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REVIEW: Motorola’s Moto G22 Can’t Keep Up With Itself

Finding the best phone for you in a cheaper market can be considerably harder than doing so in the premium market. With so many more options, and many brands concentrating their efforts on the budget and midrange phones, its hard to know where to start.

Motorola, one such company that dominates this sector, have released the Moto G22, a phone that on paper, packs premium features into sub $300 handset. As a company that time and time again has released phones that dominate the cheaper market, if anyone was going to offer high end features in a budget phone, it was going to be Motorola.

But is what the Moto G22 promises too good to be true? Channel News decided to find out.

First Glance, Build and Feel

One thing I love about Motorola is their ability to deliver the basics. Inside the box, you’ll receive a 20W charger and USB-C cable, a pair of headphones, a basic phone case, and of course the phone itself.

For a phone that’s under $300 bucks, the Moto G22 is an absolute stunner. You would never realize that the body is made of plastic thanks to a shiny matte black finish that reflects light really nicely. However, it is a bit of a fingerprint magnet. Otherwise, the phone itself feels solid in the hand, and build quality is fantastic, with no gaps between panels, no flexing when pressure is applied and no clicks or rattles.

Other features I noticed straight away was the AUX port, dual-sim capabilities, and expandable SD card storage. These are all features premium phones seem to miss out on, so they are always a welcome sight.

Credit: Trusted Reviews

Display

As is expected, the display on the Moto G22 is relatively standard, fitted with a 6.5-inch IPS display with a 720p resolution. A benefit of the low resolution is that the Moto G22 can (mostly) make use of the rather large 90Hz refresh rate it’s been given. Having a smooth display on a phone in this price range is a rarity, and a great move from Motorola. However, as you’ll soon find out, this was very rarely the case.

Issues with the display get worse when it comes to colour. On the ‘natural’ display setting, there is a strong orange tint that resembles a blue-light filter, only way stronger and you can’t turn it off. The ‘saturated’ setting is worlds better, but there still seems to be a slight orange tint that appears cheap. Motorola have allowed you to adjust the ‘temperature’ of the colour displayed, and I found that the display looked best on the saturated setting with the temperature on the lowest.

Brightness maxes out at just under 500 nits which made using the phone in harsh sunlight a bit of a pain, but overall doable.

Processor

By far, the biggest issue with the Moto G22 is its lack of power, thanks to its MediaTek Helio G37 and 4GB of RAM. At under $300 dollars, we weren’t expecting a supercomputer, but straight out of the box, navigation of the UI was stuttery, making the 90Hz refresh rate a bit of a fad most of the time. They may as well have fitted the phone with a wet napkin.

Things got worse after I had been using the device for some time and had installed some apps. Several times the display would refuse to turn on after locking, almost like it had woken up with its eyes still shut. Typing quickly was also next to impossible as the Moto G22 couldn’t keep up with my fingers, resulting in missed key inputs, spelling errors and unfinished messages. I was constantly correcting my own writing.

However, there were points when the phone became completely unusable. On a drive home, I tried to open up maps for navigation, and stream music via Spotify. This small task seemed too much for the Moto G22, as the entire UI crashed, and the phone restarted. Until I got home and was able to put the device on charge, it was insanely slow and unresponsive, and it took me a good 10 minutes just to get maps going. The phone made a recovery and returned to its standard sluggish speed.

There were also instances of visual glitches that scared me on several occasions. I remember taking the G22 out of my pocket, only to see that the colours were warped in a way that made it look like the screen was damaged or smashed. However, after locking and unlocking it again, it would return to normal.

While it is unlikely that all these issues are exclusively to do with the processor, the lack of power contributed to so many of these problems and was well and truly what lets this phone down the most.

Camera

The saving grace and probably best feature of the Moto G22 is its camera module. Fitted with a quad-camera array with a 50MP (f/1.8) main sensor, an 8MP ultrawide sensor with 118-degree FOV and dual 2MP macro and depth sensors.

For a camera in this price range, the photos it takes are unreal. The 50MP camera is able to pick up quite incredible detail, particularly when there is bountiful lighting.

As expected, low light images have quite a lot of visual noise, but even premium phones suffer from that.

The main reason to buy this phone in my eyes, therefore, is for a cheap phone that can take decent pictures.

Battery

The best thing about cheap phones is their whopping battery life. Thanks to smaller components with low power usage, there is much more room for battery. The Moto G22 has been fitted with a rather standard 5000mAh, which is 200mAh more than their excellent Edge 30 Pro flagship.

As a result, I found that if I woke up in the morning, used my phone all day and then went to bed and forgot to charge my phone, I would wake up with a good 30% battery remaining, which if used correctly, could last me the entire day.

Using the Moto G22, I loved not having to even think about battery life. As with all phones, over time the battery with deteriorate, but its nice having a device that just keeps on going.

Controls

Navigating the Moto G22, even when it was at its most responsive, was not without issues. Motorola had decided to abandon standard android back, home and overview buttons for touch controls. While they were quite intuitive, they often got in the way.

To go back on the Moto G22, one needs to simply swipe left from the very right of the screen, or right from the very left of the screen. This became quite a problem when swiping through photos or other things on apps, as I constantly found myself accidentally backing out of apps.

It was a strange decision for Motorola to change to these touch actions, that can’t be related to Android 12 as their flagship Edge 30 Pro hasn’t gotten rid of the tried and tested android buttons, and for good reason.

Options and Pricing

The Moto G22 comes with only one option of specs in Australia, with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of expandable storage. While overseas there is a wider variety of colour options, Aussies are left to choose between Cosmic Black and Pearl White. That being said, both colours look fantastic, particularly under lighting.

The Moto G22 has a RRP of $299 AUD, and is available from retailers such as Big W, JB Hi-Fi and The Good Guys.

Verdict

The Moto G22 had the potential to really top the budget market of phones but seems to fall short. A lack of power led to so many other issues that at times make it unusable. Despite this, there are a lot of things to love about the G22, with a stunning build and an even more stunning camera. It very much borrows its DNA from the previously released Moto G31, and with the specs being so similar, if you are after a 50MP camera in this price range, I would go for the slightly cheaper G31, which is available for $237 at Officeworks. You’ll just have to put up with Android 11. Otherwise, save yourself the trouble and up your budget just a tiny bit.

Pros Cons
·       Cheap

·       Looks great

·       Stunning 50MP main camera

·       SD card slot

·       AUX port

·       Long battery life

·       Dual-sim

·       Super slow processor

·       Touch controls are a nuisance

·       Vibration is ridiculous

·       Display has strange colours

·       Prone to many bugs and glitches

 

RATING: 6/10

 



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