Moto G52 Review: Can this solid offering set the benchmark for Motorola in the budget segment?

 

A solid budget offering from Motorola that can set the bar high!

Moto G series of smartphones have been quite popular in the budget as well as the mid-range segment by providing all the necessary specifications and if you want a Moto smartphone in the premium and flagship segment, then there is also the Edge series. However, the Moto G series is one of the biggest selling smartphones, and last year Motorola launched quite a bunch of G-series smartphones.

Last year, Motorola came up with the Moto G51 (Review) which is a good mid-ranger, and with it, Motorola had introduced the 5G in the budget segment. It also has a 120Hz IPS LCD display, a Snapdragon 480+ chipset that has support for 5G, a 50MP triple camera setup, and a larger 5000mAh battery. But there were some areas where the Moto G51 was not up to the mark.

With the Moto G52, Motorola has addressed quite a lot of changes but took one step backward. The Moto G52 is a 4G smartphone, not a 5G compared to the Moto G51 which is a 5G smartphone. The Moto G52 packs a 90Hz pOLED display, a Snapdragon 680 chipset, a similar 50MP triple camera setup as that of the Moto G51, and a 5000mAh battery with support for 33W fast charging. Is this worth buying?

Let's find out in the full review.

Moto G52 Design:

In terms of build and design, you still get a polycarbonate back as found on the Moto G51 and the camera module is also capsule-shaped housing the triple cameras with a LED flashlight. You also get the Moto logo at the back. Though the design looks good, the back is still polycarbonate which may not be a problem as it is lighter but a glass back could have been better.

The Moto G52 is available in two different colors - Charcoal Grey and Porcelain White. The Charcoal Grey variant looks much premium and the back does shine when light strikes the back at different angles. However, the back does attract quite some smudges and fingerprints. This back also has an IP52 rating which makes it splash resistant. 

Around the sides, the right side houses the power button and volume buttons and to the left, there is a hybrid SIM card slot that accepts either two SIM cards or one SIM card with a microSD card for storage expansion. Like the Moto G51, here also the power button also doubles up as a fingerprint scanner which is very fast and works accurately. 

There is no dedicated Google Assistant button now on the Moto G52. The Moto G52 weighs around 169grams which makes it far lighter than the 208grams weight of the Moto G51. Around the sides also, the Moto G52 is thinner at 8mm compared to the 9.1mm thickness of the Moto G51. The top of the smartphone has a secondary noise-canceling microphone and a secondary speaker.

The bottom has a USB Type-C port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a loudspeaker grill, and a primary microphone. On the front, there is a single punch-hole display with very minimum bezels around the sides which makes it look premium compared to other smartphones in this segment which have larger bezels around the sides. 

Moto G52 Display:

The Moto G52 house a 6.6-inches Full HD+(1080x2400 pixels) pOLED display which is now smaller than the 6.8-inches display on the Moto G51 and also the pOLED display is a good upgrade over the IPS LCD display on the Moto G51. pOLED displays are slightly slimmer compared to regular AMOLED displays where plastic is used on top of the OLED displays for making them slimmer.

This pOLED display also has a 90Hz refresh rate which is the segment-first for a budget smartphone having a pOLED display. The high refresh rate does make things like web browsing, switching between applications, and gaming much smoother. Combined with the 90Hz refresh rate, there is a massive 360Hz touch sampling rate which provides faster touch responses during gaming.

Talking about the refresh rate, this refresh rate is not an adaptive one but you do get an Auto option which when turned on, the display switches between 60Hz and 90Hz respectively depending on the application in usage. However, you can set it to 90Hz for smoother operations and 60Hz for better battery life. The inclusion of a 90Hz refresh rate is also a good upgrade over the 60Hz AMOLED display on the Moto G71 (Review).

This display is protected by Panda Glass on the front which might not be a problem. In terms of display brightness, this display can achieve a peak brightness of 500nits which is good for a pOLED display, and under direct sunlight, the display is easily visible. The display on the Moto G52 has two different profiles to choose from - Natural and Saturated.

Switching to Natural results in more realistic colors and this covers the sRGB but if you choose Saturated, the colors look oversaturated thus covering the DCI-P3 gamut scale. and you can also change the color tone of the display to warmer or cooler. This display has support for Widevine L1 so you can stream HDR content on OTT platforms but Netflix currently can stream HDR content as of now. 

However, there is no support for HDR content on Youtube, and you are restricted to only 1080p at 30fps playback on Youtube. Overall, this is a great display for media consumption as it combines a higher refresh rate with a pOLED display.

Moto G52 Performance:

The Moto G52 sports a Snapdragon 680 chipset which is a 4G chipset that does seem to be downgraded when compared to the Snapdragon 480+ chipset on the Moto G51 that supports 5G. The Snapdragon 680 chipset has 4x2.4GHz Kryo 265 Cortex-A78 cores and another 4x1.9GHz Kryo 265 Cortex-A55 cores coupled with an Adreno 610 GPU. 

The Adreno 619 GPU does feel slightly more powerful than the Adreno 610 GPU on the Moto G52 but the Snapdragon 680 chipset is based on a 6nm process which makes it slightly more efficient than the 8nm process based Snapdragon 480+ chipset. In terms of daily activities, the smartphone could handle tasks easily in terms of multitasking between applications, web browsing, etc.

However, in terms of gaming, the Snapdragon 680 chipset is not well optimized in games like BGMI where you can achieve Smooth graphics with a High frame rate or HD graphics with Medium graphics. In BGMI, the gameplay is limited to 30fps and there were minor stutters noticed while playing. After playing games for a longer amount of time around 3-4 hours, the back does not feel warmer which is good.

In terms of benchmarks, the scores are decent and are much lower than the Moto G51 which has a Snapdragon 480+ chipset. The Moto G52 is available in two different variants - 4/6GB LPDDR4X RAM with 64/128GB UMCP storage. In terms of CPU throttling tests, this chipset could easily maintain a sustained performance of around 80-85 percent which is good.

In terms of network connectivity, there is good carrier aggregation but you do miss out on 5G support. Overall, the performance is good in daily activities but this is not meant for gaming.

Moto G52 Software:

The Moto G52 runs on the latest MyUX based on Android 12 out of the box. Just like the Pixel devices, here also you can get a complete Stock Android experience on the Moto G52. You get a lot of customizations where you can tweak the icon shape and size, fonts, and different wallpapers, and also you get a lot of newer themes also. 

Other Motorola-specific features are also present like a karate chop to turn on/off the flashlight, twisting the smartphone to open the camera, a Power Touch feature where you can map the power button for your favorite applications for usage and double-tap to access it, and three swipes on the display take a screenshot. Other than this, there are also the Peek Display and the Attentive Display.

And since you are getting Android 12, the colors are picked up by the software and depending on the wallpaper apply the color to the system which includes quick toggles, a dialler, and messaging app also. The biggest highlight of Moto devices is the software experience where you do not get any bloatware but now Motorola has provided two extra applications - Dailyhunt and Josh that do throw in a lot of notifications.

There are a host of Google applications like dialler, Photos, etc. and Facebook is present. However, you can uninstall both of them. In terms of software updates, Motorola is now promising one year of AndroidOS which means you are assured to get Android 13 and three years of security patches. The software experience continues to remain excellent and if Motorola provides another OS upgrade would have been better.

Moto G52 Cameras:

The Moto G52 houses a similar triple camera setup as that of the Moto G51 which includes a 50MP f/1.8 Samsung JN1 sensor for the main camera, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, and a 2MP f/2.4 macro camera. On the front, there is a 16MP f/2.5 camera for selfies. 

In terms of images from the main camera, the details look good but slightly softer, and noise is present in the background. The colors look natural and there is no oversharpening in the background taking place. With the HDR turned on, the details look softer but the colors do look oversaturated. Switching to 50MP mode, the details come out sharper but the details do crop in a bit.

The images taken during the night come out with good dynamic range and details look softer as there is a lot of noise present in the background. The images do suffer from underexposure as you lose details in the shadows and darker patches. With the dedicated night mode, the images come out with good dynamic range, and noise also reduces and brings out the highlights in the shadows.

The 8MP ultrawide camera takes images with a good dynamic range and details also look good. With the 119-degree field of view, the images come out wider but there is a lot of distortion around the edges and noise is present in the background. The images from the ultrawide camera during the night come out with a decent dynamic range and details look softer, but colors do look natural.

The 2MP macro camera does a decent job in terms of dynamic range and colors do look washed out as there is a lot of noise present in the background. In terms of portraits, the edge detection and dynamic range come out good with natural colors in the background. However, in portraits, there is some oversharpening taking place and noise is also very low in the background.

On the front, the selfies come out with good details that look sharper and noise is also very low in the background. The skin tones look natural without much oversharpening. The portrait selfies come out with good edge detection and dynamic range but do suffer from oversharpening in the background. 

In terms of videos, the main camera can only record 1080p videos at 30fps as there is no 4K recording due to the limitation of the Snapdragon 680 chipset. These videos have a good dynamic range and the noise is also lower. The ultrawide camera also records 1080p videos at 30fps and these videos have a larger amount of noise present and similar goes during the night also.

The details look softer though and there is a lot of shakiness in the videos. The selfie camera can only record 1080p videos at 30fps and the details look sharper with natural-looking skin tone and noise is also very low in the videos. Overall, the cameras are good for the price but the lack of 4K video is slightly disappointing. 

Moto G52 Battery Life:

The Moto G52 sports a larger 5000mAh battery which is similar to that of the Moto G51 and with the Snapdragon 680 chipset, we expected good battery life since the chipset is based on a 6nm process. With heavy usage that includes rendering videos, web browsing, playing games like BGMI for 4-5 hours continuously, etc., the smartphone easily lasted for two days with the display set to 60Hz.

With heavy usage and the display set to 120Hz, you can get around one and half days of battery life. In terms of normal usage, the smartphone easily lasted for more than two days with some charge left. The standard screen-on time was around 8-8.5 hours which is very good considering it has Stock Android which is very well optimized.

The Moto G52 gets an upgrade in the charging department as it ships with a 33W fast charger which is quite faster compared to the 18W fast charger on the Moto G51. The 33W fast charger takes around 1 hour and 25 minutes for a full charge from 0 to 100 percent. The Moto G52 also supports 18W fast PD charging. Overall, the battery life remains excellent.

Moto G52 Audio Quality:

In terms of audio, the Moto G52 houses a dual stereo speaker setup that sounds very loud and clear compared to the single bottom-firing speaker present on the Moto G51. There is also a 3.5mm headphone jack and sound output through it is very good. However, the back of the smartphone does vibrate a lot while listening to any audio or watching videos.

Verdict:

The Moto G52 seems to be the perfect budget smartphone that brings all the necessities like a good design, an excellent display for media consumption, a good set of cameras for the budget segment, the software experience is the best in class with no bloatware, battery life is very good and handles all day-to-day tasks easily. However, there are some areas where it falls short.

The build is polycarbonate instead of glass but it is very rare to get a smartphone with a glass back in the budget segment, the Snapdragon 680 chipset has its own limitations like lack of HDR support, no 4K recording, and gaming is also not so good as you do not options to play at higher frame rates and there are minor frame drops during gaming. And top of all, there is no 5G support also.

So compared to its predecessor, the Moto G51, the Moto G52 seems to be a perfect upgrade but the only area where it falls short compared to the Moto G51 is in terms of performance. Considering all the specifications, you are getting an excellent package from Motorola though with some compromises and this is one smartphone that has set the benchmark for Motorola in the market.