Moto G84 review

Design

As already mentioned, the Moto G84 is rocking a very traditional design. Dare we say even a bit boring. Shape-wise, there is nothing particularly interesting here. The G84 uses a standard "sandwich" construction with the front and pack, mostly flat panels tucked inside the plastic middle frame. There are still some strategically placed champers that improve handling and add a little flair to the design.

The real visual attraction here is the color options. These are three in total - Marshmallow Blue, Midnight Blue and Viva Magenta. From what we can gather, just the hero color - Viva Magenta comes courtesy of Motorola's partnership with Pantone. This is what our review unit is colored in, and it looks awesome. We particularly like how the color looks slightly different on the different surfaces of the phone yet well-matched down to the phone's camera island and middle frame.

In terms of materials, Marshmallow Blue and Viva Magenta have faux leather backs with a very pleasant fine texture to them. Midnight Blue comes with a more traditional plastic smooth back panel.

Still, the color matching is present on all of the color variants. We quite enjoy the aesthetics of the camera island. There is nothing particularly special about it, yet it still looks memorable enough with its color-matched surface finish.

The same goes for the middle frame, which pulls off a very convincing, almost brushed metal kind of look. Of course, it is plastic to the touch, but that doesn't detract from the impressive look.

Build quality

The Moto G84 is a decently big phone with a 6.5-inch display, measuring 160 x 74.4 x 7.6 mm. It also has a large 5,000 mAh battery on board. Yet, it is pretty light, tipping the scale at 166.8 grams with great weight distribution. A lot of that lightness comes down to the mostly plastic construction of the G84.

The phone's middle frame is made of plastic. Even so, it feels very sturdy with practically no flex. There is no hollowness to the plastic back panel either. We can only assume that there is a plastic panel underneath the faux leather finish on our model as well.

In terms of other materials, the front of the Moto G84 is made of some sort of glass. The Moto G84 has an IP54 ingress protection rating, which is rather basic but is still better than nothing. Technically, that means the phone is splash and dust-resistant. A nice rubber gasket on the SIM tray leads us to believe that the G84 might even survive a quick dip in clear water. Though we are definitely not endorsing doing that deliberately.

Controls

The Moto G84 has a standard set of controls. Its layout is perfectly standard, too. You have a power button on the phone's right side and a volume rocker right above that. These buttons are a bit on the small side, but easy enough to feel-out. They offer nice tactile feedback.

The left side of the frame houses the dual Nano-SIM tray. As already mentioned, one of the SIM slots also doubles as a microSD slot. Choosing between a second SIM and expandable storage is not ideal, but at least you have the option.

The top of the phone is practically empty, sans for the secondary noise-canceling mic.

The bottom of the phone is quite busy. A 3.5mm audio jack is here, which is great to see. Also, the main microphone and the Type-C port. There is also a bottom-firing speaker.

The G84 has an amplified earpiece tucked away above the display that doubles as the second speaker on the stereo setup of the G84. While the G84 doesn't have excessively big display bezels, there is still a bit of space above the display to hide away the proximity and light sensors. These are positioned to the left of the earpiece.

Unfortunately, in case you were wondering, there is no notification LED on the G84, which is kind of the norm nowadays.

We do feel like we have to note that the punch hole for the selfie camera is a bit on the larger side, given the diameter of the actual camera being housed within it.

The Moto G84 uses an under-display fingerprint reader. It is pretty snappy and very accurate. We have no complaints about it.

Connectivity

The Moto G84 is a dual-SIM 5G device with support for both SA and NSA Sub-6 on both SIM slots. In terms of local connectivity, the G84 supports dual-band Wi-Fi 6 (ax) Bluetooth 5.1 with LE support. The phone also gets both an FM radio receiver and NFC, but both are market-dependent, so be sure to check with your local vendor. For positioning, the G84 has GPS, GLONASS and GALILEO support.

The Type-C port on the Moto G84 supports a USB 2.0 data connection, which means a theoretical max transfer speed of 480 Mbps. There is USB OTG/Host support, but unfortunately, you don't get anything fancy like video output. However, Moto Connect is on the G84, allowing you to connect to displays wirelessly via Miracast. A PC companion app is available that can communicate with the G84 and allow you to use apps on your PC, share files and even use the phone as a webcam.

The Moto G84 has a pretty decent set of sensors on board. These include a lsm6dso accelerometer and gyroscope combo, an eminent 512 light and hardware proximity sensor and a qmc6308 magnetometer and compass combo. You are missing a barometer, though.