A perfect 5G mid-range smartphone with certain hits and misses.
5G has been a common trend in 2021 and thick trickles down to 2022 where most of the manufacturers are making 5G smartphones in the budget, mid-range, and premium mid-range segment. Recently, both Xiaomi and Realme came up with their 5G smartphones namely Redmi Note 11T 5G (Review) and Realme 8s that have some good specifications for the mid-range segment.
Now Motorola is trying to get a hold in the mid-range segment with the launch of the Moto G51. Recently Motorola also came up with the Moto G31 that has good specifications like an AMOLED display, provides a Stock Android experience, and has good battery life. The Moto G51 seems to be a great buy considering the specifications it offers like a 120Hz LCD display, a larger 5000mAh battery, and much more.
Here you also get a Stock Android experience but the biggest talking point about the Moto G51 is the performance as it is the very first smartphone in the world to have a Snapdragon 480+ chipset. Is it worth the extra money on top of the Moto G31 (Review)? So how good is the performance and is it worth buying? Let's find out in the full review.
Moto G51 Design:
The Moto G51 has a decent build and design as like the Moto G31, there is a polycarbonate back instead of glass which may not be an issue as most smartphones do have a polycarbonate back in this segment. The design looks almost similar to the Moto G31 with a capsule-shaped camera module that houses three cameras with a LED flashlight and also we get the traditional Moto logo.
But here the Moto logo does not double up as a fingerprint scanner like on the Moto G31, instead, you get the fingerprint scanner embedded on the power button on the Moto G51. The back has a matte finish that does catch fingerprints. The back has a gradient finish when you look at it from the top to bottom. The back of the Moto G51 has an IP52 rating which makes it splash resistant against water.
The weight of the Moto G51 is around 208grams which is slightly on the heavier side. Around the sides, the smartphone is thicker at 9.1mm which is slightly thicker and to the right side, there is a power button, volume buttons, and a dedicated button for the Google Assistant which cannot be remapped which is slightly disappointing.
The placement of the buttons is slightly in the awkward position which is located very higher. The left side gets a hybrid SIM card slot that accepts one SIM card and another microSD card or SIM card. On the top, there is a secondary noise canceling microphone only whereas the bottom gets a USB Type-C port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a primary microphone and a loudspeaker grille.
We would have liked to see a dedicated microSD card slot for storage expansion as the base storage you are getting is 64GB only. On the front, there is a single punch hole at the top, while the sides, get slightly thicker bezels both at the top and bottom which is slightly disappointing. Overall, the design seems good but a glass back would have made it more premium.
Moto G51 Display:
The Moto G51 sports a massive 6.8-inches Full HD+(1080x2400 pixels) IPS LCD display with a screen-to-body ratio of 20:9. However, this seems to be quite disappointing as Motorola is providing an IPS LCD panel on the Moto G51 instead of AMOLED which is found on the slightly cheaper Moto G31. Still, this LCD panel has good color reproduction with good viewing angles.
What this LCD panel has is support for a 120Hz refresh rate which means everything feels fast whether it is scrolling through webpages, switching between applications, and also while playing games. Talking about the refresh rate, there are three options - 60Hz, 120Hz, and an Auto. When you select Auto, the refresh rate switches between 60Hz and 120Hz depending on the application in usage.
You get a 240Hz touch sampling rate that provides faster touch responses during gaming. The display on the Moto G51 has support for Widevine L1 so streaming HD content on OTT platforms is a breeze but you cannot stream HD content on Prime as of now. There is no support for HDR on Youtube as you can now only stream 1080p videos which is a big miss on a mid-range smartphone.
In terms of brightness, this panel can go as bright as 500nits which is quite good considering this is an LCD panel but under direct sunlight, the visibility needs to be improved. The display has two color modes - Natural and Saturated where in Natural you do get more eye-pleasing colors whereas in Saturated you have more vivid colors but you do miss out on manual color adjustment as you get on the Redmi Note 11T 5G.
In terms of protection, there is Panda Glass for protection instead of Gorilla Glass 3. The fingerprint scanner is located on the power button which is fast and accurate.
Moto G51 Performance:
The Moto G51 is the first smartphone to debut with the Snapdragon 480+ chipset which supports 5G. The Snapdragon 480+ chipset has 2x2.2GHz Kryo 460 Cortex-A76 cores and another 6x1.8GHz Kryo 460 Cortex-A55 cores and is coupled with an Adreno 619 GPU. This chipset is not a true successor to the Snapdragon 480 chipset as that is a chipset for budget smartphones.
All tasks like scrolling through webpages, multitasking between applications, rendering videos, and playing games, all felt smoother and the smartphone could handle everything without breaking a sweat. Heavy games like Call Of Duty Mobile, BGMI, etc. ran smoothly without any stutters or lags as such. BGMI ran smoothly at Smooth graphics with Ultra frame rate or HDR graphics with a High frame rate.
But however, the biggest disappointment is that you are only getting one variant that has 4GB LPDDR4X RAM with 64GB storage and in today's time 4G RAM is just adequate to run normal activities and when you are looking at the mid-range segment, at least 6GB RAM with 128GB storage is needed for most of the tasks, but Motorola has just stuck to 4GB RAM model only.
There is a hybrid SIM card slot and the storage speeds are eUFS (storage and RAM are integrated together with the chipset) which is slightly faster than the UFS 2.1 but slower compared to the UFS 2.2. In terms of benchmarks, the Moto G51 scored well and the scores were almost close to the Snapdragon 732G chipset. In terms of 5G bands, there is support for 12 5G bands which is good.
Moto G51 Software:
Like all Motorola smartphones, you are getting a clean Stock Android experience with no ads or bloatware and except Facebook, there is no other pre-installed application present. Motorola has been quite slow here as you are getting Android 11 out of the box though Android 12 is already present. Now talking about the software experience, you get almost a Stock Android look.
There are usual Moto gestures like Karate chop to turn on/off the flashlight, double-tap the power button to enable Power Touch where you can use your favorite applications, twist to open up the camera, and swiping from the edge to the display and back opens the split window for enhanced multitasking. There are no constant notifications which makes the experience very pleasing.
There is Moto Gametime that does elevate the gaming experience by increasing the CPU and GPU performance together, blocking unnecessary notifications or calls, and also the auto-brightness gets disabled. Both the Attentive and Peak display is present. In terms of software updates, Motorola claims another one major Android update and two years of security updates which is really good.
Overall, the software experience remains clean and feels top-notch.
Moto G51 Cameras:
The Moto G51 sports a triple camera setup that includes a 50MP f/1.8 Samsung S5JKN1 sensor for the main camera, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, and a 2MP macro camera. On the front, there is a 13MP f/2.5 camera for selfies. This camera setup is the same as we found on the Moto G31 but you do get interesting features which will be discussed later.
The images from the main camera come out with good details but they do look slightly softer and have a lot of noise in the background. The colors come out natural though without any oversharpening taking place. With the HDR turned on, the colors look oversaturated but the level of noise remains the same. You get good details in 50MP resolution without any noise but it does crop in quite a bit.
During the night, the images come out with good dynamic range and have good contrast but the details look softer and the noise is quite prominent in the background. The colors look natural though without any sign of overexposure. With the dedicated night mode, things change a lot as the level of noise reduces to quite an extent and the dynamic range improves resulting in some very good images.
With the 8MP ultrawide camera, things remain the same as seen on the Moto G31 where you get an average dynamic range and a lot of noise is present in the background. There is a lot of distortion around the edges and details end up looking softer. The same is the case during the night, where there is a lot of noise and dynamic range takes a hit.
The 2MP macro camera is just an additional camera for numbers as the images have washed out colors and since it is a fixed focus camera, you cannot lock focus on a subject properly, the dynamic range is just average but the details look good. In terms of portraits, the edge detection seems good and the dynamic range is just above average. There is some amount of noise though.
The images from the selfie camera come out with good dynamic range but the details look slightly softer and the background looks oversaturated. The noise is very low and skin tones have a natural tone without any oversharpening. The portrait selfies come out good with proper edge detection but the detail here also looks slightly softer.
In terms of videos, the Moto G51 is only restricted up to 1080p videos at 60fps which is sort of disappointing as you miss out on 4K video recording. The videos have good dynamic range and colors look natural. There is some amount of noise present but details look sharper in the videos as EIS is enabled by default.
The ultrawide camera is restricted to 1080p videos at 30fps and here the details look softer with decent dynamic range and noise is present but you do get Ultra Staedy Mode for better stabilization and slightly improved dynamic range. The selfie videos come out with good dynamic range and natural looking skin tones. However there is no EIS here and oversharpening does take place most of the times.
Other video features include Pro Mode, Spot Color where you can change background blur, Timelapse and also there is Dual Capture where you can use the main camera and the selfie camera together. Overall, the cameras are slightly better on the Moto G51 compared to Moto G31 though sporting the similar camera setup which is due to the good image processing provided by the Snapdragon 480+ chipset.
Moto G51 Battery Life:
The Moto G51 has a larger 5000mAh battery that can easily last for two days with normal usage like scrolling through webpages, casual gaming, and multi-tasking between applications though the display being set to 120Hz. With heavy usage that includes playing games like BGMI for 2-3 hours, streaming social media for 4-5 hours,,rendering videos, the Moto G51 could easily last a day and half at 120Hz.
The standard screen-on time with normal usage was around 7-8 hours which is really good thanks to the good battery optimizations provided by Stock Android and the 6nm Snapdragon 480+ chipset. In terms of charging, Motorola has bundled the smartphone with a 20W fast charger that can charge it from 0 to 100 percent in around 1 hour 30 minutes.
However, do note that Motorola bundles a 20W fast charger in India whereas with the global variant that sells in UK only has 10W fast charger. The 20W fast charger that you get with the Moto G51 has support for USB PD charging as it is a USB Type -C to Type-C cable so this charger can easily charge other devices which includes smartphones and laptops. Overall, the battery life feels great.
Moto G51 Audio Quality:
The Moto G51 has a single speaker setup instead of stereo speakers where sound comes from the bottom firing speaker only. There is a 3.5mm headphone jack present and the audio output is good through it. The audio feels good for a single speaker and is adequately loud and clear. There is also a Dolby Atmos app which is used for enhanced sound effects while playing a game or watching a movie.
Verdict:
The Moto G51 is a great buy as it brings all the necessary things that is needed on a mid-range smartphone. It has a massive display that has 120Hz refresh rate with 240Hz touch sampling rate, daily performance feels good and the gaming experience is very smooth, the software experience is the best with no bloatware, excellent battery life and the support for 5G is very good as you get 12 5G bands.
But, there are some areas where Motorola have cut few corners as with the Moto G51, you are getting a polycarbonate back instead of a glass back, though having a 120Hz refresh rate you have an IPS LCD panel instead of AMOLED, the brightness levels are not so good, there are no stereo speakers, the charging speeds are very slow at 20W and you do not have a 128GB storage variant as you only have 64GB one.
Overall, as a package the Moto G51 is quite better compared to the Moto G31 which is also a solid offering. If you want a smartphone that has a larger display, good performance and gaming with 5G, excellent battery life and the clean Stock Android experience though compromising on build and design, an AMOLED display and faster charging, the Moto G51 is a perfect buy.
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