Moto G5S Plus Review: Best Android smartphone under Rs 20000

Lenovo has launched a swarm of smartphones this year and not all of them have seen stardom. In fact very few of them have come out to be good. The haste-makes-waste jargon somehow seems to fit perfectly as the company launched phones one after the other, week after week with no focus on quality or consumer requirement.

The Moto G5S Plus is one of the few successful models launched in the beginning of the year. But just a few months down the line, it announced special edition of the phone with a bumped up price tag. They were really under immense criticism until its India price was announced, which was quite shocking. At just a Rs 1000 more, Motorola offered full metal design, better cameras, bigger display and a higher internal storage. That seemed too good to be true. But it isn’t.

Priced at Rs 15,999, the Moto G5S Plus has an all metal unibody design, like the Moto Z series. Unlike the Moto G5 Plus, that has a plastic back (a cheaper way to integrate antennas) or the Xiaomi Mi A1 that feels to be forged in thin metal, the Moto G5S Plus has a solid, full metal build. Though, it looks quite ugly.

The Nokia 6, or even the Nokia 5, has a more premium looking design that I would call original. The Moto G5S Plus just looks like a recycled design. Motorola probably decided the dual cameras were enough to make a difference and a dimple below it would re-ignite the long lost love.

Above all, the phone is chunky and feels thicker in the hand when compared with Xiaomi Mi A1 or the Nokia 6. It isn’t bad to hold, but not great either, doesn’t give a slim phone feel you would expected from a fancy mid-ranger.

Like with construction quality, the other components are also good, marking a difference with the Mi A1. Moto G5S Plus has a 5.5 inch Full HD IPS panel that is bright enough for outdoor viewing. It has a 2.5D curved Corning Gorilla Glass 3 on top and the touchscreen feels smoother and the colour production is far more vivid and vibrant. For gaming or watching movies, the Moto G5S Plus strides ahead of both Nokia 6 and Mi A1.

The phone houses Snapdragon 625 chipset with 4GB RAM and 64GB of internal storage. The combo is the fastest performing hardware available for the price. Though the phone handles graphic intensive stuff with quite an ease, it is really due to a well-optimised stock Android interface that the phone is able to deliver premium, lag-free experience out of the box.

Like the G5 Plus, the G5S Plus is also optimized for churning out a good battery life. It lasts for a day and half on extensive use, even after a bump in the screen size. It also supports fast charging and ships with the propriety fast charger Moto includes with its phones. The Moto G5S Plus charges fully within 90 minutes.

Moto has been using stock interface since long and it has brought subtle but very thoughtful changes to the software. It won’t be wrong to say that the user experience on the Moto G5S Plus is similar to what you get on its more expensive devices like the Moto Z2 Play. The only thing slow on the phone is the camera shutter.

Moto G5S Plus has dual 13MP sensors on the rear with f/2.0 aperture. The dual camera setup works this way – the main camera captures the image while the second sensor just captures depth data. This happens only when you specifically turn on the ‘Depth enabled’ mode. The photos get a blurry background to give it a DSLR-like feel. Though it is far from a DSLR photo, you do manage to get clean shots, unlike many similar dual camera setups that ruin the subject they keep in focus.

Feels like a gimmick? More or less it is. I won’t have the time and patience to get such photos. The dual camera setup on the Mi A1 is far superior as it uses two different focal lengths on each sensor giving a nicer depth perspective.

But,in the usual mode, the Moto G5S Plus takes more superior shots than both the Mi A1 and the Nokia 6, especially in low light. The colour production is slightly better and you get more details. In low light, Mi A1 photos taken from Mi A1 have a lot of noise, which doesn’t appear on the Moto.

Similar is the case with the front camera that captures better details, skin tone, light and colours than that on the other two phones. It is slightly slow while taking the photos may get you blurry shots at times in the first go. And that is the only major drawback with the phone’s camera.

Verdict

Moto G5S Plus is not only a complete package from Motorola coming after a long time but also an Android phone that ticks everything you could ask for in this price range. It does have a few gimmicks and the not much is unique or novel. But at this price point it doesn’t hurt. Rather, a solid full metal design, brilliant display, well-performing hardware stacked under the hood, improved rear and front cameras that no phone could match in the price and fine battery life for a charge give this phone a place that few phones have reached this year.