Moto G60 Review: Great mid-range smartphone but needs some refinement to get things going!!!

Is the Moto G60 worth buying for that 108MP camera setup?

The Motorola smartphones are one of the best when it comes to software experience as it provides Stock Android out of the box which is clean and does not have any such bloatware. Motorola came up with two smartphones latest in the G series namely the Moto G60 and the Moto G40 Fusion which are very good mid-range smartphones launched by Motorola recently in the month of March.

Both these smartphones have almost the same specifications except for the cameras where the Moto G40 Fusion has a 64MP camera whereas the Moto G60 gets a 108MP camera setup. The Moto G60 is the third smartphone to have a 108MP camera after the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro Max and the Realme 8 Pro. The Moto G60 comes with a large 6.8 inches 120Hz display, a Snapdragon 732G chipset, a larger 6000mAh battery.

This the cheapest smartphone to have a 108MP camera setup and is priced at Rs.17999 as it is offered only in one variant i.e. 6GB RAM and 128GB storage. Has Motorola made the perfect mid-range smartphone in this highly competitive segment and is it worth buying? Let's find out in the full review.

Moto G60 Design:

The Moto G60 looks almost similar to all Motorola smartphones as we had seen in the past. But this time the form factor is larger as there is a massive 6.8-inches display and the back still has the polycarbonate finish instead of the glass back which is on the premium side. The Redmi Note 10 Pro which is priced similarly to the Moto G60 comes with Gorilla Glass 5 bot on the front as well as on the back.

The back of the Moto G60 has a shiny reflective pattern especially when you tilt it at different angles. The camera module is rectangular like all other smartphones from Realme, Xiaomi, Samsung, etc. The camera bump is slightly protruded from the back and has triple cameras out of which the main one is the 108MP one. as its Moto smartphone, the back also has a Motorola logo which acts as a fingerprint scanner.

This fingerprint scanner feels outdated as many smartphones in this price segment have in-display or side-mounted fingerprint scanners. However, this fingerprint scanner is very fast and accurate and the face unlock works very fast also. This back has a glossy finish which does catch a lot of fingerprints and smudges but Motorola has provided a case inside the box for protection.

The sides of the smartphone also have a plastic frame where on the right side, all the controls are present that includes a power button, volume buttons, and a dedicated button for summoning the Google Assistant which is placed way above and if you have smaller hands, it is very difficult to get hold of it. The left side has a hybrid SIM card slot where you can have one SIM card with another SIM or microSD card.  

The top houses the 3.5mm headphone jack with a secondary noise-canceling microphone. At the bottom, there is a USB Type-C port, a loudspeaker grill, and a primary microphone. The smartphone has a P2i coating at the back which is splash resistant to some extent and the overall weight is 225grams which is slightly on the heavier side as it packs that massive 6000mAh battery.

It is also 9.5mm thick and when you hold it in your hand, the smartphone feels bulkier. On the front, there is a punch-hole display with slightly thicker bezels to the sides which do take away some of the looks of the smartphone though. Overall, the build and design feel outdated considering the unique designs provided by other smartphone manufacturers and the weight is also slightly on the higher side.

Moto G60 Display:

The Moto G60 has a massive 6.8-inches Full HD+(1080x2400 pixels) IPS LCD display with a screen-to-body ratio of 20.5:9. The display is protected by DragonTrail Glass which is almost equivalent to Gorilla Glass 3 but Motorola could have provided the Gorilla Glass for better protection. This display has good color reproduction but there is some slight green tint noticed around the edges.

The bezels are slightly thicker especially at the bottom of the display which does look a little bit awkward and in terms of brightness, the display is quite good and has decent visibility under direct sunlight with a peak brightness of 450nits These brightness levels are way lower compared to the Redmi Note 10 Pro and the Pro Max which have a peak brightness of 1200nits as they have AMOLED displays.

If you compare the Moto G60's display to the display of the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max (Review), clearly, you can see that the viewing angles and color saturation are much better on the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max as it houses that AMOLED display. But there is support for HDR10 so you can stream HDR contents from Youtube and there is also Widevine L1 so streaming HD content from OTT platforms is a hassle.

Another area where the display does not compromise is the refresh rate. This display has a 120Hz refresh rate and in the settings, you can switch to either the standard 60Hz or the 120Hz. There is also an option to auto-switch between two refresh rates also. So scrolling through webpages, playing games, etc. feels smoother and responsive, and combined with this there is a 240Hz touch sampling rate.

Overall, this display is good as it supports that 120Hz refresh rate and HDR content but if Motorola could have gone with an AMOLED panel, it would have made it a great deal as its competitor the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max has a good combination of a 120Hz refresh rate and an  AMOLED display.

Moto G60 Performance:

Motorola has not compromised in terms of performance with the Moto G60 as you are getting a powerful Snapdragon 732G chipset which is seen on many mid-range smartphones such as the POCO X3 and the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max. This is an octa-core chipset that has 2x2.3 GHz Kryo 480 Cortex-A76 cores and another 4x1.8 GHz Kryo 480 Cortex-A55 cores is coupled with the Adreno 618 GPU.

This chipset handles almost all tasks in the smartphone very smoothly whether it is scrolling through web pages, multitasking between applications, or even while playing games. Many games like Call Of Duty Mobile, Asphalt 9 Legends, etc. ran smoothly without any lag at the high graphics settings. However, switching to the very high graphics settings resulted in some frame drops and minor stutters.

There is only one variant available i.e. the 6GB LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB storage which is of UMCP storage speeds. Other than this, there is a hybrid slot for storage expansion. The one downside to this chipset is there is no support for 5G like the Snapdragon 750G chipset or the Mediatek Dimensity 700U or 800U. Even these chipsets provide slightly better gameplay also.

Overall, in terms of performance, everything ran smoothly on the smartphone and can handle all games but if you want the ultimate gaming smartphone, then the POCO X3 Pro (Review) is the best deal as it provides a Snapdragon 860 chipset.

Moto G60 Software:

The Moto G60 is the only smartphone that provides a cleaner UI with no bloatware and ads present in the user interface as it runs Motorola's own MyUX which almost resembles the look of Stock Android with some specific Motorola specific features. It runs on the latest Android 11 out of the box. As always we have always praised how smooth the Stock Android feels during usage.

Thankfully there are no unnecessary notifications that are seen on my many smartphones from Xiaomi, Realme, Samsung, etc. As it is a Motorola smartphone, there are gestures available in the Moto app like a karate chop to turn on/off the flashlight, twist motion of the smartphone launches the camera, three-finger swipe takes a screenshot, etc. 

Some new gestures that we saw on the Moto G30 (Review) are also present like when swipe from the edge of the display onto the screen and back launches the split-screen mode and lift the smartphone to unlock with face unlock works well here. Apart from this, the Moto app has a Personalization feature where you can set your fonts, change the look and feel of the icons on the home screen and app drawer.

There are also the Peek Display and Attentive Display which work almost like an Always-On display as seen on Samsung smartphones and the screen does not timeout if you look at the display when you enable the Attentive Display. Now Motorola has also introduced a security protection thing called Thinkshiled which is a five to seven-layer of security for more security and ensures your data does not go out.

In terms of software updates, Motorola claims that it would have another two years of Android and security updates quarterly which is good. Overall, the software experience has always impressed on Motorola smartphones and even this Moto G60 shines in this department.

Moto G60 Cameras:

The biggest highlighting feature of the Moto G60 is its set of cameras. The primary camera is a 108MP f/1.9 Samsung HM2 sensor which is the same sensor found on the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro Max and the Realme 8 Pro (Review). The other two cameras include the 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera and a 2MP depth camera. The front camera is a 32MP f/2.2 camera for selfies.

The images from the main camera come out with good details and have an excellent dynamic range. The color looks well saturated in the images and the noise is also on the lower side. When you zoom into the images, you will notice the sharpness in details and if you use the 108MP resolution, the images clicked have slightly more saturated colors but it does crop in some details to reduce noise.

The main camera does a good job in terms of low-light or at night. The details captured are much better as they look sharper with very little noise present and the dynamic range is also quite wider. However, this 108MP sensor does not capture much light because of that f/1.9 aperture and if f/1.7 could have been present it would have made it slightly better.

There is a dedicated Night Mode present which when turned on takes brighter images with excellent details and has well-saturated colors. The long exposure images have good details and this camera works extremely well at night or in low-lighting conditions.

Without Night Mode:

With Night Mode:

The 8MP ultrawide camera has a 119-degree field of view which ensures a wider capture of the subjects in the images. The dynamic range is good but the details are not as sharp as that of the main camera. The colors look slightly oversaturated and the noise is quite present around the corners of the images which means there is slight edge distortion present.

At night, the images from the ultrawide camera come out with good details but the dynamic range is pretty average here as there is a lot of noise present. The images do look slightly softer when you zoom into the images. The colors look off and there is no Night Mode present for the ultrawide camera also.

The one advantage that the ultrawide camera is that it doubles up as a macro camera where the details look sharper and the dynamic range is excellent. As there is autofocus present, you can adjust the distance for focus as the camera can go as close as 2cms to a subject. The macros also have a larger field of view and this macro camera implementation is much better than other 2MP fixed focus macro cameras.

The portraits come out good both in terms of edge detection and dynamic range on the Moto G60. The background blur was perfect and when you zoom in, the details look sharper and there was very little noise present in the background. The skin tones look natural and Motorola allows you to set the blur also.

In terms of selfies, the 32MP camera does a good job as the skin tones look natural and the dynamic range is also good. These selfies also use pixel binning and result in 8MP selfies. There is also an LED flash for the selfies shot at night. At night, the selfies came out very good as there was lower noise and the color was well saturated also. The portrait selfies came out with good edge detection and background blur.

The rear camera records 4K videos at 30fps and the videos have an excellent level of detail with not much noise present. The colors look well saturated with good dynamic range and even at night, the videos come out really good and if you turn on the dedicated Night Mode, the videos have better details and dynamic range also.

The ultrawide camera is only restricted up to 1080p at 30fps. At this resolution, EIS is present on the main camera which makes the videos more stabilized and the dynamic range is much better. The colors in the videos from the ultrawide camera have average details with more noise and there is a lot of softness in details in the videos.

The front camera can record 1080p videos at 30fps only and details come out to be good but the videos are slightly on the shakier side. The dynamic range is good but there is a lot of overexposure in the videos whenever you move the camera to a sunlight area. At night, the videos taken have a lot of noise present and the dynamic range is just average.

Moto G60 Battery Life:

The Moto G60 has a massive 6000mAh battery which can easily last for up to 2-3 days with normal usage. With heavy usage and the display set to 120Hz, the smartphone can still last for more than a day and we ran a couple of things like played Call Of Duty Mobile for 3-4 hours continuously, streamed social media for 4-5 hours like watching Netflix, Prime, etc. and also some multi-tasking.

The average screen-on time was hovering around 8-9 hours which is excellent and you can say the best battery life for a smartphone having a 120Hz display. With moderate usage and the display is set to 120Hz, the smartphone lasted two days with some charge left. Motorola has also provided many optimizations to the battery also.

The charger provided inside the box is a slight disappointment as Motorola has just bundled a 20W fast charger inside the box and competitors like Realme and Xiaomi are providing 33W or 65W fast chargers. The 20W fast charger charges the Moto G60 from 0 to 100 percent within 1 hour 30 minutes which is very long compared to other smartphones like Realme 8 Pro which takes 50 minutes from 0 to 100.

The battery life is excellent considering the fact there is a 120Hz display and Stock Android but the charging speeds could have been better.

Moto G60 Audio Quality:

The Moto G60 comes only with a single bottom-firing speaker which is adequately loud but the level of volume feels muffled when you hear it at the highest volume level. The Redmi Note 10 Pro Max has a stereo speaker setup which is much better here when compared side by side with the Moto G60. There is Dolby Atmos for the enhanced sound the sound output is also good through the 3.5mm headphone jack.

Verdict:

The Moto G60 is the best mid-range smartphone made by Motorola to date as the last smartphone after the Motorola One Fusion Plus (Review) launched last year. The Moto G60 combines the best software experience with good hardware as we have the Snapdragon 732G chipset which provides good performance and gaming and combined with it is a massive 6000mAh battery that lasts for two days.

Other than that, the biggest talking point about the Moto G60 is the cameras where Motorola has provided a 108MP camera which is the cheapest smartphone to have this camera that takes great images and videos in the mid-range segment. It has a good display with a 120Hz refresh rate but lacks an AMOLED panel like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro Max. 

The build quality is just average as it gets a polycarbonate back compared to a glass build which gives a premium feel and the sound quality is not so good as lacks a stereo speaker setup. But if you overcome some of its shortcomings which could have got some refinement, you are getting a perfect smartphone that performs well, has great cameras, and provides an excellent software experience.