Moto G5S Plus and Moto G5S Review, Moto G5S Plus and Moto G5S Review
The new Moto G5S and Moto G5S Plus handsets were launched in India last month. New features and upgrades have been promised with both handsets. This year has been very busy for the Motorola brand. Moto E, Moto C and Moto Z handsets have been launched in India. At the same time, Moto X4 was recently launched in the international market. Lenovo has cited the increasing challenges in the Rs 15,000 price segment as the main reason behind introducing the new G series handsets. At the same time, customers are also not avoiding spending too much. Will this strategy work for Lenovo? Let us know.
Moto G5S Plus and Moto G5S design
Lenovo sees its Moto G devices as more of a ‘value for money’ product than a handset with better specifications at a cheaper price. These phones are functional as well as strong. But she was never known for her beauty. The Moto G5 and G5 Plus are the first handsets in the company’s Moto G series to feature some metal. The company has tried to take this strategy further in the special edition device.
Recent Moto devices have used a similar design language. There is no harm in this. There are fingerprint readers on the front panel of both the phones which work without any hassle. The front panels of both the handsets are almost identical.
The old-style micro-USB port is at the bottom of the phone. Speaker grill and microphone have got space on both its sides. There is a circular bulge for the camera which houses the sensor and flash module. The familiar Moto logo is in the center and the antenna bands are still clearly visible. Overall, the Moto G5s and Moto G5s Plus look much better than the older variants. Both the handsets are protected from minor water splashes as they come with nano coating.
Compared to the Moto G5 Plus (Review), the Moto G5S Plus is wider and has a larger screen. This phone is not suitable for use with one hand. It is possible to manage the weight of 168 grams. On the other hand, the build quality of the Moto G5S is great. And the design is such that it is convenient to use it with one hand. This 157 gram phone feels light as per its body.
The 5.5-inch full-HD screen of the Moto G5S Plus comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. This is a bright panel. Text and images appear crisp. Colors come alive on the screen. We have no complaints about this. Viewing angles and brightness levels are also fine.
The Moto G5S has a 5.2-inch full-HD screen. Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection is also available on this. It is made for daily use. Brightness is fine. However, its panel was more reflective than we liked. We found it difficult to read in direct sunlight. Because of this, the brightness had to be taken to the maximum level again and again. Viewing angles are good but we faced a lot of trouble while using it outdoors.
Both the phones come in a green retail box with “special edition” clearly written on the front. This makes it clear that these phones are upgrades to the fifth generation device of Moto G phones. You will get a Turbo Power charging adapter, Micro-USB cable, SIM ejector tool, and headset.
Specifications and software of Moto G5S Plus and Moto G5S
The Moto G5s Plus sports a 5.5-inch full-HD (1080×1920 pixels) IPS LCD display. It has Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 octa-core processor with 4 GB RAM.
The dual rear camera feature of Moto G5S Plus is being marketed vigorously. The Moto G5S Plus has two 13-megapixel rear cameras on the back. The aperture of both is F/2.0. You will get a color correcting dual LED flash with depth editing software. There is an 8 megapixel sensor with F 2.0 aperture on the front panel. It is a wide angle lens and comes with LED flash.
The inbuilt storage is 64 GB and it is possible to use a microSD card up to 128 GB if needed. The Moto G5S Plus has two Nano SIM slots. Due to the hybrid slot, one of these slots will serve as a microSD card slot. Connectivity features of the handset include 4G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS/ A-GPS, Micro-USB and 3.5 headphone jack. The battery of the smartphone is 3000 mAh. Due to TurboPower charger, you will get up to 6 hours of battery life in just 15 minutes of charge. The weight of this handset is 168 grams and dimension is 153.5×76.2×8 mm.
Now let’s talk about smaller variants. The Moto G5S has a 5.2-inch full-HD screen. Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection is also available on this. The Moto G5S is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 octa-core chipset with 4 GB RAM. Inbuilt storage is 32 GB and you will be able to use microSD card up to 128 GB. Lenovo has also talked about the single camera of Moto G5S. There is a 16-megapixel sensor on the rear which is equipped with F 2.0 aperture, phase detection auto focus and LED flash. A 5 megapixel camera is provided on the front panel. Connectivity features of this smartphone include 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS/ A-GPS, Micro-USB and 3.5mm headphone jack. The battery of this smartphone is also 3000 mAh and turbo charger will also be available. The weight is 157 grams and the dimensions are 150×73.5×8.2 mm.
Both the handsets run on Android 7.1 Nougat, which is not the latest Android version available in the market today. Like other Moto devices, the Moto G5s and Moto G5s Plus also come with some Motorola software features.
You will get many useful features of Android 7.1 Nougat, such as the ability to perform quick actions by long tapping on the app icon. Split screen multitasking feature will be available. Both phones will offer a near-stock Android experience, with minor Motorola tweaks. You will get software features like Moto Actions and Moto Display. With the help of Moto Actions, you will be able to activate One Button Nav. After this you will be able to navigate the screen through the fingerprint sensor. Under Moto Display, users will be able to activate Night Display Mode which reduces blue light. Apart from this, in standby mode it fades in and fades out notifications.
Moto devices are among the select non-Google smartphones to get Android security updates. In such a situation, you can be assured of future software updates. There will be no unwanted apps in Moto G5S and Moto G5S Plus.
Moto G5S Plus and Moto G5S cameras
There has been a flood of dual camera smartphones in the Indian market. The Moto G5S Plus is the newest member of this club. It works. It took us some time to get acquainted with its dual camera setup. You still have the ability to edit photos after taking them but the photos still need polishing. In good lighting, backgrounds are adequately blurred in depth shots. But the edges do not seem clearly defined. Lenovo will have to work on this. On the other hand, the Moto G5S Plus seems to be more capable of low-light photography compared to the Xiaomi Mi A1. We were able to capture decent shots in low light with decent detail and controlled noise levels.
Even regular shots in good lighting had natural colors and textures. Landscape shots taken with the Moto G5S Plus also turned out good. The HDR mode also works well. However, we found that highlights sometimes appeared overexposed in bright conditions.
We believe the Moto G5s Plus performs better than current challenges in low-light conditions.
The camera of Moto G5S is much better than that of Moto G5. With phase detection autofocus, the Moto G5s achieves accurate exposure and autofocusing is accurate most of the time. There was no lack of detail in the outdoor shots. But the highlights sometimes seemed overexposed. The Moto G5S does a great job at macro shots. We managed to take some great close-up shots, even better than the Moto G5S Plus. Landscape shots will be considered average. The indoor shot had some shortcomings. There was no detail in shadows or dark areas. The camera of Moto G5S becomes weak in low light. There was a lot of noise in our sample shots.
Moto G5S Plus and Moto G5S Performance The Moto G5S and Moto G5S Plus handle most tasks well. We never felt the need for more power. There was no problem in playing games with powerful graphics on Moto G5S Plus. There is no complaint with multitasking also. The 5.5-inch display is perfect for watching videos and playing games. However, we have a complaint about the phone overheating. If the camera app remains open for a short time, the phone gets heated very quickly. This is surprising, because the Xiaomi Mi A1 and Mi Max 2 that come with this processor do not get so hot.
The speaker of the Moto G5S Plus produces enough sound for a small room. But the sound is not clear at maximum volume. The headset supplied with the Moto G5S Plus is of average quality. Don’t expect too much from this. Surprisingly, at the time of review, Voice over LTE support was not available in the handset. Because of this, we will be able to make phone calls from Reliance Jio SIM only after using Jio4Voice app in the phone.
The Moto G5S, on the other hand, generally runs cool. It gets a little warm only after playing games or watching videos for a long time. The phone is smooth to use and not slow at all. It has 4G VoLTE and the call quality is decent. The Moto G5S is not very effective for multimedia due to the reflective screen. We had to fiddle with the brightness levels several times. Very clear sound comes from the loudspeaker. Along with this, the quality of the headset provided is very average.
During the review, we also found that both the handsets get hot during charging. We do not see this deficiency in every device.
Moto G5S Plus and Moto G5S battery life
Moto G5S and Moto G5S Plus have a 3000 mAh battery. The battery capacity seemed a little less, because bigger phones have space for bigger batteries. On heavy use, the battery of Moto G5S lasted for about 18 hours and the battery of G5S Plus for about 14 hours. In our standard HD video loop test, the Moto G5s’ battery lasted 12 hours 35 minutes and the Plus variant’s battery lasted 11 hours 15 minutes.
The good thing is that both the phones come with TurboPower adapter. The Moto G5S’s battery charges 100 percent in about 60-70 minutes, while the Moto G5S Plus takes a little longer.
our decision
The situation keeps changing rapidly in the Indian smartphone market. In such a situation, Lenovo’s decision to launch a special edition variant seems right. But users of the old model will be disappointed. With the help of Moto G5S and Moto G5S Plus, the company’s product lineup will look fresh. Sales of the Moto G5S Plus will be driven by its dual camera setup, especially against the challenge of the Xiaomi Mi A1 (Review). However, the company can further improve the user experience of using dual cameras. Stock Android has always been considered good, but it is also becoming common now. Fast charging support also goes in its favor.
The Moto G5S is much better than the Moto G5. But it will face a big challenge from Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Review) which is available at a lower price. The Moto G5S Plus will compete with the Xiaomi Mi A1, which is also priced slightly lower.
If you are a fan of Motorola then Moto G5S Plus or Moto G5S will definitely woo you. Because they look great and give good performance in every department as per their price. We expect Lenovo to roll out VoLTE support for the Moto G5S Plus soon. Now apart from Jio, Airtel has also brought VoLTE service.
