moto G8 Plus. A full charge from empty took just minutes, which is in line with the charging speeds of the Redmi Note 8. My daily activities include heavy use of Slack, email, and social media applications, as well as a few hours streaming music.
Extended gaming will, of course, put a bigger dent in battery longevity. We ran our standard battery tests on the Moto G8 Plus.
It managed just under 14 hours of continuous playback in our video loop test. Similarly, continuous web browsing results clocked in at over 15 hours. My favorite aspect of Motorola hardware is the near-stock build of Android. Other than the Motorola app, which adds a suite of actions and gestures, the phone is free from extraneous additions. The phone ships with Android 9 Pie out of the box and Motorola has promised an update to Android 10 soon.
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The software stack includes the standard Google apps suite. The Moto app adds useful gestures to quickly capture photographs twist your wrist or to turn on the flashlight chop with your wrist. I particularly like the peak display gesture that enables a pseudo always-on-display function. Watch this video to learn how to activate a new device, or switch between devices, on your existing My Verizon account.
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