Practical, reasonable, sensible. These may not be the exact terms you'd like to use when describing your tech. But when the pound’s prospects are crumbling like leftover Christmas biscuits, the “sensible” choice may pay off. The Moto G7 family is full of them.
This year the Moto G range is fully populated from day one. Four Moto G phones will be available from March 1, at prices ranging from £149 to £269. And while all four will run Android 9 Pie and stick to Moto's familiar styling, complete with fingerprint sensors and headphone jacks all round, each has a distinct appeal.
Next to the long-lasting Power and highly affordable Play, the standard £239 Motorola Moto G7 is in danger of seeming a little vanilla. However, it’s the cheapest model with a high-end flavour.
The Moto G7’s rear is real curved glass. Its sides are aluminium and its 6.2-inch teardrop notch screen looks sharp thanks to a 2270 x 1080 pixel resolution. It's also water resistant to IP54.
This is the point at which budget phones start to look and feel like high-end ones. Motorola’s looming potential problem is that Honor and Xiaomi offer a similar effect for under £200. However, after six years of highly regarded, reliable mobiles, the Moto G’s brand weight can arguably offset a £40 difference.
The Moto G7 is also the first in the series to have an optically stabilised camera, with a 12-megapixel sensor and secondary depth camera. Adding OIS should radically improve night photo quality.
The Motorola Moto G7 Play is the most affordable, at £149. It has some of the same cutbacks as last year’s highly regarded Moto G6 Play. The back is plastic with a finish that loosely emulates textured glass. At 1512 x 720 pixels the resolution of the 5.7-inch screen is distinctly lower than Full HD.
In some ways it’s an even lower-end phone that its predecessor, offering conventional 3000mAh battery capacity rather than a 4000mAh cell. However, Motorola has lowered the price even further to compete with the highly aggressive pricing tactics of Honor and UK newcomer Xiaomi.
The Motorola Moto G7 Power keeps those elements traded away for a lower price in the Play, and costs £179 just like the Moto G6 Play did at launch. High battery capacity is the main draw. A 5000mAh cell should last 2.5 days, according to Motorola’s own estimates.
A Turbo Charger is also bundled to avoid head-bangingly slow charge times. The G7 Power also has a larger 6.2-inch screen with a petite notch, and should prove popular among heavy phone users with light purses. Like the G7 Play it has a plastic rear, one that mimics standard glossy glass rather than textured glass.
All three of these phones are powered by the Snapdragon 632 CPU, a processor so recent we haven’t used a phone with one to date.
Read more: The best budget smartphone and cheap phones in 2021
The Moto G7 Plus sits at the top of the range. But, unlike the G6 generation, there’s no major size difference between it and the Moto G7. Both have 6.2-inch screens and similar designs.
Any familial in-fighting is minimised by Motorola’s sales strategy, though. In the UK, the Moto G7 is an Amazon exclusive, eliminating the headaches of the mobile networks buyers who choose which phones to range.
There are three major benefits to the Moto G7 Plus, which at £269 is £30 more than the vanilla G7. It has what purports to be a more advanced camera setup, including a 16-megapixel optically stabilised main sensor, faster f/1.7 lens and 5-megapixel depth sensor.
The Moto G7 Plus also has a more powerful processor than the G7, the Snapdragon 636, and a quicker 27W Turbo Charger adapter.
You’ll also be able to buy the Moto G7 Plus in a striking red finish as well as black and white. However, as closer propositions than last year’s models, Motorola’s decision to separate this pair on shelves seems well, sensible.
The Moto G7 Play (£149), Moto G7 Power (£179), Moto G7 (£239) and Moto G7 Plus (£269) will be available from March 1.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
