Moto G84 review

120Hz, 10-bit P-OLED display

The display is clearly the Moto G84's highlight. It is rocking a 6.5-inch P-OLED display with 120Hz refresh rate and 10-bit color. It is punching above its price range, even simply on paper. Resolution-wise, you get the pretty standard 1080 x 2400 pixels or 20:9 FullHD+. That results in roughly around 405 ppi of pixel density, which is perfectly sharp in person.

Motorola advertises 1300 nits of maximum brightness on the G84, which is quite impressive. In our standardized testing, we measured 502 nits on the slider and a maximum of 996 nits in auto mode in bright conditions. As a reminder, we test displays at 75% fill, so Motorola's advertised numbers sound perfectly plausible when measured on a smaller area. In practical terms, the G84 is plenty bright and perfectly usable outdoors, even in direct sunlight.

The Moto G84 has a total of two color modes - the default saturated mode and the natural mode. Saturated targets the DCI-P3 color space and does that quite well. Color accuracy is also decent, though not perfect, with pretty saturated blues and an overall cold tint. You can correct most of that using the included color temperature slider.

Display color settings

In natural mode, the Moto G84 aims for the sRGB color space and practically nails that with deltaE values of under two and thus low enough for the mode to be considered color-accurate and even good enough for color-sensitive work.

The Moto G84 also offers 10-bit color. Despite that and its solid brightness output, it has no hardware support for HDR on the display. That's a real shame and a missed opportunity in our mind, as it would go well with the existing stereo speaker setup with Dolby support.

HDR decoding • DRM • Netflix playback capabilities

From a decoder standpoint, the G84 supports HDR10 and HLG. There is no HDR10+, nor is there Dolby Vision. At least we are happy to report that the Moto G84 has the highest possible Widevine L1 DRM certification, allowing services like Netflix to offer FullHD stream to saturate the phone's display resolution.

High refresh rate handling

The Moto G84 supports a total of three refresh rate modes - 60Hz, 90Hz and 120Hz. In terms of display operating modes in settings, you get to choose between 60Hz, 120Hz and Auto mode. Motorola has a track record of handling high refresh rates in a very simple and straightforward manner. The Moto G84 does not break this norm.

Both 60Hz and 120Hz modes act like hard switches. In 120Hz mode, you get a pretty much fixed and constant 120Hz regardless of what is happening on screen and what app is being used, with some per-app exceptions that run at 60Hz.

Refresh rate settings

Auto mode is quite dynamic and is mainly governed by what is happening on the display. If there is some motion going on, you are likely to get 120Hz or even, on occasion, 90Hz. If there is no motion, then 60Hz is likely what you'll end up with to save energy. The other part of the switching logic is whether you interact with the display. Touching the display will instantly shoot up the refresh rate to 90Hz. Scrolling on top of that gets you to 120Hz temporarily.

Moto G84 working in auto mode

Naturally, we tried high refresh rate gaming on the G84, and unfortunately, it turned out to be a mixed bag. In 120Hz mode, only half of our games actually ran in 120Hz mode, which is kind of weird.

Gaming in 120Hz mode

Things were worse still in auto-refresh rate mode. All of our test games ended up stuck in 60Hz mode. Thankfully, Motorola's Game interface allows you to manually force a refresh rate on a per-game basis.

gaming in auto mode

All things considered, we appreciate the relative simplicity of Motorola's approach to refresh rate handling and the way that most menus and apps are handled in auto mode. However, the system is flawed when it comes to gaming and needs some work.

Battery life

The Moto G84 has a fairly large 5,000 mAh battery on board. While not a powerhouse in any way, the Snapdragon 695 has already proven itself time and time again to be a very energy-efficient chip. Overall, the Moto G84 does not disappoint in the battery department.

The Moto G84 managed a solid Active Use Score of 12:30 hours. It did alright in most every category, expect for gaming which is a bit on the lower end of the spectrum. Still, the Moto G84 managed to outpace both the Galaxy A54 and Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro in this test.

Charging speed

The Moto G84 offers modest but still respectable 30W wired charging. There is a bundled 33W charger in the box, which Motorola calls a "Turbo Power" charger. It is rated for the following outputs:5V@3A, 9V@3A, 11V@3A and 12V@2.5A. A quick test reveals that it actually supports the Quick Charge 3+ standard.

Naturally, with a maximum charge of 30W, the Moto G84 is not about to top any charts. Still, it charges reasonably fast for a modern device.

Speakers

The Moto G84 is equipped with a stereo speaker setup. There is one dedicated bottom-firing speaker and an amplified earpiece that handles the other channel. This is a so-called "hybrid" setup, which is pretty common nowadays. This asymmetrical speaker positioning does harm the balance of the audio output. Even so, the G84 manages to produce a surprisingly balanced sound.

The G84 is also pretty loud, managing a "VERY GOOD" loudness score in our testing, even if just barely so. Regarding frequency response, the output of the G84 is quite clean. Mids, in particular, like voices, sound good and clear, which is arguably the most important bit. There is even some semblance of bass.

This could at least partially be thanks to the inclusion of Dolby Atmos on the G84. You get a full equalizer to play around with and presets, including an automatic "smart" one.

Dolby Atmos and Spatial Sound

The G84 also supports Motorola's Spatial Sound technology. It offers virtualized surround sound and actually works pretty well in practice.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.