Motorola Moto G200 5G review

A promising triple camera setup

The Motorola Moto G200 5G has a triple camera on its back with a 108MP primary cam, a 13MP ultrawide-angle shooter, and a 2MP depth sensor. There is also a dual-LED flash around.

The front camera is placed within a punch-hole and uses a 16MP Quad-Pixel sensor.

The Motorola G200's primary camera is a match to the Moto Edge 20's. It uses a 108MP Samsung ISOCELL S5KHM2 module also known as just HM2, which is 1/1.52" big with 0.7µm pixels and an f/1.9 24mm lens. The color filter is Nonacell, which means 9 sensor pixels are combined into one 2.1µm pixel, and the output resolution is 12MP. PDAF is available, but there is no optical stabilization. The primary camera is the only one to support Night Mode.

The ultrawide-angle camera uses a 13MP Hynix Hi1336 sensor with 1.12µm pixels that sits behind f/2.2 12mm lens. Autofocus is available on this camera, which enables Macro Vision and you can capture macro photos from as close as 3cm.

The third and final camera on the back is a 2MP OV02B1 depth sensor, which hardly contributes much to the photography experience.

The front camera relies on a 16MP OmniVision OV16A1Q 1/3.06" sensor 1.0µmm pixels and with Quad-Pixel filter. It sits behind f/2.2 28mm lens. The focus is fixed. The default output of this camera is 4MP, though 16MP is an option, too.

The default Motorola camera app has gone through some changes in the past couple of software versions, but the main way of navigating through the menus and camera modes remains the same.

The camera modes are arranged in a customizable carousel formation, with the hamburger menu holding a couple of other shooting modes. There's also a Pro mode giving you almost full control over the camera's settings like white balance, ISO, autofocus, exposure and shutter speed up to 32s for the two rear snappers.

Camera app

Additional settings for each camera mode can be found by swiping up in the viewfinder, including video resolution. The gear icon for the general settings menu houses even more settings, including photo resolutions.

One thing we've noticed in there is that the videos are set to H.265/HEVC encoding by default, so you might want to revert to H.264/AVC if you want better compatibility when playing those videos on other devices.

Advanced settings

Just like on previous Moto phones, here you have two choices for the rear camera resolution - 12MP or 8MP. But unlike on the old models, this one does not force this resolution on the ultrawide camera as well - its output remains 13MP as it should be.

You can also choose the front camera resolution - the options are 4MP (binned) and 16MP.

108MP mode is available for the primary camera.

Photo quality

The main camera saves 12MP images by default, but you can opt for lower 8MP resolution of use the high-res 108MP mode.

The default 12MP photos are easily likable. They have a lot of detail and balanced processing - the foliage looks good and intricate objects are not over-sharpened as it often happens these days. The noise is kept well under control.

The contrast in these photos is high and makes them look lively, while the dynamic range is average. We think Motorola has struck a good balance between contrast and dynamic and the samples we took look pleasantly natural.

One thing that could use some tuning is the white balance. While the photos appear with punchy and lively colors, they have this reddish tint that's noticeable only if you compare them with images taken with another device or the ones shot in the 108MP mode.

Main camera, 12MP

And here are a few samples taken in the high-res mode. They do get the white balance right and offer a more true-to-life color presentation. The noise is higher here, too, and the dynamic range is a bit wider.

You get a moderate amount of extra detail, but the Nona-Bayer filter causes various irregularities in areas of high complexity because of the way remosaicing works to restore the missing information. As a result the images look a lot like oil paintings at pixel level.

Main camera, 108MP

But there is a case to be made for shooting with this high-res highly artificial mode. If you shoot 108MP photos and then resize them down to 12MP you get far better detail than in the default mode.

Oh, and these reseized photos have better colors and higher dynamic range to boot. However the differences aren't huge enough to be worth the extra hassle most of the time so we'd use use this mode only for shots that are worth it.

And here are the two resized samples we used in the comparison tools.

Resized 108MP to 12MP photos

The 13MP photos taken with the ultrawide camera are better than what we usually get from the mid-rangers. They are more detailed than the average ultrawide images and the sharpness is once again nicely balanced. Obviously though, these are nowhere near to the quality of the primary camera.

The distortion is proficiently corrected, and the loss of sharpness isn't that obvious. The noise is tolerable. The dynamic range is okay, as is the contrast, while the colors are slightly washed out and duller than they should have been. The reddish tint is present here, but it's less noticeable than on the primary camera.

Ultrawide camera, 13MP

You can get a bit sharper images by turning the Auto HDR off. It stops the multi-frame stacking and is more gentle with the noise cleaning. The difference isn't that major, but it's visible and this way you may end up with more likable photos. Just know that stopping the Auto HDR applies to all rear cameras and while it could save better ultrawide photos, it will worsen the primary camera quality a bit.

No HDR • Auto HDR

The ultrawide camera supports autofocus and even comes with a special Macro Vision mode. There is a dedicated switch for Macro Vision on the viewfinder, next to the 0.5x and 1x. This mode introduces a crop with the same coverage level as the main cam. Unfortunately, this means the photos were first cropped and then upscaled back to 12MP.

The Macro Vision photos are okay. They offer enough detail, though the sharpness isn't that great and upon closer inspection you will be able to tell that some upscaling process was involved. The contrast and colors are great though, and the noise, even if present, isn't too distracting.

Overall, these closeups are pretty good, you just need to try the ultrawide camera and see which shooting modes suits you best.

Macro Vision, 13MP

There is a way to avoid the crop in macro shooting and get sharper phots - just use the 0.5x mode and tap on the object you want to take a closeup when you are at 4cm or so away. This way the macro images will come up with wider FoV, but you will have presereved all the available information and you will be free to crop them as you with in editing.

Ultrawide • Macro Vision • Ultrawide • Macro Vision • Ultrawide • Macro Vision

The Moto G200 has a 2MP depth sensor on its back that captures depth information for the portrait mode. The primary camera is the one taking the actual portraits and those turned out great - the subjects are detailed and with excellent sharpness, the colors are accurate, and the contrast is superb as well.

The subject separation is on par with most phones these days, while the simulated blur is among the better implementations and looks natural enough.

Portraits, 12MP

The 12MP low-light photos taken with the main camera leverage multi-frame staking (there is AI low-light enhancer that is turned on by default) and look great. The detail level is okay, while the color and the saturation are well preserved. The contrast is good, too, while the noise is tolerable.

These low-light photos also demonstrate adequate exposure and high dynamic range, and clipped highlights are rarer and smaller than expected. Sure, these aren't the best nighttime photos we've seen, but certainly among the better ones in this class.

Main camera, 12MP

Night Vision is available only on the main camera and it does bring up a bit of extra detail in the shadows. It lowers the contrast but improves the dynamic range even further and restores most, if not all blown highlights.

Main cam Night Vision, 12MP

The low-light phots from the ultrawide-angle camera are good for the class, although the bar is admitedly pretty low. These are adequately exposed and with preserved colors and saturation, and the detail is not bad probably because of the gentler noise reduction (and hence noisier photos).

The ultrawide photos turned out very usable even without the help of a Night Mode, which was a nice surpsise.

There is only one issue with this camera at night - sometimes its focus fails to properly lock and you may ends up with a soft and out of focus images. We suggest, if you ever use this camera at night, you better tap to focus and take a couple of photos.

Ultrawide camera, 13MP

And here are photos of our usual posters taken with the Moto G200 5G. You can see how it stacks up against the competition. Feel free to browse around and pit it against other phones from our extensive database.

Moto G200 5G against the Xiaomi 11T and the Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G in our Photo compare tool

Selfies

The selfie camera on Motorola Moto G200 has a 16MP Quad-Bayer shooter behind f/2.2 fixed-focus lens. It saves 4MP images by default but if you want - you can set it up to save its native 16MP resolution instead.

The 4MP default selfies are good - there is enough detail and noise is low, the sharpness isn't overboard, the colors are consistently accurate, and the contrast is high. The dynamic range gets a boost by the Auto HDR when necessary.

The last photo of the batch below was shot in 16MP resolution. It is softer on a pixel level, but it does have a lot more overall detail.

Selfies

The portraits with the front camera are okay, but nothing impressive. The separation isn't as proficient - its weakness is masked with additional blur around the subject's contours and ears and hair often suffer from this. Other than that, the rest is on par with the regular selfies.

Portrait selfies

Video capturing

The Motorola Moto G200 records 8K videos at 24fps, 4K videos at 30fps, and 1080p videos with up to 60fps with its main camera. The ultrawide and selfie cameras are limited to 1080p@30fps. Oddly, you can capture Macro Vision at 4K at 30fps.

Optional electronic stabilization (EIS) is available only on 4K and 1080p at 30fps mode across all snappers.

The video bitrate is extremely generous at 126Mbps for 8K/24fps footage, 62Mbps in 4K and 20Mbps for 1080p. Audio is always captured stereo with a 256Kbps bitrate.

The first clip here was shot in 8K at 24fps and the G200 maintained the framerate perfectly. The picture is detailed and sharp, with excellent colors and contrast. The dynamic range seems adequate, too.

But footage isn't ideal - you can see objects that look like compression artifacts. These could be a result of the Nona-cell nature of the sensor, or indeed compression trances.

The 4K videos captured with the main camera are great, especially for this class. They have a ton of resolved detail, the colors are accurate, noise is impressively low, and the dynamic range is commendable.

The sharpness excellent as well, and the video looks very-well balanced with natural-looking foliage and well-developed complex objects.

The 4K low-light clips from the main camera are not bad. The noise reduction is moderate and is leaving a lot of fine detail for us to enjoy, while the noise levels aren't terribly high. The videos offer good exposure, and the colors are mostly preserved.

The 1080p ultrawide footage is okay. There is enough detail, the contrast is high, and the corners are not warped given the wide-angle 12mm lens. The colors are a bit desaturated, and the dynamic range is average at best.

For their purposes, these 1080p clips are plenty usable. We only wonder why this camera wasn't given an option for 4K shooting. Oh, wait, it was, but only in Macro Vision. Go figure!

Finally, here is the Motorola Moto G200 5G in our video tool so you can do your own comparisons.

2160p: Moto G200 5G against the Xiaomi 11T and the Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G in our Video compare tool