Motorola Moto G200 5G review

Vanilla-like Android 11 with Moto app and Ready For support

The Motorola G200 5G, the spiritual successor of the first Ready For-compatible smartphone, runs on a similar firmware. In fact, if you have used any of the recent high-end Moto phones, you will feel at home right away.

Motorola has guaranteed one major Android version update, meaning the phone will get the already available Android 12, like that's something to brag with. This is disappointing, as we, and we bet a lot of users as well, will probably expect it to get Android 13 that's coming later this year. Here is hoping Motorola reconsiders this policy.

So, the Moto G200 offers a stock Android look with a fair share of in-house features added on top and controlled via the Moto app hub. The 'Ready For' functionality is available, too, it is something like Samsung's DeX albeit with a bit more limited features.

The majority of the proprietary features are arranged in the Moto app. The first category is personalization allowing you to choose the icon shapes, the quick toggles appearance, the accent colors and the font. There is also a wide selection of wallpapers, plus the option to leverage AI to create your own from the photos in your gallery.

Moto App • Personalization

Then come to the gestures. By now, you all must have seen the karate chop motion that turns on and off the flashlight and the twisting motion that launches the camera app. Both work even when the device is locked.

The lift-to-unlock gesture works well with the face unlock as it unlocks the device as soon as you pick it up and look at the screen.

A swipe-to-split function is available, too, it triggers the split-screen multitasking. There is also Power touch. When you double-tap the power button, a shortcut menu appears where you can arrange apps, tools and even contacts for quick access.

Gestures

The display-related features are Peek Display and Attentive Display. The former works as a second-best alternative to the Always-on display but with some added functionality. The screen lights up when it detects motion that's close to the phone or when you pick it up. Once you've received some kind of notification, you can tap on it and see the message itself and even interact with it from the lock screen.

Attentive Display disables the screen timeout as long as there's a face looking at the screen. Pretty useful when reading long articles, though you do probably scroll often enough for the screen not to lock anyway.

Display

All of these aside, the rest is pretty much Android 11 as Google intended it to be. Google's apps handle the multimedia, too - you get Photos and YT Music.

Notification grouping keeps your notification shade tidy and focuses on your conversations. Notification cards from ongoing conversations from your messaging apps will appear on top as high-priority compared to other app notifications. Notification Bubbles are available, too.

Bubbles is one of the long-awaited features for messaging apps that Facebook's Messenger pineered years ago. The apps that support the feature will prompt you with a notification in the form of a floating, interactive bubble. Tapping on it will open up the chart for a quick reply, just like Messenger.

Nearby Share with other devices running a recent Android version is also possible, making file transfers easier than ever.

And lastly, we have the updated power menu that now displays shortcuts to connected devices such as home automation or Chromecast through the Google Home app.

Lockscreen • Homescreen • Folder view • App drawer • Notifications • Quick toggles

The Ready For platform lets you connect to a Miracast-capable TV and get a Windows-desktop-like experience - play a game on your phone, display it on the external screen, or even have a big-screen video chat experience. If you don't have a mouse and/or keyboard handy, the phone's screen can be used as a trackpad and/or keyboard.

Ready For Wireless • Wired with Windows PC

You can also use Ready For on a Windows-based PC - it runs within a window on your desktop. This is helpful for when you want to run an Android app from your computer or to multi-task between devices on just one screen.

Here, you can also enable Phone mode and view your phone's screen on the Ready For big desktop screen, which is on your Windows desktop. That's some inception-level multi-tasking!

Ready For desktop experience

Another use case of Ready For on a Windows PC is for video calls, where you can use the phone's camera to capture yourself and an external display to see the other participants.

Ready For • How to close Full Screen app

The final Ready For use case is for gaming on a bigger screen - be it TV or laptop/monitor. You connect an external controller and run the game on the phone, with the obvious benefit being the larger display for gameplay.

Performance and benchmarks

The Motorola Moto G200 5G employs the powerful Snapdragon 888+ 5G chipset. It has a total of eight Kryo 680 CPU cores and an Adreno 660 GPU, built on a 5nm process.

All but one CPU cores are set up the same in the Snapdragon 888+ as they were on the Snapdragon 888. That includes the "small" four Kryo 680 cores that go up to 1.8 GHz, as well as the three "big" ones, clocked at up to 2.42 GHz.

The only difference is with the "prime" core, which can go up to 3.0 GHz on the Snapdragon 888+, while it is limited to 2.84 GHz on the vanilla Snapdragon 888.

The Adreno 660 GPU uses the same frequency and hasn't changed since the regular SD888. The Hexagon 780 DSP has been improved, though - it can now handle 32 TOPS (trillions of operations per second), up from 26 TOPS in SD888.

The Motorola Moto G200 5G is available with 8GB LPDDR5 RAM and you can choose between 128GB and 256GB UFS3.1 internal storage.

And now, let's runs some tests.

While the Snapdragon 888+ is no longer the most powerful chipset in the Android world, in the mid-range it's a true chart topper.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto G200 5G
  3319
• Motorola Edge 20 Pro
  3140
• Realme GT Explorer Master
  3050
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  3049
• Realme GT Master
  2917
• Motorola Moto G100
  2860
• Xiaomi 11T
  2834
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  2801
• OnePlus Nord 2
  2792
• Motorola Edge 20
  2550
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  1780

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto G200 5G
  1096
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  1096
• Realme GT Explorer Master
  1020
• Motorola Edge 20 Pro
  972
• Motorola Moto G100
  950
• OnePlus Nord 2
  814
• Realme GT Master
  785
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  771
• Motorola Edge 20
  762
• Xiaomi 11T
  742
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  569

The Adreno 660 GPU is a king in the graphics department and can handle high-refresh rate content hassle-free. Gaming is an extra smooth affair on the Moto G200.

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto G200 5G
  60
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  56
• Realme GT Explorer Master
  50
• Motorola Edge 20 Pro
  49
• Motorola Moto G100
  47
• Xiaomi 11T
  40
• OnePlus Nord 2
  38
• Motorola Edge 20
  29
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  28
• Realme GT Master
  27
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  16

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  98
• Motorola Moto G200 5G
  97
• Motorola Edge 20 Pro
  83
• Motorola Moto G100
  79
• Xiaomi 11T
  72
• Realme GT Explorer Master
  60
• OnePlus Nord 2
  57
• Motorola Edge 20
  51
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  49
• Realme GT Master
  46

GFX Manhattan ES 3.0 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto G200 5G
  129
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  116
• Motorola Edge 20 Pro
  112
• Xiaomi 11T
  96
• Motorola Moto G100
  89
• Motorola Edge 20
  70
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  69
• Realme GT Explorer Master
  60
• OnePlus Nord 2
  59
• Realme GT Master
  57

3DMark Wild Life Vulkan 1.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto G200 5G
  5617
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  5432
• Realme GT Explorer Master
  4255
• OnePlus Nord 2
  4224
• Motorola Edge 20 Pro
  4206
• Xiaomi 11T
  4172
• Motorola Moto G100
  4114
• Motorola Edge 20
  2494
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  2491
• Realme GT Master
  2481

As expected, AnTuTu declares the Moto G200 5G the fastest smartphones in its price range.

AnTuTu 8

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto G200 5G
  682346
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  566529
• Motorola Moto G100
  556137
• OnePlus Nord 2
  512164
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  429675
• Motorola Edge 20
  424031
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  295442

AnTuTu 9

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto G200 5G
  811124
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  719696
• Realme GT Explorer Master
  717879
• Motorola Edge 20 Pro
  711090
• Motorola Moto G100
  681559
• OnePlus Nord 2
  598022
• Xiaomi 11T
  590837
• Realme GT Master
  529263
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  506432
• Motorola Edge 20
  488574

So, there is nothing the Motorola Moto G200 5G cannot do computation-wise - it offers flagship-performance across the board and can do HRR gaming easily. It has what was until recently the best chip on the market and will continue to ace tasks and games for the next couple of years at least.

The phone doesn't become hot even when running stress tests, though the SD888+ generates a lot of heat and some throttling occurs when running CPU and GPU Throttle tests.

The CPU stress test reveals the G200 offers about 70% of its maximum performance when running CPU Throttle for an hour. Meanwhile, the GPU gets to keep 73% of its maximum performance when looping the 3D Mark Wild Life stress tests. Both stability numbers are excellent for a phone that doesn't use a particularly fancy cooling solution and probably the hottest chip on the market. Good job!

CPU test • GPU test