Moto G5 and G5 Plus: Metal finish, larger cameras boost these budget Androids

Moto G5 and G5 Plus: Metal finish, larger cameras boost these budget Androids

Now two different screen options, but no radical upgrades for these budget wonders.

Lenovo has announced the Moto G5 and G5 Plus, the next generation of its budget G-series phone line.

The angle is the same as that of the Moto G4 phones: good hardware for relatively little money. But this time the two phones have greater differences.

The Moto G5 has a 5-inch screen, the Moto G5 Plus a 5.2-inch one. Both displays use 1080p panels and both are larger than those of the Moto G4 duo, which have 5.5-inch screens.

Their processors are different too. The Moto G5 has a Snapdragon 430, the Moto G5 Plus a Snapdragon 625 CPU. Each SoC is driven by eight Cortex-A53 CPU cores, but the Snapdragon 625 is clocked at up to 2GHz instead of up to 1.4GHz. They also have different Adreno GPUs. The Snapdragon 430 is a great entry-level chip; the 625 a decent mid-range one.

At first glance the Moto G5 may appear to have the better camera, with 13 megapixels to the Moto G5 Plus’s 12. However, the best sensors of 2016 were also 12MP. We expect better results from the G5 Plus, which also has phase detection autofocus and a faster lens (f/1.7 versus f/2.0 for the G5).

To compensate for the larger display, the G5 Plus has a slightly larger 3000mAh battery, to the Moto G5’s 2800mAh, and supports Motorola’s ultra-fast Turbo charging. The G5 offers more conventional 10W "fast" charging.

Similarities include Android 7.0 Nougat software, a front fingerprint scanner less ugly than on the Moto G4 Plus, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Phew. Lenovo has also chosen to keep the good old micro USB connector rather than switching to USB-C.

These are also the first Moto phones to have metal bodies. However, don’t expect these budget wonders to feel like flagships that cost two or three times as much. While the backplate of these phones is aluminium, the sides are metal-effect plastic, cutting down the cost of manufacture, not least because there’s no cutting of socket holes into metal required.

What we have here is a pair of budget phones not radically upgraded from those of the last generation, aside from perhaps in camera quality with the G5 Plus—and to confirm that we'll need some hands-on time.

As with all Moto G phones to date, the price is attractive: the Moto G5 starts at €199/$229, for the 2GB RAM, 16GB storage version. The Moto G5 Plus starts at €279/$299 for the 3GB RAM, 32GB edition. We don’t have UK prices for these yet, but you can expect, at best, perhaps £180/£250.