Review of Moto G5S Plus and Moto G5S

Lenovo’s Moto G series is known for its value for money products. And Indian customers have accepted these handsets with open arms. Since 2014, 70 lakh Moto G handsets have been sold in India. The fifth generation devices of this series, Moto G5 and Moto G5 Plus, were launched in India a few months ago. These are still available in the market and in the meantime Lenovo has launched special editions of both the handsets in the market.

The new Moto G5S and Moto G5S Plus handsets were launched in India last month. Both the handsets promise new features and upgrades. This year has been very busy for the Motorola brand. Moto E, Moto C and Moto Z handsets have been launched in India. On the other hand, Moto X4 was recently launched in the international market. Lenovo has cited the increasing challenges in the Rs 15,000 price segment as the main reason behind introducing the new G series handsets. At the same time, customers are also not avoiding spending too much. Will this strategy work for Lenovo? Let’s find out.

Moto G5S Plus and Moto G5S design

Lenovo sees its Moto G devices as value for money products rather than low-priced, high-spec handsets. These phones are functional and robust, but have never been known for their beauty. The Moto G5 and G5 Plus were the first phones in the company’s Moto G series to feature a fair bit of metal. The company has taken this strategy further with the special edition devices.

Recent Moto devices follow a similar design language. There is nothing wrong with that. Both phones have fingerprint readers on the front panel which work flawlessly. The front panels of both handsets are almost identical.

The old-style Micro-USB port is at the bottom of the phone. The speaker grille and microphone are placed on either side of it. There is a circular bulge for the camera which houses the sensor and flash module. The familiar Moto logo is in the middle and the antenna bands are still clearly visible. Overall, the Moto G5S and Moto G5S Plus look much better than the older variants. Both the handsets are safe from minor water splashes as they come with nano coating.

Compared to the Moto G5 Plus (Review), the Moto G5S Plus is wider and has a bigger screen. This phone is not suitable for single-handed use. The weight of 168 grams is manageable. On the other hand, the Moto G5S has excellent build quality and the design is such that it is comfortable to use with one hand. At 157 grams, this phone feels light for its body.

The Moto G5S Plus has a 5.5-inch full-HD screen with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. It is a bright panel. Text and images look crisp. Colours pop on the screen. We have no complaints about it. Viewing angles and brightness levels are also fine.

Moto G5S has a 5.2-inch full-HD screen. It also has Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. It is made for daily use. Brightness is decent. However, its panel was reflecting more than we liked. We had trouble reading on it in direct sunlight. Due to this, we had to repeatedly increase the brightness to the maximum level. Viewing angles are good but we faced a lot of trouble in outdoor use.

Both the phones come in a green retail box with “special edition” clearly written on the front. This makes it clear that these phones are upgrades to the fifth generation Moto G phones. You will get a Turbo Power charging adapter, micro-USB cable, SIM ejector tool and headset.

Moto G5S Plus and Moto G5S Specifications and Software

The Moto G5S Plus sports a 5.5-inch full-HD (1080×1920 pixels) IPS LCD display. It is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 octa-core processor paired with 4GB of RAM.

The dual rear camera feature of Moto G5S Plus is being heavily marketed. Moto G5S Plus has two 13 megapixel rear cameras on the back. Both have an aperture of F/2.0. You will get a color correcting dual LED flash along with depth editing software. On the front panel there is an 8 megapixel sensor with F 2.0 aperture. It is a wide angle lens and comes with LED flash.

The inbuilt storage is 64 GB and if needed, it is possible to use a micro SD card up to 128 GB. Moto G5S Plus has two nano SIM slots. Due to the hybrid slot, one of these slots will work as a microSD card slot. The connectivity features of the handset include 4G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS / A-GPS, Micro-USB and 3.5 headphone jack. The battery of the smartphone is 3000 mAh. Due to TurboPower charger, you will get up to 6 hours of battery life in just 15 minutes of charge. The weight of this handset is 168 grams and the dimensions are 153.5×76.2×8 millimeters.

Now let’s talk about the smaller variant. Moto G5S has a 5.2 inch full-HD screen. It also has Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. Moto G5S has 4 GB RAM with Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 octa-core chipset. The inbuilt storage is 32 GB and you will be able to use a micro AC card up to 128 GB. Lenovo has also talked a lot about the single camera of Moto G5S. There is a 16 megapixel sensor on the back which is equipped with F 2.0 aperture, phase detection auto focus and LED flash. A 5 megapixel camera is provided on the front panel. The connectivity features of this smartphone include 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS / A-GPS, Micro-USB and 3.5 mm headphone jack. The battery of this smartphone is also 3000 mAh and turbo charger will also be available. The weight is 157 grams and the dimensions are 150×73.5×8.2 millimeters.

Both the handsets run on Android 7.1 Nougat which is not the latest Android version available in the market today. Like other Moto devices, the Moto G5S and Moto G5S Plus also have some software features from Motorola.
You will get many useful features of Android 7.1 Nougat, such as the ability to perform quick actions by long tapping on the app icon. Split screen multitasking feature will be available. Both phones will give almost stock Android experience, with slight Motorola touches. You will get software features like Moto Actions and Moto Display. With the help of Moto Actions, you will be able to activate OneNote Nav. After this, you will be able to navigate the screen through the fingerprint sensor. Under Moto Display, users will be able to activate Night Display mode which reduces blue light. Apart from this, it fades in and out notifications in standby mode.

Moto devices are among the few non-Google smartphones that receive Android security updates. So you can be assured of future software updates. Moto G5S and Moto G5S Plus will also not get any unwanted apps.

Cameras of Moto G5S Plus and Moto G5S

The Indian market is flooded with dual camera smartphones. The Moto G5S Plus is the latest member of this club. It works. It took us a while to get used to its dual camera setup. You have the option to edit photos after taking them but the photos still need some polishing. In depth shots taken in good light, the background is blurred enough. But the edges don’t look clearly defined. Lenovo needs to work on this. On the other hand, the Moto G5S Plus seems more capable of low light photography than the Xiaomi Mi A1. We were able to take decent shots in low light with a good amount of detail and controlled noise levels.

Even regular shots taken in good light had natural colours and textures. Landscape shots taken with the Moto G5S Plus also came out well. The HDR mode also works well. However, we found that highlights sometimes appeared overexposed in bright conditions.

We believe that in low-light conditions, the Moto G5S Plus performs better than the current challenges.

The camera on the Moto G5S is much better than the Moto G5. With phase detection autofocus, the Moto G5S gets the right exposure and is accurate in autofocusing most of the times. There was no lack of detail in outdoor shots. But highlights sometimes seemed overexposed. The Moto G5S does a great job at macro shots. We were able to take some great close-up shots, even better than the Moto G5S Plus. Landscape shots are average. Indoor shots had some shortcomings. There was no detail in shadows or dark areas. The Moto G5S camera falls short in low light. There was a lot of noise in our sample shots.

Moto G5S Plus and Moto G5S Performance The Moto G5S and Moto G5S Plus handle most tasks well. We never felt the need for more power. Playing games that require powerful graphics was easy on the Moto G5S Plus. Multitasking was also smooth. The 5.5-inch display is perfect for watching videos and playing games. However, we did have a complaint about the phone getting too hot. The phone gets heated up pretty quickly even if the camera app is open for a short time. This is surprising because the Xiaomi Mi A1 and Mi Max 2 that come with this processor do not heat up this much.

The Moto G5S Plus’s speaker is loud enough for a small room. But at maximum volume, the sound becomes unclear. The headset provided with the Moto G5S Plus is of average quality. Don’t expect much from it. Surprisingly, at the time of review, the handset did not have Voice over LTE support. Due to this, we were able to make phone calls from the Reliance Jio SIM only after using the Jio4Voice app on the phone.

On the other hand, the Moto G5S is generally cool. It only gets a little warm after playing games or watching videos for a long time. The phone is smooth to use and not at all slow. It has 4G VoLTE and call quality is decent. Due to the reflective screen, the Moto G5S is not very good for multimedia. We had to tinker with the brightness level a few times. The loudspeaker produces very clear sound. The quality of the headset provided is also very average.

During the review, we also found that both the handsets get heated up while charging. We do not see this problem in every device.

Moto G5S Plus and Moto G5S battery life

The Moto G5S and Moto G5S Plus have a 3000mAh battery. The battery capacity felt a little less, as bigger phones have space for bigger batteries. With heavy usage, the Moto G5S lasted for about 18 hours and the G5S Plus lasted for about 14 hours. In our standard HD video loop test, the Moto G5S lasted for 12 hours 35 minutes and the Plus variant lasted for 11 hours 15 minutes.

The good thing is that both the phones come with TurboPower adapter. The battery of Moto G5S gets charged 100 percent in about 60-70 minutes, while the Moto G5S Plus takes a little more time.

Our verdict

The situation in the Indian smartphone market keeps changing rapidly. In such a situation, Lenovo’s decision to launch a special edition variant seems right. But users of older models will be disappointed. With the help of Moto G5S and Moto G5S Plus, the company’s product lineup will look fresh. The Moto G5S Plus will sell due to its dual camera setup, especially in the face of the challenge from Xiaomi Mi A1 (Review). However, the company can make the user experience of using the dual camera even better. Stock Android has always been considered good, but it is also becoming common now. Fast charging support also goes in its favor.

The Moto G5S is much better than the Moto G5. But it will face a tough competition from the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Review) which is available at a lower price. The Moto G5S Plus will compete with the Xiaomi Mi A1 which is also priced slightly lower.

If you are a Motorola fan, then the Moto G5S Plus or Moto G5S will definitely attract you. Because they look great and offer good performance in every department as per their price. We hope that Lenovo will soon roll out VoLTE support for the Moto G5S Plus. Now apart from Jio, Airtel has also come up with VoLTE service.