Moto G54 (Power edition) review

Design

As mentioned, the Moto G54 Power is rocking a traditional design. Dare we say even a bit boring. Shape-wise, there is nothing exciting here. The G54 Power uses a standard "sandwich" construction with the front and back being mostly flat panels tucked inside the plastic middle frame. There are still some strategically placed chamfers that improve handling and add a little flair to the design.

Motorola has a way with colors lately, mostly because of its Pantone partnership. The colors on the G54 Power aren't officially Pantone-branded but are still quite interesting, particularly the Pearl Blue and Mint Green variants. Both look playful in a way without drawing too much attention. They are still quite subdued if that makes any sense.

Motorola also color-matched pretty much any element of the phone it could, like the camera island and the buttons on the side frame. The middle frame is color-matched as well. Our review unit comes in Midnight Blue color, which is honestly more black than blue in person and is probably the most boring of the three options.

In terms of materials, all three color options come with a smooth plastic back panel and a smooth plastic middle frame. Both surfaces are matte and manage to attract plenty of grease and fingerprints. That being said, the middle frame pulls off a very convincing, almost brushed metal look. Of course, it is plastic to the touch, but that doesn't detract from the impressive look.

Despite not standing out in any particular way, the G54 Power still manages to be oddly memorable and recognizable. Not amidst its Moto G siblings, since those all tend to blend together, but the color-matched camera island alone is enough to make the G54 Power distinctive enough.

Build quality

The Moto G54 Power is a decently big phone with a 6.5-inch display, measuring 161.6 x 73.8 x 8.9 mm. It also has a large 6,000 mAh battery on board. Yet, it is pretty light, considering its battery capacity, tipping the scale at 192 grams with great weight distribution. A lot of that lightness comes down to the mostly plastic construction of the G54 Power.

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.

In terms of other materials, the front of the Moto G54 Power is made of some sort of glass. However, Motorola does not specify what type. Unlike its G84 sibling, the G54 Power has no official ingress protection rating. Still, Motorola has applied its traditional nano-coating and water-repellent design. This includes a nice rubber gasket on the SIM tray, leading us to believe that the G54 Power might even survive a quick dip in clear water. Though we are definitely not endorsing doing that deliberately.

Controls

The Moto G54 Power 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 on the small side, but easy enough to feel out. They offer nice tactile feedback.

The power button also doubles as a fingerprint reader. It is a traditional capacitive reader that is both speedy and accurate. We have no complaints other than the small nitpick about the volume rocker being positioned too high up on the frame. But that's a small gripe.

The left side of the frame houses the SIM tray. It has a single nano SIM slot as well as a dedicated microSD card slot. The Moto G54 Power is technically a dual SIM device, but the second SIM has to be an eSIM.

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

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

The G54 Power has an amplified earpiece tucked away above the display that doubles as the second speaker on the stereo setup of the G54 Power. While the G54 Power 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 G54 Power, 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.

Connectivity

Even though it only has a single physical Nano SIM slot, the Moto G54 Power is technically a dual SIM device thanks to its eSIM support. Both lines have SA and NSA 5G support, too. In terms of local connectivity, the G54 Power supports dual-band Wi-Fi 6 (ax) Bluetooth 5.3 with LE. 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. The G54 Power has GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS and QZSS support for positioning.

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. Unfortunately, unlike its G84 sibling, the G54 Power does not support Moto Connect or Ready For to connect to a PC via a companion app or spawn a special desktop UI via Miracast. The phone does still support Miracast, but just for display mirroring.

The Moto G54 Power has a pretty decent set of sensors on board. These include a lsm6dso accelerometer and gyroscope combo, a Sensortek stk3a5x light and hardware proximity sensor and a qmc6308 magnetometer and compass combo. You are missing a barometer, though.