The Moto G4 Plus aims to become one of the best mid-range mobiles of 2016 for its improvements at the screen, camera or battery level. In this review of the Moto G4 Plus we thoroughly analyze the mobile and solve the million question for its price increase: is it worth buying?
The renewal of the middle-range king
The Moto G family is renewed inside and out in this new version, somewhat special because it is the first after the acquisition of Motorola by Lenovo. Despite the purchase this iconic mobile keeps the Motorola seal although, however, it lands in the stores debuting nomenclature and with two different models: Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus.
Expectations remain very high for one of the best-selling mobiles in Spain in recent years. The Moto G 2015 managed to seduce a large part of the public because it was one of the best value android smartphones within the mid-range.
Of course the renovation of the Moto G family for this 2016 comes with the purest Android version, which is a reason for purchase for many users because it is a guarantee for future software updates.
It’s not official, but an advertising image from the company itself ensured that the new Moto G4 Plus that we take to analysis today will be updated to both Android N and Android O in one of the first news about the version of Google’s mobile operating system for 2017.
Among the new features of the Moto G4 Plus are improvements at the level of camera, battery or performance. The bad news is that we lose the IPX7 water resistance that the 2015 model had.
Design
At first glance it may not seem that it does not, but the differences between the Moto G 2015 and the Moto G4 Plus are significant at the design level. To start the mobile grows to 5.5 inches in both this premium and the most basic version, which implies the increase of its measurements.
Specifically the dimensions of the Moto G4 Plus are 153 x 76.6 x 9.8 millimeters with 155 grams of weight, which means that this new generation has managed to grow high and wide keeping the weight at bay. The bad news is that the grip is reduced a little by losing the curved feature of the previous model, with a maximum thickness that it stays quite far from what the high-end models offer.
The mid-range comes to light in the G4 Plus manufacturing materials where polycarbonate is once again the main protagonist although the feel to the touch is pleasant for the finish of its rear shell, a diagonal relief that does not slip or leave the footprints marked.
As was therefore the Moto G 2015 we do not have physical buttons, but this time we find a box that makes the times of fingerprint reader just below the screen. It works quite well, very fast and with a low error rate, but we find two problems.
On the one hand I find it much more suitable to place the fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone, as LG does for example, because it is quite ergonomic and allows to reduce the bottom frame of the front.
Of course it is a personal perception, but it also does not help that this sensor does not do the times of button, since in more than once we will press the sensor waiting for a response from the screen that will never arrive. A matter of tastes anyway.
The left side of the terminal is completely bare, while on the right bezel we find the volume buttons next to the unlock/off button in a perfect position, whether you are going to operate the mobile with the left hand or with the right hand.
We only find the headphone input on a fairly clean top edge, although we should point out that the helmets are not included as standard in the sales box. On the other side, on the bottom edge, we have the microUSB 2.0 port and a small slit that allows us to open the rear casing.
The Moto G4 Plus is a complete Dual SIM mobile, that is, we have three differentiated slots to introduce two phone cards and a microSD to expand memory, which is fantastic news. On the other end, this generation is no longer water resistant as was the case with the Moto G 2015, which was IPX7 certified.
In short, the mobile changes at the design level bound both by the increase of the diagonal of the screen and the incorporation of the fingerprint reader, two of the main novelties of the Moto G4 Plus, which is again a compact and quite functional terminal as in old generations, although probably a little rougher.
Screen
The Moto G4 Plus’s display grows to 5.5 inches on an IPS LCD panel that serves Full HD resolution with a density of 401 pixels per inch. The bad news is that the screen frames are generous again, although slightly less than in the Moto G 2015, with a screen/body ratio of 71.2 percent.
Among the good news stands out the Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection that offers us a guarantee against scratches and falls, so in principle you don’t have to worry about carrying your phone in your pocket or purse next to the keys.
The brightness level is above the average for the price range we are talking about, 772 nits according to the tests carried out by our colleagues in Germany, and the same goes for viewing angles as we have seen in the comparison between the Moto G4 Plus and the Huawei P9 Lite, another of the benchmarks of the mid-range.
The color reproduction reaches the remarkable, although perhaps for some users the saturation is a little high and we only have two options to modify the color temperature: normal or intense, without the possibility of performing a manual calibration.
Another of the most interesting features of the Moto G4 Plus is the possibility to check the notifications with the screen off, an extra function that until now seemed reserved for the high-end and that reflects
Either way we are talking about a screen that defends itself very well and is suitable for consuming multimedia contents, another step forward from the Moto G 2015.
Performance
The Moto G4 Plus hides inside an eight-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 processor (Cortex A53) at 1.5 GHz released in late 2015 that also use other mobiles such as the HTC One A9 or Alcatel Idol 4.
The GPU has been updated from the Adreno 306 to the Adreno 405 that takes the experience of running video games a step, without getting close to what the best mobiles of 2016 can offer.
The RAM moria is also growing to 2 GB, which is excellent news although unfortunately Lenovo has not chosen for the Spanish market the models equipped with 3 or 4 GB of RAM.
The performance tests and benchmarks of the Moto G4 Plus that we have carried out in this review yield discreet results, especially in the face of the ‘Plus’ tag that carries the phone with it. Specifically, it moves in values close to the Samsung Galaxy S5 by testing its multicore capability in Geekbench while in AnTuTu it moves in the line of other mid-range, although it far surpasses the 3rd generation Moto G.
During our tests to perform the analysis of the Moto G4 Plus we have detected some slowness both when it comes to running very demanding Real Racing 3 video games and when wearing multitasking to the maximum, which to some extent is logical since we are not talking about a flagship. However, the experience will be positive and fluid for the vast majority of users looking for a functional phone without spending a fortune.
On the other hand the internal storage reaches up to 16 GB, of which there are about 10.82 GB free for the user, which can be expanded through a microSD card by an additional 128 GB.
Software
One of the main reasons to buy the Moto G4 Plus is the software, since the terminal guarantees a virtually pure Android experience with all the good and the bad – yes, there is – that entails.
Mobile of course reaches stores with Android 6.0.1, being predictably the first terminals to receive the update to Android N. A kind of life insurance that guarantees us that our smartphone will last more than two years if we treat it properly, so it is a rather interesting investment for our pocket.