Moto G84 review

A dual camera setup with a bit of extra versatility

The Moto G84 has a pretty familiar primary camera setup, though one not exactly borrowed from another Moto, like the G82. It is rocking a primary 50MP camera plus an 8MP ultrawide with autofocus capabilities, thus capable of shooting macros. On the front, there's a 16MP fixed-focus selfie.

Digging a bit deeper into specs, we found that the main 50MP camera on the Moto G84 uses a Samsung ISOCELL S5KGN9 sensor. It is not a particularly popular part. In fact, we can't even find it in any official list of ISOCELL sensors, meaning that it could be a special-order modification of some sort. We do know from Motorola that the sensor in question has a 1/1.5" size and 1.0µm individual pixels, making it similar to the ISOCELL GN3 and GN5. It is also equipped with PDAF and OIS and sits behind an f/1.9 lens.

The 8MP ultrawide camera also uses a Samsung sensor - an ISOCELL S5K4H7AF. The last "AF" part denotes that it is equipped with autofocus, which, as already mentioned, is one of the party tricks of the G84. The sensor in question has a 1/4" size with 1.12µm individual pixels. It sits behind an f/2.2 lens.

Finally, we have the 16MP selfie cam. It is based on the OmniVision ov16a1q sensor. It is a 1/3.06" sensor with 1.0µm pixels and a Quad-Bayer filter. It sits behind an f/2.5 lens.

Camera app

The camera app on the G84 is developed in-house, in contrast to the otherwise stock-looking approach to software.

The basics are as usual - the camera modes are arranged in a customizable carousel formation, with the 'More' tab at the rightmost end of the carousel holding the more seldom-used shooting modes.

Pro mode gives you full control over the camera's settings like white balance, ISO, focus, shutter speed, and exposure compensation, and it works on all cameras - both rear ones and the selfie camera (minus the manual focusing). A tiny live histogram is provided, but there's no focus peaking or zebras.

Additional settings for each camera mode can be found by swiping down in the viewfinder. There's a tiny bar at the far end to indicate that, but if you miss it, you may be left wondering where some controls are, like the self-timer settings in Photo mode.

Camera app

The gear icon for the general settings menu houses even more settings, though there isn't a straightforward separation of what you're going to find where. For example, the full-res mode for selfies is found in the settings menu, while full-res capture for the rear cameras is accessed from the 'Ultra-Res' mode on the carousel. A lot of the app's peculiarities are long-standing Moto things, so you may be right at home if you're a recurring user, but that doesn't necessarily make them intuitive.

Daylight photo quality

The main camera on the Moto G84 captures binned stills in right around 12.5MP by default. These look pretty nice overall, with plenty of detail and true-to-life colors. Dynamic range is also decent, and so is contrast.

Moto G84: 12.5MP main camera samples

However, there are some obvious deficiencies, like noise, which is present throughout the frame. There is some softness as well. Motorola has seemingly tried to deal with it through sharpening, but it is a bit too aggressive for our taste. Sharpening artifacts are visible all throughout the frame. Fine detail is subject to moire fringing.

You can force the main camera to capture in 50MP resolution. That has certain benefits, like better fine detail and a more natural overall look with less processing.

Moto G84: 50MP main camera samples

That latter bit, however, might not be to everyone's liking since it does make the photos subjectively look a bit softer than regular ones. The main camera also tends to lose some contrast in this high-resolution mode.

Before we move on, here's how the main camera stacks up against the competition in our vast photo compare database.

Moto G84 against the Motorola Edge 40 Neo and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro in our Photo compare tool

50MP: Moto G84 against the Motorola Edge 40 Neo and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro in our Photo compare tool

The main camera captures some pretty great portrait shots. Skin tones look nice and natural, and plenty of skin texture is captured.

Moto G84: 12.5MP main camera samples

Subject detection and separation work quite well and rarely get tripped up. We also like the quality of the background blur.

Moto G84: 12.5MP main camera portrait samples

Portraits also work decently well on non-human subjects. However, you need a bit more patience for the algorithm to properly detect the subject.

Moto G84: 12.5MP main camera portrait samples

There is no dedicated telephoto camera on the Moto G84 and no 2x toggle on the camera interface, which leads us to believe that Motorola doesn't trust the zoom capabilities of the main camera all that much. Still, we tried taking some 2x digital zoom shots and were generally pleased with the results.

Moto G84: 12.5MP main camera 2x zoom samples

These photos look quite similar to 1x ones quality-wise, with just a bit more softness, as expected. Other than that, they are perfectly usable.

Moving on to the 8MP ultrawide, you can get some pretty decent regular shots from it, at least as far as ultrawide expectations go. The autofocus rarely misbehaved in our testing, which is great to see. The frame has a reasonable amount of detail, and colors look good - well-matched with those from the main camera. Contrast and dynamic range aren't bad, either.

Moto G84: 8MP ultrawide camera samples

Noise and softness are somewhat unavoidable with these shots, especially near the edges of the frame.

The real party trick on the ultrawide camera, however, is the macro shots it can pull off thanks to the inclusion of autofocus. This works great, and the shots themselves are pretty impressive all around.

Moto G84: 8MP ultrawide camera macro samples

The 16MP selfie camera does a solid all-around job. There is plenty of detail, and skin tones look nice and natural.

Moto G84: 16MP selfie camera samples

The Moto G84 does offer a choice in selfie shot resolution. You can either go with 16MP or drop down to 4MP. We didn't notice any major difference between the two, so unless you explicitly need the extra resolution, you might as well save some space and go with 4MP selfies.

Moto G84: 4MP and 16MP selfie camera samples

Selfie portraits look great as well. Subject detection and separation work surprisingly well, and the quality of the background blur is excellent. Besides that, you get the same great detail in facial features and skin tones.

Moto G84: 16MP selfie camera portrait samples

Video capture quality

Video capture on the Moto G84 is a bit of a mixed bag. This is one area in which the Snapdragon 695 chipset choice really hurts the phone since it limits capture resolution to 1080p. That's a real shame since, other than that, Motorola offers a versatile set of video-capturing options.

Video can be recorded from every camera on the phone, including the ultrawide, in a special macro mode. You also get the option of using EIS in every video capture scenario. On top of that, there is a h.265 (HEVC) option in settings, which again can be applied to any of the cameras.

By default, video gets captured in h.264 (AVC) format with a video stream of around 20 Mbps plus stereo 48 kHz AAC audio, wrapped inside an MP4 container. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Quality-wise, the main camera does alright, given the resolution limitations. There is a decent amount of detail for FullHD, and colors look great. The frame rate is perfectly steady. There is no noticeable noise or shimmering in the frame. There is no focus hunting, either.

Dynamic range could be a bit wider, but that seems like nitpicking.

Here's how the Moto G84 stacks up against the competition in our extensive video compare database.

Moto G84 against the Xiaomi Redmi 12 and the Sony Xperia 10 V in our Video compare tool

The ultrawide camera also captures decent 1080p video. Detail is good enough for this sort of camera. There is no excessive focus hunting, which is great to see. Colors look good, though not exactly matched to the main camera.

Dynamic range is expectedly rather narrow, and there is some visible noise and shimmering. Nothing too excessive, though.

The selfie camera captures impressive 1080p videos in its own right. There is plenty of detail, and facial features and tones come out looking fine. Contrast is a bit high, but that tends to help the overall look of the video, in our opinion.

These videos do look very shaky and jittery when in motion, though. Thankfully, the Moto G84 offers electronic image stabilization on all of its cameras at their full 1080p resolution. It generally works great and smooths out shakes and bumps rather nicely.

It does, however, crop away quite a bit of the frame in the process. Also, it is worth noting that using EIS on the ultrawide seems to cause the autofocus to misbehave and hunt aggressively. So, it's probably better to avoid this particular scenario.

Low-light camera quality

The main camera captures decent but unimpressive low-light shots. The level of detail is good, and so are colors. The contrast isn't bad either, and both shadows and highlights are handled competently. A surprising amount of detail is left in darker areas, thanks to the fact that the G84 applies some night mode processing on its own in auto mode.

Moto G84: 12.5MP main camera low-light samples

These photos are a bit on the darker side for our taste.

Moto G84: 12.5MP main camera low-light 2x zoom samples

Thankfully, toggling the dedicated night mode, which Motorola calls "Night Vision," does brighten up the shots noticeably. It also applies a bit more sharpening to fine detail, which is appreciated in this particular scenario. It makes photos look sharper as a whole without going overboard and crossing into overprocessed territory. Light sources are also handled a bit better in night mode.

Moto G84: 12.5MP main camera night mode samples

Unfortunately, the Moto G84 only allows you to use "Night Vision" on the main camera. Even in the absence of night mode, though, the ultrawide camera is not completely helpless. There is a surprising amount of detail in these shots, and colors look very nice, though with a slight yellow tint and not a great match to the main camera. The autofocus on the ultrawide did not misbehave even in low-light conditions, which is a major win.

Moto G84: 8MP ultrawide camera low-light samples

As far as deficiencies go, these ultrawide shots are definitely a bit soft and noisy all throughout the frame. But that is kind of expected.

Low-light selfies are decent, but nothing to phone home about. Colors look good, and there is enough skin texture coming through.

Moto G84: 16MP selfie camera low-light samples

Noise and softness, however, are kind of a prevailing attribute here. Perhaps having night mode available could have helped a bit, but we take what we can get.

Low-light video from the main camera is decent but largely unimpressive. These clips tend to be rather dark, with quite a bit of noticeable noise. Light sources are blown out and not handled particularly well.

The ultrawide camera is kind of disappointing when capturing low-light videos. These are way too dark and noisy to be actually usable.

On a slightly more positive note, at least autofocus on the ultrawide seems to be behaving well, even in low-light conditions.