REVIEW: Moto G10 – Small Price, Huge Battery

Motorola is well known for its value and premium value smartphone offering. One of its newest products is the $249 Moto G10 – and there’s at least one area where this phone will give you much more than what you paid for.

Design

The G10 has an attractive design, with a lovely “wave” pattern on the back. Though it’s made of plastic, the back of the phone has a nice matte finish, which looks good in either Aurora Grey or Iridescent Pearl.

The front is less attractive, however – like with the Alcatel 1SE, the bottom bezel is weirdly thick. I’m not sure why both the value phones I’ve seen so far have had such big chins, but if you want to save money on screens (as I think the reason might be), there are surely more aesthetically pleasing ways to do it.

I will note as well the odd placement of the dedicated Google Assistant button – rather than being on the left-hand side, away from the power button and volume rocker like most phones that have one, it’s on the right-hand side above the others. It’s a weird decision, and makes for a slightly confusing experience when you mix the two up.

Display and Performance

The screen is a 6.5” HD+ offering, and does its job well enough – you won’t get the best image quality in the world, as it’s limited to 720p, but I don’t have any real complaints about it otherwise. It’s an IPS LCD panel with a little notch at the top for the front camera, which is unobtrusive enough.

Performance is nothing to write home about – the phone isn’t the fastest in the world, though you wouldn’t expect it to be at this price point in any case. Another thing you wouldn’t expect to see, though, is a whopping 5000mAh battery, and yet Motorola has managed to cram one in for two days (it says) of life on a single charge. Colour me impressed at that, even if wireless charging isn’t an option (it only charges at 10W via USB-C).

Sound quality is middling at best, with the built-in speaker producing thin and tinny audio. The phone does come with a free pair of wired earphones, which is a nice throwback to a bygone era, and like the free earphones of yore, they’re not fantastic. Use your own, and connect them through the 3.5mm jack Motorola has so thoughtfully included.

Features and Camera

The G10 comes with a few bells and whistles like a rear fingerprint reader, dual SIM, facial unlock, and IP52 water resistance. You also get a free case in the box, which is always nice. Why don’t flagships give you free cases, anyway?

Its rear 48MP camera array (effectively 12MP) could be worse, but I’ve seen better. Image quality can be a bit on the grainy side, especially at night; while the night vision mode (and the camera does have a lot of different modes and features to play with, so hats off for versatility) does improve the brightness, it’s still not great.

Verdict

The Moto G10 is perfectly fine for what it is: namely, a $249 smartphone. For its price point, it’s no slouch, though definitely look further upmarket if you want more features or performance. Still, that 5000mAh battery is a fantastic selling point for a value phone, so if you want an affordable device with less chance of running dry when you need it, absolutely consider this one.

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