Moto G6, G6 Plus, and G6 Play hands-on review

Motorola Moto G6 Plus hands-on

The initial 2018 Moto G6 lineup is quite consistent in its design language. Since that is the case, we might as well take a look at the top G6 Plus model and work our way down from there. In many ways the design is familiar. We still find the traditional and quite recognizable round camera hump on the back. Here, as well as on the regular G6, it houses a duo of cameras, which, along with the LED flash, add up to a very "surprised emoji" appearance. It can't really be unseen, so, we apologize for that one.

Underneath that, the Moto "M" logo. Oddly enough, however, on the G6 Plus, it lacks a recessed "dimple" design. We can't say we really mind, since the entire back is made of one solid piece of Gorilla Glass 3, arched towards the sides. It both looks and feels really premium. Sans the fingerprint smudge fest, of course. The finish is really way out of the G6 price league. If it wasn't for the distinctive features, we would have no problem mistaking it for a Samsung Galaxy flagship from this viewpoint. Hats off to the Moto team.

Motorola Moto G6 Plus

Around the front is where the 2018 design changes start to become apparent. Most notably, the extra-tall, 18:9 display. Moto calls its new modules MAX Vision and the G6 Plus gets the biggest and most high-resolution one out of the bunch - 5.9 inches at FullHD+. Upon first inspection, it's a really good performer too - punchy colors and plenty of contrast. It was perfectly while walking around sunny Brazil and that's saying a lot.

Motorola Moto G6 Plus

We are also happy to see that whether consciously, or for cost-saving reasons, there are no notches or other weird display shapes on any of the Moto G6 models. The display corners are ever so slightly rounded for a sprinkle of 2018 chic, but that's about it.

That being said, the G6 Plus still has sizeable top and bottom chins. Again, not exactly a complaint, since Moto is utilizing them quite nicely. Above the display, the single earpiece is flanked by the 8MP selfie snapper on one side and an LED flash on the other - great little bonus to fill the space.

Below the display - a fingerprint reader, that also doubles as a home button. Well, more like "home touch sensitive surface", since it is not actually a button. There are no capacitive back and menu keys, however, so you still have to mostly rely on on-screen controls. Another less-than-ideal bit is the lack of a second speaker and the rather odd fact that the earpiece doubles as the sole source of audio on the G6 Plus. It is, subjectively pretty loud and front-firing is better for multimedia, though.

Motorola Moto G6 Plus

As far as other controls go, it's all pretty standard - power button and volume rocker on the right side and mostly nothing on the left. The top bezel houses the SIM and SD card tray. We were happy to see that the tray has a dedicated place for a microSD card, so you don't have to choose between a second SIM card and more storage.

Perhaps equally exciting is the presence of a 3.5mm audio jack on the bottom of the phone. Next to it - a Type-C USB port. We can't really confirm any data transfer speeds yet, but what we can say with certainty is that the entire G6 line comes with TurboPower quick charging support. All three even pack the required 15W wall charger in the box. There might be some regional differences surrounding that, however.

Now, since we already slightly touched on internals, we'll throw a few observations on the Snapdragon 630, plus 4GB RAM combo, we managed to test at the event. Motorola has stayed true to its clean Android standards over the years and the Android 8.0 ROMs, running on all three Moto G6 devices are no different.

Motorola Moto G6 Plus

We stand by our belief that as far as mid-rangers and especially budget offers, aimed at the mass public go, pure number-crunching speed is on little importance. The Snapdragon 630 has plenty of power to drive the clean Android UX with absolutely no hiccups. We would safely go as far as to say both the SD40 and even the SD430 have little to no issues with performance in regular day-to-day use on the G6 and G6 Play, respectively.

One important aspect of the Snapdragon 630, however, is the battery efficient 14nm development process, which should be able to make good use of the 3,200 mAh battery inside the G6 Plus. Thanks to its higher-end silicon, the G6 Plus also enjoys benefits like Bluetooth 5, Wi-Fi ac, faster LTE speeds and probably, most-importantly 4K video recording.

Unfortunately, we couldn't take camera samples with the Moto G6 Plus and its dual 12MP, plus 5MP camera setup. We did, however, take a whole bunch with the regular G6, so hop on over to the following page for that.

As per the initial specs, we were provided, the G6 Plus features adds a slightly brighter lens and Dual Pixel autofocus to the regular Moto G6 camera setup. We'll definitely explore what difference those make, once we get the bunch at the office.