Moto G7

amazon Moto G7 reviews

When Motorola launched the G series back in 2013, it redefined the expectations of a budget phone. The first few releases easily retain the budget crown, but the competition is getting tougher. A resurgent Nokia brand under HMD Global is making impressive low-cost smartphones, and Honor is not the only threat from the east. Not to mention Motorola releases so many phones that it sometimes feels like it’s competing against itself – this year, there’s the Moto G7 Play, G7 Power, and G7 Plus in some markets. The Moto G7 confidently enters the fray. This budget melee, looking at the champion little by little. But at $300, it has some work to do to prove its worth because the original Moto G was just $180. The age of $1,000 flags is what the G7 does that its ancestors couldn’t pass up for a much more expensive phone.

Nice price, big screen

With a curved, white glass back, a glittering silver metal frame, and a large display with a waterdrop notch, the Moto G7 looks pretty good. It sparked some admiring glances and even a few enthusiastic comments while using it, followed by no small surprise given its budget status. Many more expensive phones have not received the same response, but I feel the white model for review is the best color option.

The bright M logo on the back doubles as a fingerprint sensor, and Motorola has stuck with its signature circular camera module on top, instantly making it stand out as a phone. It still sticks out more than I’d like. A case could solve this, though, and it might well be worth considering the glass back.

You’ll find the textured power button on the right spine with a volume rocker above it. The bottom edge is the USB-C port, flanked by a 3.5mm audio jack and a speaker grill. I’m happy to see USB-C make its way into budget phones.

The display is large, with a waterdrop notch at the top for the front-facing camera. The bezels are thin, and there is a slightly larger chin at the bottom that bears the Motorola name.

The 6.2-inch LCD screen looks very impressive. It’s comforting to read on, and it’s good to watch the movie. The resolution is 2,270 x 1,080 pixels, which equates to 403 pixels per inch. That’s slightly lower than last year’s Moto G6, which had 424 pixels per inch, but largely because the screen is now half an inch larger and still sharp enough.

The Moto G7 confidently enters this budget melee, looking at a champion.

It doesn’t quite hit the high notes of a major competitor, the Nokia 7.1, which boasts a slightly sharper display with HDR10 support. If you watch the right content on Netflix or Amazon, you will see a difference in quality. I wouldn’t say I like the Moto G7’s display because of the amount of backlighting in a dark room. That can be distracting if you’re watching movies in the dark, but sadly, the OLED screen still hasn’t made it too much of a budget phone.

The colors aren’t bad, but by default, they look pretty saturated. You can adjust the display in the settings if you prefer a more natural look. Brightness can be an issue with budget phones, and the Moto G7 is no exception. Indirect sunlight, it becomes a bit difficult to read what’s on the screen, although you can adjust that brightness higher if you turn off adaptive brightness in the display settings.

I’m picky because these criticisms apply to the majority of phones in this price range. The design and display of the Moto G7 are definite high points.

Solid performance with a few stumbles

The Moto G7 has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 632 processor inside with 4GB of RAM. It’s a big step up from the Moto G6, which is good because I found last year’s phone sluggish.

That is a step up from its predecessor in terms of performance.

Swiping around is smooth, and apps and games load pretty quickly. Asphalt 9: Legends looks a bit pixelated, partly because of the large screen and partly because the game chooses a lower graphics quality by default. I tweaked the image quality to see how the Moto G7 handled itself, and it worked fine. There are occasional frame drops, but nothing more serious than that.

I also tried Hello Neighbor, which didn’t run well, though that could be due to the game and not the phone. No problem with Super Mario Run.

Here are some benchmark results:

AnTuTu 3D Bench: 107,389

Geekbench CPU: 1,259 single core; 4,813 multi-core

3DMark Sling Shot Extreme: 543 (Vulkan)

That is a step up from its predecessor in terms of performance. Although it’s not far off, the Moto G7 doesn’t come close to the same level as the Nokia 7.1, which has a slightly better Snapdragon 636.

There’s 64GB of storage available on the Moto G7, which should be plenty for most people, but there’s still room for a MicroSD card if you need more space.

Unfortunately, I’ve run into some issues with the Moto G7. In the first four days, it crashed three times with no apparent cause. Wi-Fi seemed to cut in and out inexplicably for the first two days, and I could unearth no reason in the settings, but then it sorted itself out. The G7 also got stuck in a weird loop where it kept showing low battery, and I should have the battery saver turned on, but it was plugged in and charging at the time. I had to restart the phone to stop this message from popping up. I suspect these problems are caused by software and not hardware.

Add-ons with a wobbly performance

The Moto G7 runs Android 9.0 Pie, but with Motorola’s UI on top and a few pre-installed apps – your mileage may vary in this department depending on where you bought the phone. It used to be a point to praise Moto phones for being so close to Android, but it feels like more and more things are creeping in, and I don’t believe they’re all useful.

I like some of the camera options, which I will get to in the next section. There are a ton of Moto Actions to choose from, which are gestures that act as shortcuts. Chop for the flashlight and flip to do not disturb is great, but there are also some relatively useless options in there.

There are also visibility options to keep it on while you look at it and peek and interact with notifications on the lock screen. Moto Voice, which can read your text messages out loud, rounds things off. You may or may not find some of these useful.

What worries me is the suspicion that software tweaks are negatively affecting the phone’s performance. I’ve had no crashes or other weird issues with an Android One phone, for example. While that’s just speculation, there’s no doubt that Android One phones are guaranteed to receive at least two years of Android version updates and three years of security updates. The Moto G7 will probably get Android Q, but I doubt it will see another update beyond that.

Considering the extra features Moto offers, they don’t deserve the problems they bring. Customers would be better served if the Moto G7 were an Android One device, and I’d love to see more budget phones signed up with the program.

It’s disappointing that there’s no NFC support for Google Pay in the US Moto G7 model, which is especially odd as the European version has. The $160 Nokia 3.1 Plus has NFC, so there’s no reason it couldn’t be included here.

The camera is a mixed bag.

On paper, the Moto G7 has the same camera settings as the Moto G6, including a 12-megapixel lens with an f/1.8 aperture and a 5-megapixel secondary lens for depth. The front camera is rated at 8 megapixels.

If conditions are good with plenty of light, you should be able to capture a lovely landscape or close-up shots. The colors are decent and pretty true to life, but it struggles with contrast. If there is a bright area in the scene, it will often be blown out and overexposed.

I like the Moto G7’s camera in portrait mode, which is important for most people because they want to take great photos of family and friends. It’s not perfect, but it usually creates a good blurred background and gets close to nailing the subject’s outline to keep them in sharp relief. I can forgive mistakes because the results are generally photos I want to share.

However, it is important both the subject and the photographer remain, or you will get blurry results. You’ll generally need a steady hand when taking photos with the Moto G7 because it lacks optical image stabilization (OIS).

I like some of the extras in the camera app, such as Spot Color, which lets you hit one color and turn everything else black and white. The Cinemagraph option is also great, allowing you to create a short animated GIF and choose which area to move while it freezes the surroundings. It’s hard to get good results, and it’s the kind of gimmick you can try once and never use again.

On the negative side, low light is a big problem for this camera. It simply couldn’t capture any details, and things got very noisy, very quickly as darkness fell.

The front camera is perfectly suited for selfies or video calls. The Moto G7 can also record 4K and timelapse videos.

Battery life

As you’d expect with the 3,000mAh battery on board, the Moto G7 can last for an average day. It does have a large screen, though, so nightly charging will be the norm for most people.

Our battery test ran for 8 hours and 27 minutes, which is a respectable result.

I’m glad it has a USB-C port for charging, and Motorola’s Turbo Charge standard is fast — you can go from zero to about 80 percent in an hour. It charges fastest between 20 and 80 percent, so you can get a useful amount of juice in just 15 minutes as long as it’s over 20 percent when you plug it in.

Sadly, wireless charging hasn’t entered the budget phone scene yet, even though the Moto G7 has a glass back.

where can you get a Moto G7 online

Moto G7 with Alexa Hands-Free – Unlocked – 64 GB – Ceramic Black (US Warranty) – Verizon, AT&T, T–Mobile, Sprint, Boost, Cricket, & Metro: Buy it now

Moto G7 with Alexa Hands-Free – Unlocked – 64 GB – Clear White (US Warranty) – Verizon, AT&T, T–Mobile, Sprint, Boost, Cricket, & Metro: Buy it now

Moto G7 | Unlocked | Made for US by Motorola | 4/64GB | 12MP Camera | Black: Buy it now