Motorola Moto G10 review

Four cameras on the back, one on the front

The camera island on the back houses four units. The main one is 48MP with a fairly wide aperture of f/1.7, while the sensor itself measures 1/2.0" and offers 0.8µm pixels. It shoots natively in 12MP by binning four adjacent pixels into one.

The ultrawide camera, on the other hand, settles for just 8MP resolution, f/2.2 aperture and the sensor is rather tiny - 1/4.0" with 1.12µm pixels. The advertised field of view is 118˚.

The other two shooters are the dedicated 2MP macro camera with f/2.4 aperture and another used just for depth sensing, allowing for a more convincing bokeh effect in portrait mode.

The front-facing camera looks about the same as the ultrawide but, of course, swaps the ultrawide lens for a standard wide one. It's an 8MP sensor with 1.12µm pixels, 1/4.0" in size and is coupled with an f/2.2 aperture.

Camera menus

With Android 11, Motorola has introduced a couple of changes to its default camera app as well. This may sound like nitpicking, but the camera modes have been moved below the shutter key, so your thumb naturally falls on the camera modes instead of the shutter button. Almost all, if not all, camera apps from other brands have the shutter key below the camera mode carousel.

Camera app

Additional camera settings can be adjusted by pulling upwards from the shutter key, opening up a menu that lets you tinker with some of the options. The general settings menu is in its usual place - the gear icon in the viewfinder's upper-right corner.

Camera app

Sadly, Motorola still hasn't fixed the resolution management in the Camera app. The ultrawide and the main cameras shoot in different resolutions but are managed by a single resolution toggle. So setting up the output resolution will force it on both cameras simultaneously.

If you choose 12MP for your photos - the ultrawide shots will come out upscaled to 12MP, even though it's natively 8MP. Switching over to 8MP will force 8MP photos on the main camera too.

On the other hand, as you will see in our daylight samples comparison, the difference between upscaled 12MP ultrawide shots and native 8MP images isn't that big, so leaving the setting to 12MP all the time is perhaps the best course of action.

Daylight samples

Main camera

Right off the bat, we see that the main camera produces photos with colors that aren't as lively, but they do seem rather close to the actual ones in real-life. It's a personal preference whether you like saturated colors or more flat color reproduction. We will leave for you to decide on this one. Anyway, the stills are generally sharp, and there's a good amount of fine detail. The HDR algorithm seems to be doing a nice job by balancing shadows and highlights. The noise is what keeps us from giving the main camera a better score and it becomes more apparent indoors. The indoor images are considerably softer, too, even with sufficient artificial light in the room.

12MP main camera samples

Switching over to the 48MP mode won't bear any improvements because the shots are upscaled from 12MP anyway. The 48MP samples are softer, noisier and provide less detail. The overall rendition seems identical to the 12MP shots, though.

48MP main camera samples

There's also a dedicated 2x zoom toggle even though there's no telephoto camera. As expected, cropping from the center of the 12MP images and scaling back up to 12MP isn't ideal, so the drawbacks of the main camera become easily seen. There are thick oversharpening halos from the processing, which tries to compensate for the lack of detail with no success. The straight lines and the edges of the buildings are jagged, the contrast is off, color saturation is even lower, and noise is aplenty.

2x zoom samples

Compared to the Moto G30, there are several key differences. The most evident one is color reproduction. While the G10 is being a bit conservative with the color saturation, the G30 offers more lively colors. Some extra detail can be seen on the G30's photos, and noise is kept to a minimum. The HDR algorithm seems to be competent enough on both handsets.

Daylight comparison, main cam, Moto G30 vs. Moto G10: Moto G30 • Moto G10

Ultrawide camera

Given the mess with resolution settings, we shot 12MP and 8MP ultrawide images from each scene to see if there's a big difference. The good news is that the difference is minimal, and only zooming in closely will reveal the issues produced by the upscaling from the native 8MP to 12MP.

Ultrawide samples: 12MP • 8MP • 12MP • 8MP • 12MP • 8MP • 12MP

The bad news is that the difference is minimal due to the unsatisfactory quality of the ultrawide shots in general. Pictures are soft, lack detail, which is to be expected. Noise is what bothers us the most. However, the dynamic range is wide enough, the lens correction algorithm is doing a good job too, and colors are close to real-life. Still, it's about the average at this price range of phones would give you when it comes to ultrawide photography.

The bad resolution management of the camera app is present on the G30, too, making our ultrawide camera's comparison a bit difficult. While the G10 ultrawide camera can shoot in its native 8MP after some tinkering in the settings menu, the G30's ultrawide is stuck at either 11MP or 16MP, so we went for the 12MP vs. 16MP comparison having in mind that users will most probably stick to those default options in the camera menu.

And despite the upscaling, there's little to no difference between the two phone's ultrawide cams' performance. Roughly the same amount of noise can be observed, and both seem to resolve just about the same amount of detail. Perhaps the only noticeable difference is again in the color reproduction, with the G10's one being a bit dull.

Daylight comparison, ultrawide cam, Moto G30 vs. Moto G10: Moto G30 • Moto G10

Low-light samples

Main camera

Surely, all low-end phones produce noisy photos at night, but the G10's processing makes the photos quite foggy even for the phone in the sub-€200 range. The dynamic range is narrow, almost all of the images are underexposed, and colors are washed out. Only some well-lit scenes of buildings may look okay (if you don't zoom).

Main camera samples in standard Photo mode

Unfortunately, the dedicated Night mode can only do so much. It brightens up the photos, removes quite a bit of noise from the scene at the expense of fine detail and introduces much-needed sharpness into the scene, although it's still not enough. The image stacking helps with the dynamic issues as it balances out the highlights and reveals some detail in the shadows. We can definitely recommend the Night mode over the standard photo mode after dusk in every situation. Nonetheless, the said Night mode is still lacking when compared to the Moto G30's or the Redmi 9T's and other competitors.

Night mode samples

To our surprise, the low-light images coming out of the G10 are somewhat more consistent, thanks to the HDR kicking in. That's at least true for the high-contrast scenes, but that doesn't mean the dynamic range of the G10 is good. It's just that some form of HDR is better than none. That aside, both phones weren't able to hit the right white balance, nor were they able to deliver the right color saturation.

Low-light comparison, main cam, Moto G30 vs. Moto G10: Moto G30 • Moto G10

Another big surprise is the fact that the G10's Night mode seems more consistent too. Again, the G10's nighttime performance is nothing to write home about, but it does seem a little better than the more expensive G30.

Low-light comparison, main cam, Night mode, Moto G30 vs. Moto G10: Moto G30 • Moto G10

Ultrawide camera

There's not much to be said about the ultrawide's performance at night. The images are not suitable even for casual social media posting, and to be fair, no low-end phone has ever given us a reason to praise it for its ultrawide camera capabilities at night. The samples themselves are extremely soft, underexposed, washed out, and noisy. Sadly, there's no Night mode for the ultrawide camera to at least attempt to fix some of the issues.

Low-light ultrawide camera samples

Just like the G10's ultrawide, the G30's one doesn't like the dark either.

Low-light comparison, ultrawide cam, Moto G30 vs. Moto G10: Moto G30 • Moto G10

If you are done with the pixel-peeping, get ready for some more in our photo compare tool. You can see how the Moto G10 stacks against some of the competition.

Motorola Moto G10 vs Xiaomi Redmi 9T and the Samsung Galaxy A21s in our Photo compare tool

Macro samples

The macro camera is a hit or miss. If you happen to find the right focusing distance, since the unit doesn't have autofocus, the shots come out rather sharp and detailed considering the 2MP resolution. Colors are still kind of dull, though. Ideal lighting conditions and standing-still subjects will dramatically increase your chance of capturing a sharp photo. Make sure to take several shots at various distances from the subject, so at least one of your stills comes out clear.

Macro camera samples

Portraits

In ideal lighting conditions, you can produce some sharp-looking portraits with natural skin tone and convincing faux bokeh effect even with a more complex background. The slightest drop in lighting results in some grain and drop in detail, but the subject remains well-exposed at all times.

Portraits

The edge separation of both devices looks identical, but there's once again a big difference in how the two phones handle colors. This time around, the G10 goes for the more lively or even flattering colors producing a more natural skin tone, whereas the G30 makes the subject look anemic.

Portrait comparison, Moto G30 vs. Moto G10: Moto G30 • Moto G10

Selfies

You can get some decent-looking selfies with the right lighting conditions with sharp, well-exposed subjects and no visible noise. But just like in portraits, the slightest decrease of the ambient light results in a considerable drop in sharpness, noise starts to creep in, and the selfies get the so-called watercolor effect. We were particularly impressed by the HDR algorithm, though, as it helped keep the subject's face always well-exposed without burning everything in the background.

Selfies

The same cannot be said about the portrait selfies as the HDR seems to be disabled in this mode. Expect a similar rendition with narrower dynamic range and not so precise edge detection.

Portrait selfies

The comparison between the two handsets continues to bring some surprises to the table. In stark contrast to the portrait samples, the G30 is now going for a more reddish, natural-looking skin color, while the G10's face rendition of the subject is somewhat muted. The HDR, on the other hand, is clearly superior on the G10 as it's able to keep the subject's face well-exposed at all times.

Selfie comparison, Moto G30 vs. Moto G10: Moto G30 • Moto G10

Video recording

Unlike other phones running the Snapdragon 460 chipset, this one offers up to 1080p@60fps recording as well as electronic image stabilization. Of course, EIS isn't available in 60fps mode, and we recommend the 30fps mode anyway for the best possible quality.

Now, when it comes to the actual 1080p@30fps video recording, things aren't perfect. We found the sample video to be evident of dynamic range issues with the white buildings being clipped in the distance and the thick shadows under the trees. On the other hand, contrast is okay, and there's virtually no noise with colors still being a bit washed out. Oversharpening halos can be seen from afar, although this might not be necessarily a bad thing. Competition seems to produce considerably softer videos as no additional sharpening occurs. The end result with a bit of oversharpening seems to be the better choice as it gives the video a better, clearer overall look.

The ultrawide camera can also record videos, but they are a lot softer, and the dynamic range is even worse. Similar color rendition, though.

If you are done with the real-life videos, head over to our video compare tool to see the Moto G10 up against some of the competition.

1080p: Motorola Moto G10 vs Xiaomi Redmi 9T and the Samsung Galaxy A21s in our Video compare tool