23 Jul 2021
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Early Judgment

There’s plenty on offer with Moto G6 Play, despite being at the most basic end of the G Series. Some of the highlights of the phone include a surprisingly decent screen as well as great battery timing. Overall, it’s one of the best budget smartphones in its price segment and definitely easy to recommend.

Pros

  • Decent Screen
  • Long-lasting battery
  • Completely worth its price

Cons

  • Mediocre camera
  • Software bugs in scrolling
  • Low performance

One Minute Review

Priced at just $189, Moto G6 Play is the cheapest of the G6 series of smartphones including G6 and Moto G6 Plus. The low price definitely comes at a bargain, which in this case means lower screen resolution and a glass back. However, at this pricing, it’s still a highly relevant smartphone that offers plenty of features.

One aspect where Motorola could have at least tried to improve with G6 Play is the camera, which at best can be described as average. Other than that, the phone is worth every penny of your money and is definitely one of the best in its class.

Price and Availability

  • Price: $189.99
  • Release date: May 2018

At first, the sim-free version of the Moto G6 Play was launched for $199.99, which was still the best and cheapest smartphone offering an 18:9 aspect ratio. Even better, today you can easily find in the US at $189.99.

Key features

  • Large 4000mAh battery
  • 32GB internal storage (microSD card slot available)
  • Fast charging

To start-off, Moto G6 Play offers 32GB internal storage, which again is great keeping in view its very-tight budget price. To add more value to the phone, you have the MicroSD card slot, so you can always increase the storage space when you want more music or videos out of the phone.

Another great feature on offering here is a large (really impressive) 4000mAh battery that easily outlasts the day of intensive use. So, you can easily use your Moto G6 Play to watch YouTube videos along with plenty of other applications, without having to worry about getting low on battery.

Moving on, another great feature which in fact is remarkable for such a tight-budget phone is the fast charging option. In fact, this may very well be the unique selling point for G6 Play. Last but not least, we got a decent 13MP camera (although we wish Motorola could offer a bit better) that can take some pleasant images in daylight.

On the missing side though, the Moto G6 Play comes with a micro USB charge socket (instead of the more contemporary USB-C). Moreover, the low price of the phone means that you will be getting a plastic body contrary to the Glass body found on Moto G6.

The screen resolution is another aspect that has been degraded to trade for the low price as we get the most basic 720 x 1440 pixel resolution instead of standard 1080P found of Moto G5. What’s surprising is that despite the lower resolution the screen holds up pretty well and one can’t tell the difference much between results from G6 Play and its expensive siblings.

Lastly, the Moto G6 Play is powered by a rather low and old Snapdragon 430 chipset, the same was used in last year’s Moto G5. Obviously the 430 isn’t the most powerful chipset in the market, nonetheless, it does get things done decently (the phone is never meant to compete on power and performance anyways).

Design

  • Plastic made back panel
  • Compact and easy to handle

The latest G series from Motorola is the first from the manufacturer that integrated use of glass in the body, apart from the front panel, where the glass had been in use from the very first G series

Contrary to the Moto G6 and G6 Plus where we do get a curved back panel, the Moto G6 Play has a plastic panel. However, to the surprise of most, the plastic panel is extremely good built and closely resembles the feel of higher-end siblings. To top it off, Motorola has intelligently used reflective elements at the back panel to give it a more expensive and cliché feel. To the credit, the G6 Play isn’t all plastic, rather the side panels are made coated aluminum to keep the finish.

Moving on to the size aspect, the Moto G6 Play boasts a large 5.7-inch screen with a body to screen ratio of 18:9, making it the best phone in its price range. The phone is 72.2mm wide, lower than the Moto G5 that was 73mm wide.

A few of the compromises that we do get on Moto G6 Play include the absence of water-repelling nano-coating (you do get this coating on Moto G6 and G6 Plus) plus there’s no USB-C (replaced by micro USB port) at the bottom. While we still do get the fast charging option (the best selling point for Moto G6 Play), however, it’s all about the ease of plugging the charging cable with USB-C port that we miss.

 The Moto G6 does retain the headphone jack (Nostalgic), which is firmly placed at the top edge. Plus, there’s the fingerprint scanner placed at the backside (as per the official statement, the reason to place the fingerprint sensor at the backside is about the pricing as it’s a bit more expensive to place it on the front side). Nonetheless, the fingerprint scanner does perform decently and recognized the pattern every time (although a little slower than what we got in some of the other phones).

Battery

  • Massive 4000mAh battery that will take you through all day with intensive use
  • Fast charging (2 hours for 1 to 100% charge)

We are living at times of large batteries, however, what makes it special in here is that we get a massive battery in a tight-budget smartphone (yeah it’s all about the budget). In fact, it’s even bigger than what we got in its expensive sibling Moto G6 (the poor lad got 3000mAh).

So, with such a large battery powering your phone, you can rest assured to take you through the entire day without having to recharge. And even if you manage to exhaust the battery, you got the backing of fast-charging to get your phone completely charged within two hours at max.

Camera

  • 13MP single camera

The camera is one aspect where Moto G6 Play lacks definitely. Again, we weren’t expecting any fancy dual or triple camera system in this price segment, nonetheless, it could have been better. The single-camera comes with a 13MP configuration with an f/2.0 aperture and an LED flash. While the camera does take decent/average daylight photos, the low-light performance is simply below-average.

Takeaway

Moto G6 Play packs all the basic elements plus some above-average performing features which you don’t expect on such a low-priced phone.

It’s is a definite recommendation any time as one of the best tight-budget smartphones available in the market.

Comments


Shaheer commented 3 Years, 10 Months, 1 Week, 2 Days, 13 Hours, 26 Minutes ago

Thanks for the info

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