Moto G7

amazon Moto G7 reviews

Motorola totally set a new perspective on budget phone expectations when it introduced the G series in 2013. The first few launches could well be retained for a definite number of years, but somehow the competition seems to be heating up. The newly re-branded Nokia under HMD Global is delivering something unique in terms of low-cost smartphones; Honor itself comes from that same line of eastern threats. Not to mention that Motorola churns out too many phones; at one point, it just feels like competing against itself — Moto G7 Play, G7 Power, and G7 Plus: all under this year’s valiant attempt in some markets. Moto G7 enters the arena without much fanfare. This is how it goes in this budget melee, looking at the champion little by little. But with that price tag of $300, it should do a lot of vindicating since the original Moto G stood at just $180. This is what the flags of $1000 do that their ancestors could not pass up for a much more expensive phone.

Good pricing, wide screen

The Moto G7 is attractive with its curved white glass back, glaring silver metal frame, and large display with a waterdrop notch. It drew many an admiring glance, a few enthusiastic comments while in use, followed by no small surprise given its budget status. In fact, many pricier phones have not had the same treatment as I think 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. Still sticks out more than I’d like, though this could be alleviated by a case, and well worth considering for that glass back.

Textured power button sits on the right spine with a volume rocker above it. At the bottom edge sits the USB-C port, flanked by a 3.5mm audio jack and a speaker grill. At least, I’m glad that other budget phones are slowly adopting USB-C.

Big display, waterdrop notch on top for the front-facing camera. The bezels are slim, and at the bottom is a slightly broader chin that carries the Motorola name.

It has indeed a big display, as well as a waterdrop notch at the top for the front-facing camera. But at the bottom is a slightly broader chin: it bears the Motorola name. Now it comes to the impressive aspect of the Iberian language paper.

The 6.2-inch LCD screen looks very impressive. Quite comforting as well when reading on it, and it’s a real treat for watching movies. The resolution is 2,270 x 1,080 pixels, which equates to 403 pixels per inch. That is 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 maelstrom, a king before the champion such as this.

There is, however, a niggling sense that slippage is occurring as pressure mounts from prestigious competitors, such as Nokia’s 7.1, which boasts a sharper display with HDR10 compatibility. The right kind of content on Netflix or Amazon makes this difference amazing if you only watch a bit of it. Besides, I fail to impress myself on the Moto G7 screen after seeing the effect of even the slightest backlighting in a darkened room. It’s distracting for those watching movies in the dark; unfortunately, though, it still hasn’t made it too much of a budget phone.

The colors aren’t really bad but, by default, appear highly saturated. Depending on your preferences, you may adjust the display in the settings for something a little more natural. Brightness tends to be an issue on any budget phone, and, hence, the Moto G7 does not escape it. The screen becomes rather hard to read in indirect sunlight; however, you can crank that brightness higher by turning off adaptive brightness in the display settings.

Perhaps too critical, but these complaints apply to the lot in this price range. On the plus side, however, Moto G7 is great in design and display.

Good performance along with a few hiccups

With a Snapdragon 632 processor and 4GB RAM, all in all, the Moto G7 is miles ahead of the G6, which is a good thing because in my opinion last year’s phone guarded against any speed.

That is an upgrade from it..

The swiping is smooth, apps, and games load pretty fast. Asphalt 9: Legends is somewhat pixelated, owing to both the size of the screen and the fact the game runs on lower graphics quality by default. I did a little tinkering with image quality to see how the Moto G7 handled itself, and it was fine. Once in a while, you’d get dropped frame rates, but nothing major.

I also put Hello Neighbor through its paces, although poor performance would more likely be attributed to the game than the phone. No issues with Super Mario Run.

Benchmark results are as follows:

AnTuTu 3D Bench: 107,389

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

3DMark Sling Shot Extreme: 543(Vulkan)

That is an upgrade from it… The Moto G7 lags far behind; the Nokia 7.1 with powerful Snapdragon 636 can barely challenge Moto G7.

Moto G7 gives 64 GB of on-board storage, which should be ample for most users, and the MicroSD slot in case someone needs more.

Unfortunately, the Moto G7 has given me a bit of trouble. In the first four days, it crashed thrice, often with no apparent cause. Wi-Fi randomly dropped and joined the first 2 days, and I could find no apparent cause in settings, but thereafter, it fixed itself. The G7 also had another weird phase during which it kept saying low battery, with battery saver being enabled, while it was already plugged and charging. I had to restart it to get rid of that message. I’m guessing those troubles are due to software and not hardware.

Wobbly performance add-ons

It does indeed come loaded with Android 9.0 Pie, but its top-layer of software happens to be Motorola’s UI, along with some preinstalled apps, which one might find varying localization depending on where he or she bought the phone. In fact, it used to be one of those points on which Moto mobiles were praised-their near-to-android feel-but now creeping in seems to be more, and I don’t think they are all that useful.

I enjoy several camera features which I’m going to describe in detail in the next section. There is a huge number of Moto Actions, which are shortcuts accessed through gestures. Chop for flashlight and flip to do not disturb is quite good, but there are also some that I find somewhat useless.

Visibility options, like keeping the phone on while looking at it, peek and interact with notifications at the lock screen, and finish all with reading your text messages aloud with Moto Voice. Some of these, you may or may not find, used to be useful.

My concern is that there is a feeling that they affect the performance of the phone in a wrong way with the software tweaks. For one, I have not had a single crash or any strange issues on my Android One phone, for example. Another, this is a mere assumption, but one thing is for sure-it’s guaranteed that the cost of an Android One phone is that it will receive updates to the Android version for at least two years besides the three years of security updates. Chances are that the Moto G7 will receive Android Q, but it will probably see no other update beyond that.

As far as the additional features offered by Moto are concerned, they merit bringing in problems. Rather than dealing with all these issues, Moto G7 customers should have the benefits of an Android One device instead. I hope more budget phones will be added to that particular program soon.

Well, it is more disappointing than any other issue, there is no NFC support for Google Pay in the US Moto G7 edition, despite the fact that Europe has. Nokia 3.1 even has it on the $160 model, so logically it wouldn’t be here.

The camera is somewhat hit or miss.

The G7 has the same specification as that on the G6-the 12-megapixel f/1.8 primary lens, and a 5-megapixel secondary one for depth. The front camera is 8 megapixels.

If good and plenty of lights are going to be present, you can definitely capture some beautiful shots of the landscape and close-ups. The colors are decent, rather quite true to life, with a lot of issues in contrast. There’s often bright areas in the scene and will end up overblowing and overexposing when bright outside.

The portrait mode is great on the Moto G7; this matters a lot for people because they take a lot of portrait photos of family and friends. This isn’t perfect but most of the time does a good job of blurring backgrounds, closely matching the outline of the subject to keep it very sharp. Robust results are generally good enough to share, so I’m okay with the mistakes here and there.

However, it is critical-the subject and the photographer should remain or you will get blurred results. Most times you will have to have a steady hand to take a photograph with the Moto G7 since it does not have optical image stabilization (OIS).

I enjoy certain extras in the camera app: the Spot Color allows you to hit one color and render everything else in black and white; the Cinemagraph option is nifty, as it permits you to make a short animation-GIF-while selecting which area to move while freezing the outside world. Getting good results is a real challenge; it is that gimmick you will try once and forget.

Low light performance is one of the biggest drawbacks for this camera. It simply could not manage any details, becoming pretty noisy, if not grainy, under very scant light.

The front-facing camera is really good for selfies and video calls, but the Moto G7 will also record 4K and time-lapse videos.

Battery life

As you would expect, the Moto G7 can work for an average day, thanks to the 3,000mAh battery on board. However, with such a large screen, nightly charging would be its fare share for most users.

Our battery test managed to run for 8 hours and 27 minutes-a respectful execution.

Good to see a USB-C port that charges pretty well with Motorola’s Turbo Charge standard-from zero to about 80 percent in an hour. Between 20 and 80 percent is the fastest charging rate, and it can give you a good amount of power in about 15 minutes-so long as you plug it in with more than 20 percent left.

Too bad that wireless charging has yet to arrive in the budget phone scene, although the Moto G7 comes with 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