Moto G4 Plus hands-on: First look

Camera

The Moto G4 Plus has a 16 megapixel OmniVision sensor on the back with f2.0 aperture, phase detection and laser assisted autofocus, and two-tone LED flash.

Overall, we liked the images that came out of the camera. The level of detail is quite good. There is some oversharpening to compensate for the detail lost to noise reduction but it's not enough to be distracting. The camera also gets the colors and white balance quite right outdoors in daylight, although indoors there is a need to adjust the white balance manually at times. The images also lacked prominent purple fringing and had good edge to edge sharpness, indicating a good optical system.

The focusing system, however, was a bit hit or miss. Despite a hybrid focusing mechanism, it's surprising how often the phone misses the focus. Often enough the phone will tell you the subject is in focus, only to find out later that it missed narrowly but enough to blur the image upon closer inspection. Again, this could be fixed in an update but as it stands right now, it's not very impressive.

Moto G4 Plus camera samples

We noticed the camera struggling with dynamic range in its default mode but the capable HDR mode does a good job of controlling the highlights and boosting the shadows without making the images look unnatural.

Moto G4 Plus HDR mode: Off • On Off • On

Moving on to the video, the phone records 1080p at 30fps. The video quality is good, if not exceptional. The aforementioned blown highlights can be an issue under bright light and there is no HDR mode to rescue it here.

The phone lacks optical image stabilization but can do it electronically, and quite well at that, at the cost of some field of view.

The camera software is brand new and a step up from basic Google Camera app we had on previous Motorola phones. The UI is easy to figure out and easy to navigate. There is a professional mode, which adds options like manual focus, white balance, shutter speed (1/3200 - 1/5 seconds), ISO (100 - 3200), and exposure compensation. A RAW mode would have been nice, considering the sensor ain't half bad, but what's available here is pretty good too.

Moto's new camera application is much better now and has a Pro mode

The new camera app does not have its own image viewer though for some reason, à la the OnePlus 2. You will be sent to an image viewer, such as the Google Photos app, to view the image after you capture it.

Battery Life

The Moto G4 Plus has a 3000mAh battery. Not particularly sizable by any means, but that's alright as the battery life is still respectable. On an average, the phone gives 4-5 hours of screen-on time, which is pretty good and should be enough to get you through the day.

When you do have to charge the phone, the phone supports Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0, or as Motorola calls it, TurboPower. With the provided 25W charger, the phone can charge completely in just over an hour and a half.

One thing to note is that the cable is attached permanently to the charger, and Motorola does not provide a separate USB data cable in the box.