Moto g10 review: Very cheap, surprisingly good

Our Verdict

You'll struggle to find a more competent phone than the Moto g10 at this price. However, every bit user-friendly and refined equally the design is, it's difficult to ignore the low-powered components when y'all know there are far improve options out there if you lot're able to spend a lilliputian more than.

For

Amazingly inexpensive
Superb bombardment life
Clean but helpful UI

Against

Disappointing performance
Depression-quality brandish

Tom's Guide Verdict

You'll struggle to find a more than competent phone than the Moto g10 at this price. Withal, as convenient and refined as the blueprint is, information technology's difficult to ignore the depression-powered components when y'all know there are far better options out in that location if yous're able to spend a footling more.

Pros

+
Amazingly inexpensive
+
Superb battery life
+
Clean but helpful UI

Cons

-
Disappointing performance
-
Depression-quality display

Moto g10: Specs

Starting price: £129.99
Brandish: 6.v-inch Hard disk drive+ LCD (1600x720)
Rear cameras: 48MP master (f1.7), 8MP ultrawide (f2.ii), 2MP depth sensor (f2.iv), 2MP macro (f2.iv)
Front photographic camera: 8MP
Chipset: Snapdragon 460
RAM: 4GB
Storage: 64GB/128GB
microSD: Up to 1TB
Operating organization: Android xi
Battery: v,000 mAh
Charging: 10W wired
Colors: Aurora Grey (pictured), Sakura Pearl
Size: (165.22 x 75.73 x 9.19mm)
Weight: 7.05 ounces (200g)
IP rating: IP52

Motorola'southward Moto g10 volition immediately catch you considering information technology's but so cheap. With flagship phones selling for x times every bit much as Motorola'southward latest budget offering, it'southward refreshing to run into such a capable phone at such a bargain price.

As well every bit Motorola'southward trademark excellent bombardment life, the Moto g100 offers a quad-camera array of rear shooters, plus a big display, all bound up in a fun-though-plastic, chassis. Forget most special features, as you would for whatsoever phone that'south well below $200.

This Moto g10 review shows how Motorola'south telephone tin can be a reliable choice if your upkeep is tight. But if you tin spend a picayune more than, yous'll take the option of some substantially more impressive hardware — including additional Motorola handsets.

Moto g10 review: Toll and availability

Motorola has already launched the Moto g10 in the U.One thousand., where it sells on sites like the Motorola shop or John Lewis for an impressively low £129. For context, the Galaxy A20e, a more bones version of the Samsung Milky way A20, costs £149, while the Moto g9 Power, the U.K.'s equivalent of the Moto Grand Ability (2010), goes for £179. (That phone starts at $199 in the U.S.) So even among cheap phones, the Moto g10 is a bargain. At that place'due south only a single spec to choose from, as well, which simplifies your ownership decision.

The Moto g10 could come to the U.S. eventually, simply Motorola hasn't hinted at when or what the cost would be.

Moto g10 review: Design

Yous'll autumn for the Moto g10'southward simple but fun design the moment you pick it up. The plastic cloth feels cheap in comparison to the classy metal and glass builds of fancier phones. But that'southward understandable since we are talking nearly a cheap telephone.

The Moto g10 still has a pleasing weight to it despite the lighter materials, and the thicker-than-average sides add some sturdiness to the phone's feel. It gives the impression that the g10 would keep on working fifty-fifty if you were to drop it on accident. (We practise not advise testing this theory out.) The wavy molding on the dorsum of the phone looks kind of neat, and despite what you might think, it doesn't experience strange to concur since the edges of the phone are still smooth.

The Aurora Gray colour option of my review unit has subconscious depths, with the gray turning to a shiny imperial in the right calorie-free. The alternative color, Sakura Pearl, looks to do the same except with a white body.

Motorola has tested the Moto g10 to the IP52 specification. That means the g10 will shrug off a rain shower, but it won't be safe against heavier spray or immersion in h2o.

Moto g10 review: Display and audio

At 6.5 inches, the Moto g10's display is a fair size that'due south spoiled somewhat past thick bezels on all iv of its sides. At least the waterdrop notch at the top holds the camera without sacrificing more than screen infinite to a total bezel.

The HD+ LCD panel is far from the best I've tried on a phone. It isn't peculiarly bright at the best of times, and extreme angles make things even harder to encounter on the screen.

Watching Billie Eilish'southward rendition of "Everything I Wanted" at The Grammys 2021 looked all correct, with the colors of Eilish's trademark neon-green hair popping from the screen nicely. However I did notice how dim the display was in comparing to other phones such as the similarly price Realme 7, which besides uses an LCD panel. Naturally, in that location was also an obvious lack of particular in her glittery outfit and jewelry from the moto g10's HD brandish.

A single bottom-ported speaker on the Moto g10 offers a decent volume, reproducing Eilish's distinctive vocals loud and clear. Exploring information technology further with Mail Malone and Swae Lee'south Sunflower playing, I appreciated how nicely the chilled-out vocals came across. That came at the expense of the rest of the mix, though, with the trounce and instruments feeling disappointingly muted. If that's a trouble for you lot, so you lot can utilise the headphone jack or Bluetooth to pipe the sound through your own headphones or earbuds, which are probable much better than the Moto g10's speaker.

Moto g10 review: Cameras

Fifty-fifty though the Moto g10 is a upkeep phone, y'all still have four sensors on the back of the phone. A 48MP main camera and a 8MP ultrawide bending lens lead the mode, but you also get a 2MP depth sensor and a 2MP macro camera. An 8MP selfie cam on the front of the phone rounds out the eyes.

To testify off the photograph ability of the Moto g10, I compared it to pictures taken by the Realme 7, a telephone that'due south only available in the U.1000. that'south pretty identical to Motorola'due south handset. That should help u.s.a. run across how well Motorola has tuned its hardware for the best shots possible.

Testing the main cameras with a shot of a path through a park, I find it'south difficult to pick betwixt images from the ii phones. The Realme vii'due south shot is quite a lot brighter, but that comes at the expense of color. This is why on balance the Moto g10 is my preferred epitome.

That flips around when we effort out a night fashion shot. In this mail service-sunset image of Navigator Square at Entrance, at that place's a lot more noise in the night sky on the g10's image, and it's a less vivid shade of blue than the one the Realme has produced. The Motorola also struggled to contain the light coming from the streetlamps, something the Realme also managed meliorate. It seems like Motorola could improve its photo software here.

I'm torn on which image'southward color I prefer in this ultrawide shot of Tufnell Park Playing Fields and its surrounding apartment blocks. However, Realme's image is far noisier than Motorola'due south, making the Moto g10 the easy winner of this comparison.

Depth sensors are added to phones to help with adding special effects to the primary cameras, and then I turned on portrait mode when shooting this hedge sculpture to test out the ones on the Motorola and Realme. The Realme vii required more endeavour to produce a shot I liked, since its depth camera offered either very dark and very bright images of this scene. The Moto g10's images were less extreme, merely as a upshot meant I got decent color accurateness for the leafy feline while retaining background particular.

While not directly related to the quality of the prototype, I appreciated how the g10 offered a slider to control the intensity of the blur in portrait shots. I found the maximum setting to look the best, but being able to tailor the effect to your liking is a thoughtful inclusion.

Macro cameras on phones are notoriously finicky, then I gave these 2 handsets the best chance possible by using a bright low-cal to illuminate this pile of java beans on my kitchen table. The Moto g10 has produced an paradigm that more accurately captures the color of these low-cal-roasted beans. While the Realme 7 offers like details, the color of its shot couldn't match the Moto g10.

When testing the front photographic camera, the Moto g10 scores a final easy win in this selfie comparing. It gives a prettier background blur compared to the Realme, and much better colors too. I look much more natural in Motorola'due south image, instead of strangely pink as I practise in Realme's shot.

Moto g10 review: Operation

When it comes to processor power, the Moto g10 provides the bare minimum. The Snapdragon 460 chipset and 4GB RAM are significantly less powerful than nigh any other phone you tin go today — the Moto G Power 2021 runs on a Snapdragon 662 for context — and that shows in the benchmarks.

The Moto g10 managed a 247 single-cadre score and a ane,130 multi-core score on the Geekbench 5 benchmark. That's far lower than the Moto G Power's already low 314 and i,437. Simply the every bit cheap and far worse, Hot Pepper Ghost achieved lower scores of 158 and 834. For further comparison, our favorite cheap phone, the Pixel 4a, scored 551 and 1647, though that device costs a couple hundred dollars more than than Motorola's inexpensive handset.

It's a similar story with the 3DMark Wild Life graphics test. The Moto's outcome was 250 points, 1.5 frames per second, which doesn't even match up to the 372 points and two.two frames per second the Moto Thousand Power got.

I attempted to play the showtime-person shooter Tau Ceti on the g10, and it did non go well. The game'southward 3D graphics appeared in their everyman quality, and even then, the Motorola phone couldn't show them at a fast-plenty frame rate for me to actually play. This won't be a phone y'all'll want to exist playing or working on beyond the very basics.

Moto g10 review: Battery life and charging

With a 5,000 mAh battery within, the Moto g10 has a larger battery than many current flagships. And that'south slap-up news for its battery life.

Motorola m-series phones have historically performed excellently when it comes to longevity, and the g10 is no exception. My endeavor to run down the g10'due south battery overnight ended upwardly in the phone playing almost 24 hours of YouTube video over Wi-Fi on the g10 non-stop before it shut itself downward. In one case you've powered this phone upwardly, it's not going to empty for a while, no thing what you're doing.

Filling up the Moto g10's massive bombardment takes longer. The included 10W charger gets the battery to 25% total in 30 minutes, and fills upwardly to 100% in a glacial 2 hour and 27 minutes; that's a similar recharge time to the electric current Moto G Power. It's just as well the battery is as big equally it is, since you won't be able to easily top-up the g10 in a few minutes of charging.

Moto g10 review: Software

As with the last few generations of its phones, the Moto g10 runs on MyUX, which is a slightly contradistinct version of the stock Android you'd find on a more expensive Google Pixel device. It means aside from the Moto app, y'all become but the bones collection of Google apps when setting up the phone, letting you tailor your home screens as you meet fit.

Unfortunately, Motorola is non offer OS upgrades on the g10. It'll still get security upgrades and updates to Moto-specific apps, simply you lot won't get whatsoever upgrade past Android xi.

The Moto app defenseless my attention still because of how thoroughly it explains the g10's features. The combination of piece of cake-to-understand text, fun cartoon illustrations and the ability to endeavour out features earlier returning to the app and turning them on made this mayhap the most comprehensive guide to Android I've run across. It's not something experienced users need, only if this is a get-go smartphone for your young kid or an elderly relative, the tips in the Moto app volition make sure they speedily larn the ropes.

One other Moto-specific feature I found handy was the "Peek Display." You lot access this from the lockscreen past tapping i of the notification icons, which and then shows a substantial chunk of the message you've been sent. If you're the kind of person who often opens up their telephone to read a unmarried electronic mail but and so ends up scrolling through other apps (similar me), this lets you check your notifications without needing to unlock the telephone.

Earlier fifty-fifty finishing the set-up process, I grew to detest the haptic feedback the g10 gave. Rather than the well-baked, popping feel of hitting keys on a Pixel 4a, you instead get a vague mushy buzz every time you type. You can turn this off, merely so y'all're left with no feedback at all, which I call up is virtually worse than having bad feedback.

If you're a fan of Google Assistant, the g10 sports a dedicated push to summon the assistant for you to so command. If you don't use it, then that means in that location'south a modest portion of the right edge y'all should avoid pressing. You don't accept the pick to remap it either, only disable it.

The concluding criticism I have of the user feel is how dull it can be to movement through the menus. This is understandable given the depression-powered chipset/RAM combination, but information technology borders on frustrating sometimes.

Moto g10 review: Verdict

For a device that covers the basics, the Motorola Moto g10 ticks all the boxes. You have a smartly designed and like shooting fish in a barrel-to-employ Android skin, a bombardment that will terminal most an unabridged day of constant utilise, plus some acceptable camera abilities, and all for a relative pittance.

Y'all can't expect the globe for this toll, but some flaws in the Moto g10 feel shouldn't be ignored. The low-resolution display is dim and difficult to see from all simply a dead-on bending, plus the low-powered chipset ways y'all will struggle to play the latest games or use demanding apps.

Equally a telephone for offset-fourth dimension smartphone buyers, this is a bright device. Information technology's eminently practical in a style that few other phones are these days, and is slap-up to help users learn how to make use of all of what the phone provides. If what you demand is a smartphone and nothing else, the Moto g10 is the perfect utilitarian device. But if you desire advanced features, you lot won't need to spend much more to become a well-priced but effective telephone similar the Pixel 4a.

Richard is a Tom's Guide staff writer based in London, covering news, reviews and how-tos for phones, gaming, audio and whatever else people need advice on. Following on from his MA in Mag Journalism at the University of Sheffield, he's also written for WIRED U.Yard., The Register and Creative Bloq. When not at work, he's likely thinking about how to brew the perfect cup of specialty coffee.

Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/moto-g10

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