Motorola Moto G15 review: Big battery, small price tag

Smartphones are costly, with even our present choose for the very best finances smartphone costing greater than £200.

The worth proposition of your common handset is plain – these items just about run each facet of our lives – however laying down lots of of kilos on something is an enormous ask for many individuals. That’s the place telephones just like the Moto G15 are available.

For just below £140, Motorola is providing you all of the fundamentals of smartphone possession: a big and suitably sharp show, an ample digicam, a big battery, and even a reassuringly stylish design.

Why would you wish to splash out for something extra? As ever with such cash saving propositions, the satan is within the element, and also you largely get what you pay for. Right here’s my full evaluation.

Design & Construct

• Stylish, fashionable Motorola design
• Grippy faux-leather again
• IP54 certification

Motorola has extra expertise making top quality low-cost telephones than anybody. Its Moto G collection has been a go- to call for dependable finances handsets for years now.

That’s why it’s able to making a telephone just like the Moto G15 – a solidly constructed, stylish trying handset that appears (from sure angles) very very similar to telephones that promote for double the cash.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Motorola has used its modern-day design language right here. From the again the Moto G15 seems precisely just like the Moto G85, and even the £600 Moto Edge 50 Professional.

You will have the identical gently bulging digicam module, and even a well-known faux-leather materials that aids grip and minimises paw prints. You gained’t discover one other sub-£150 telephone that feels this good.

My take a look at mannequin is available in a sober shade of Gravity Gray, however you possibly can specify one thing extra eye-catching within the type of Iguana Inexperienced and Dawn Orange.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

From the entrance, issues are barely much less spectacular, which big show bezels and a ginormous chin. Nonetheless, a minimum of you get a correct gap punch notch, fairly than the dated teardrop resolution that some low-cost telephones stick with.

It’s not a small telephone by any means, with dimensions of 165.67 x 75.98 x 8.17mm and a weight of 190g belying its all-plastic supplies. Certain sufficient, have to essentially go some to make it flex or creak, and the supply of IP54 mud and water resistance is fairly good for the cash.

Display screen & Audio system

• 6.72-inch LCD show
• FHD+ decision
• Solely 60Hz refresh price
• Stereo audio system with Dolby Atmos help

One of many first indicators that you just’re coping with a really low-cost telephone comes once you first boot the display screen up. Apart from the aforementioned chunky bezels, it quickly turns into obvious that you just’re coping with an LCD panel, versus the OLED you’ll discover on the overwhelming majority of telephones over £200.

With out the colourful properties of OLED, media content material seems considerably washed out right here, with murky greys taking the place of deep blacks, and a relative lack of distinction.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Motorola has commendably nonetheless been in a position to implement an ambient show of kinds, so you possibly can see the time and any notification indicators once you faucet the display screen, but it surely’s achieved by making the show virtually unusably dim.

Whereas the Moto G15’s display screen is considerably hobbled from the off, it does get pleasure from being massive (6.72 inches) and sharp (1080 x 2400, FHD+), the latter of which isn’t a given once you’re spending lower than £150.

It additionally will get moderately vibrant, with an Additional Brightness choice lending much more on sunny days, must you want it.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

The one actual bum word right here, contemplating the cash you’re paying, is the supply of a mere 60Hz refresh price. Except you’re Apple, this seems like a specification from one other period totally.

Seen from one other perspective, nevertheless, I counsel that this can be a wise provision given the restricted nature of the Moto G15’s processor. What’s the purpose of a clean show if the telephone is fighting easy duties?

The Moto G15’s audio provision is surprisingly robust. You get correct stereo audio system, together with help for Dolby Atmos and a touch of Bass Enhance. You’ll nonetheless wish to hook up a set of headphones (there’s an old-fashioned 3.5mm jack if that’s your choice) when attainable, however there’s a good quantity of depth and separation for a telephone of this value.

Specs & Efficiency

• MediaTek Helio G81
• 4GB LPDDR4X RAM
• 128GB storage plus MicroSDXC growth

In most of the ways in which rely, Motorola has labored its restricted finances efficiently to offer you a strong approximation of a contemporary smartphone expertise. However it evidently had to attract the road when it got here to efficiency, and it finally proves the Moto G15’s undoing.

Chipsets contribute a good quantity to the invoice of supplies, so Motorola has been pressured to compromise with a humble MediaTek Helio G81. This creaky 12nm part merely isn’t as much as the duty of driving a contemporary telephone fluidly, even with the show caught at a mere 60Hz. The availability of simply 4GB of RAM can’t assist right here.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Utilizing the Moto G15 will probably be a painful expertise for anybody used to one thing extra. And I’m not even speaking about flagship telephones right here, however fairly something retailing for round £250.

The straightforward act of flitting between residence screens and menus is accompanied by a noticeable quantity of chug and stutter; loading media-rich web sites takes an additional beat or two; and leaping into the digicam app utilizing Motorola’s double twist gesture appears to take an age.

Our benchmark checks again this up, with a Geekbench 6 multi-core consequence that falls 50% in need of even the standard Samsung Galaxy A16 5G – not a degree of efficiency that any telephone would want to aspire to.

GPU efficiency is even worse, with the Moto G15 reaching round half the body price of the Galaxy A16 5G (and certainly the older Galaxy A15 5G and A14 5G). It could’t even match the year-old Moto G04 with its sub-£100 RRP.

Motorola Moto G15 benchmarks

Cameras

• 50Mp primary digicam
• 5Mp ultrawide
• 8Mp selfie digicam

If Motorola has didn’t make a telephone that punches above its weight in efficiency phrases, it has a minimum of equipped a digicam system that may produce acceptable outcomes for the cash.

It’s gratifying to see that the corporate has averted the pointless frippery of gimmicky further sensors right here. You merely get a 50Mp f/1.8 primary sensor and a 5Mp ultra-wide, with no foolish stat-padding macro digicam or depth sensor in sight.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

The primary digicam gained’t impress anybody who’s used a telephone within the £200 or increased vary earlier than, however nor does it shame itself. In good lighting, the G15 produces acceptable – that’s, shareable – snaps that deal with publicity and implement auto-HDR adequately. The color tone within reason pure, and I used to be fairly proud of pores and skin tones and certainly a devoted portrait mode that separates the topic moderately nicely.

Meals photographs in a nicely lit restaurant produced tasty-looking, pure phots, however as quickly as the sunshine dropped additional issues quickly fell aside. Night time mode appears wholly insufficient right here. Whereas it compensates for the dearth of brightness, the noise ranges are excessive.

The 5Mp ultra-wide is a really poor performer, exhibiting a pronounced drop off intimately, evident indicators of overexposure, and a usually extra over-processed color tone.

The 8Mp selfie digicam isn’t as much as a lot both. The tone is on level, however I seen an disagreeable over-sharpened impact on my face.

Video seize, in the meantime, maxes out at a meagre 1080p and 30fps. The shortage of OIS proves troublesome, because it does with these evening photographs.

Battery Life & Charging

• 5200mAh battery
• 18W wired charging
• No charger in field

Motorola has gone just a little additional than regular with its battery provision, packing the Moto G15 out with a 5200mAh cell.

Along with such a humble 60Hz show and a low-power (if not massively environment friendly) processor, it’s sufficient to grant the Moto G15 two days of utilization with mild to average utilization. Which, as we’ve mentioned, is probably going all you’ll wish to be subjecting the telephone to.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

In a day of average utilization, with round 3 hours and 20 minutes of display screen on time, I discovered that I used to be left with between 50 and 60% left – greater than sufficient to maintain me by way of an entire second day.

Not that it’s all excellent news on the stamina entrance. Within the PCMark World 3.0 battery take a look at, which simulates battery load below combined working surroundings, the Moto G15 lasted simply 11 hours and 38 minutes. That’s just a little higher than the Samsung Galaxy A16 5G, however a number of hours lower than the CMF Telephone 1, and greater than an hour lower than the Poco X7.

The telephone helps as much as 18W wired charging, however you’ll want to provide your personal energy brick. Utilizing an appropriate third occasion charger, it took a fairly ponderous 45 minutes to get from empty previous the half method mark, and simply shy of 1 hour 45 minutes for a full cost.

Software program & Options

• Android 15
• Near inventory UI
• Solely two years of software program updates

Motorola’s software program is famously light-weight and refined, and Android 15 is permitted to do its factor largely with out interference right here.

Menus and icons are all largely as Google meant, although I’m not an enormous fan of the default font Motorola has gone with. It doesn’t present a lot visible differentiation between daring and common textual content, which makes the Gmail inbox robust to navigate.

Sadly, there are some unwelcome indicators of intervention from Motorola as nicely. On the Moto G15, I used to be fairly irritated to have the New Apps service foisted upon me.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

The positioning of this service appears just a little disingenuous. “Strive three apps which might be new to you, delivered month-to-month and with system updates” reads the blurb. Sounds positively useful, no?

What it really quantities to is a thinly veiled further income stream for Motorola. The primary three apps that I used to be furnished with below the initiative have been low-cost and cheerful buying app Temu and two horrible video games – three apps that might scarcely be farther from what I might select for myself.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Motorola was annoyingly insistent with this too, bombarding me with notifications to strive the New Apps service instantly from set-up. Add this to a bunch of standard bloat – Reserving.com, Faceboook, Opera, extra dangerous video games – and this isn’t fairly the super-clean UI we as soon as knew.

From what I’ve learn, Motorola’s replace plan isn’t too scorching right here both. No additional Android variations are promised, together with solely two years of safety patches.

Motorola’s UI stays one of many nicest to make use of in your complete finances telephone area, but it surely’s not fairly the out and out plus level it was once.

Worth & Availability

The Moto G15 is on the market straight from the Motorola web site, in addition to third occasion retailers similar to Amazon and Argos, for a value of simply £139.99.

No UK networks are providing the machine on contract, so that you’ll must pair it with a SIM deal. And there’s no availability within the US in any way, except you’re keen to threat importing one.

Apparently, that outright value doesn’t make it one of many very least expensive telephones available on the market. Motorola itself sells the Moto E15 for simply £70, for instance.

Nonetheless, that is nonetheless downright low-cost in our books, with most mainstream finances telephones tending to be launched across the £200 mark.

At this sub-£150 value, the Moto G15 solely has a small collection of rivals, together with the Xiaomi Redmi 14C and the Oppo A40, each of which retail for £129. The 4G model of the Galaxy A16 can be price contemplating, although it’s £169.

Must you purchase the Moto G15?

The Moto G15 isn’t a very good telephone, but it surely’s additionally not a very dangerous sub-£150 telephone. Actually, with its nice design, clear UI, first rate battery life, and large sharp display screen, there’s so much to love.

However the efficiency is distinctly sub-par, the show isn’t fluid or OLED, and there are even a few annoying parts to Motorola’s often well-judged software program – together with a poor replace promise. In the meantime, the digicam and battery life are completely ample, however definitely nothing to write down residence about.

If the Moto G15 signifies something, it’s that spending lower than £200 on a model new telephone isn’t such good worth as it’d appear to be. You’re higher off spending the identical cash on an older however extra premium telephone as an alternative.

Specs

• Android 15
• 6.72-inch, FHD+, LCD, 60Hz, flat show
• Facet-mounted fingerprint sensor
• MediaTek Helio G81
• 4GB LPDDR4X RAM
• 128GB storage
• 50Mp, f/1.8 primary digicam
• 5Mp, f/2.4 ultra-wide digicam
• As much as 1080p @ 30fps rear video
• 8Mp front-facing digicam
• Stereo audio system
• Twin-SIM
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
• Bluetooth 5.0
• 5200mAh battery
• 18W charging
• 165.67 x 75.98 x 8.17 mm
• 190g
• Launch colors: Gravity Gray, Iguana Inexperienced, Dawn Orange