Motorola Moto G8 Play smartphone review with key features

Motorola is one of the clearest examples of commitment. After being one of the successful ones for several decades, the brand ran into difficulties and disappeared from sight for a while. But now we can observe the confident attempts of the company to return its gadgets to the rating of high-quality and popular models.

As you know, Motorola had a release of the Moto G7 in February, and no one expected anything from the company before 2024. And here we have a novelty of the autumn Moto G8 Play, even if it does not surprise with the latest technologies, but a spacious battery and a good camera are also good.

Motorola brand

Motorola is a company with almost a century history of existence, because the date of its foundation falls on 1925.

It all started with five employees who were engaged in the production of power supplies for radio receivers. In the 30s, the Motorola trademark was born, producing radio receivers. And so developing, year after year, decade after decade, the company releases the world's first pager, then the world's first portable cell phone. The parameters of Motorola DynaTAC 8000X were 22.5x12.5x3.75 cm (if we take into account the antenna, the length was 25 cm), the weight of the "baby" was about 1.15 kg.

The firm opened its representative office in Russia in 1993. In the 2000s, the company had about 1,000 employees. But on January 1, 2011, the sales office was closed, thus the brand gave up its place in the Russian market in the field of mobile phones to others.

In the same 2011, Motorola split into Motorola Solutions and Motorola Mobility, the latter responsible for the development of mobile phones and operating systems.

In 2012, Google bought Motorola Mobility, and in 2015 it was bought by the Chinese company Lenovo. And already in 2016 the brand returned to the Russian market.

The Motorola brand, more precisely Moto, has several lines, each of which has its own characteristics and pricing policy.

• Moto C - a line of budget smartphones with good performance and security updates;
• Moto E - the middle segment, which focuses on the quality and style of the case;
• Moto G - the devices of this line have a good filling, the ability to update Android and all this at affordable prices;
• Moto X - gadgets designed for young people, they are bright, nimble and not quite budget
• Moto Z - flagships with Moto MODS modules that expand the capabilities of the phone.

We will focus on the line, so to speak, the golden mean of Moto G, which pleases with security updates, bug fixes and OS updates.

Motorola Moto G8 Play review

You can be convinced of the popularity of the models in the G line simply by looking at the number of smartphones sold.
The new Moto G8 Play was presented on October 24, 2019 in Brazil, as this model is scheduled to debut in the Latin American market.

The start of sales in Latin America took place on the day of the announcement. In other countries, sales will begin a little later.

The gadget raises a number of questions, in particular, why with the chipset - MediaTek Helio P70M, the RAM is only 2 GB. And this is not the only question, but about everything in order.

Equipment

The equipment section is not the most creative and unexpected, but it carries its share of information content.

The package includes:

• the gadget itself;
• Charger;
• USB cable (typical cord length);
• mini paper clip for easy removal of the SIM card;
• Silicone Case;
• headphones;
• documentation.

The TurboPower 18W Charging Adapter will shorten the recharge time.

Design

The body is made of aluminum alloy and plastic, the body type is monoblock.

The smartphone will be released in two colors: onyx black and purple red.

The phone is supposed to fit quite comfortably in the hand, having the following dimensions:

• length - 157.6 mm;
• width - 75.4 mm;
• thickness - 9 mm;
• weight - 183.6 g.

Due to the increase in battery performance, the weight of the new model has increased by 12 grams. This will not pump up a muscle group, but the fact remains.

Screen

The HD + display is equipped with an IPS LCD matrix with a resolution of 720x1520, a pixel density per inch - 271 ppi. The gadget has realistic color reproduction with a margin of brightness, with large viewing angles, with the ability to view information in the sun.

The manufacturer has released a device with a screen diagonal of 6.2 inches, where the aspect ratio is 19: 9. 80.7% of the front panel of the phone is working or, as it is also called, useful.

Thus, it is suitable for different pastimes, such as surfing the Internet or watching movies.

The front camera is snugly housed in a classic waterdrop notch, the main one is located on the rear panel in the left corner.

Considering the screen parameters, we can say that this is not the strongest side of the G8 Play, but for the most standard actions and at such a price, why not. Let's move on to the software.

Filling

The operating system here is Android 9.0 (Pie), which is somewhat strange, because the Moto G7 Power has the same OS version.

Chipset Mediatek MT6771 Helio P70M (12nm) for a phone in the budget segment is quite worthy. This is sufficient for most applications and some games. And by the way, 12nm technology speaks of support for artificial intelligence systems.

We installed an 8-core processor here: 4 Cortex-A73 cores with a frequency of 2.1 GHz and 4 Cortex-A53 cores with a frequency of 2 GHz. The processor capacity is 64-bit.

Equipped the gadget with the ARM Mali-G72 MP3 graphics accelerator, so that the picture in games and when watching videos is even better.

The RAM, which has already been mentioned, is surprisingly 2 GB, the internal memory is 32 GB. There is a slot for memory cards, and the maximum size of a flash drive can be 512 GB.

The functionality is generally good, if not for the "RAM", which is hardly suitable for active games, for large applications too. On the other hand, not everyone is chasing productive and nimble gadgets; the Moto G8 Play model will surely fall under someone's selection criteria.

Autonomy

The rechargeable battery holds 4000 mAh. Battery type - Li-Ion, i.e. lithium-ion. The battery charge can last for two days.

The battery is equipped with TurboPower technology, in other words, fast charging.

Thanks to the large battery, the user can worry less about charging.

Camera

The main or rear camera appears as a triple unit: with a resolution of 13MP - f / 2.0, with a resolution of 8MP - f / 2.2 (wide-angle) and with a resolution of 2MP - f / 2.2 (with a depth sensor).

There is an LED flash, autofocus, panoramic shooting, touch focus, etc.

Front - single camera, has a resolution of 8MP.

Ahead of questions on how the device takes pictures or how the device takes pictures at night, is there sharpness, let's say that it's enough just to see examples of photos just below.

Communications

Everything, as always and everywhere, is the presence of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS.

NFC technology is absent, although the G lines usually do not skimp on this module.

But there is a fingerprint scanner located on the back of the smartphone, that is, unlocking takes place without any particular difficulties.

Price policy

The average price is 13,000 rubles.

Different sources give different information, somewhere around $ 196.95, where $ 240. The last figure is the cost of the novelty in Latin America.

The questions of exactly how much it costs and where it is profitable to buy remain open rather than vice versa. In any case, the official website, online stores, chain stores, online trading platforms are those places whose assortment must be monitored first of all in anticipation of a new item.

Specifications

For a visual and convenient study of all the main parameters of the Moto G8 Play, we will make a small information table.

Positive and negative sides

The review of the G8 Play model, or rather its filling, evokes ambiguous feelings. Perhaps, if we summarize and highlight the pros and cons separately, it will become clearer how to relate to this gadget.

• screen aspect ratio;
• capacious rechargeable battery;
• interesting appearance;
• price.

• matrix;
• not the latest operating system;
• the amount of RAM;
• cameras.

It turns out the pros and cons are the same, but do not forget about the price and reliability of phones from Motorola, even despite the changes in gadgets that occur under the influence of the parent company - Lenovo.

Outcome

Against the background of all the changes that have occurred with Motorola Mobility, against the background of all the rumors that surround the company, they may not become the best smartphone manufacturers again, but they are trying. The release of the Moto G8 Play and G8 Plus is one of the proofs. How to choose between these models or a gadget, which company is better to buy? It all depends on what your smartphone is for you, and what share of the budget you are willing to spend on it.

The novelty of autumn G8 Play is a high-quality budget, rather than a fancy smartphone or an excellent camera phone.

If the review did not answer your questions or did not eliminate doubts, then it is better to wait for more diverse reviews and decide for yourself whether your smartphone is Motorola Moto G8 Play or is it worth looking for another option.