Moto G50 review

Design and ergonomics

The Moto G50 is entirely made of plastic (except the screen, of course), which isn't a surprise given the price point but it does boast a water-repellent coating as most Motorola handsets do. This doesn't mean you can submerge it in water, it means that a big splash or rain won't pose any issues.

The available colors are just two - Steel Gray and Aqua Green, with the former one being shown in the photos. Naturally, the glossy surface is a fingerprint magnet but the Steel Gray color makes the smudges a tad less visible. The chassis is slippery - no way around it. The matte side frame doesn't help with the grip either.

While the Moto G10 has a patterned, matte plastic back, this one adopts a glossy one, whereas the camera module and its placement are quite similar. We've noticed that the bump is considerably smaller, and perhaps Motorola was able to shave a couple of millimeters off with the G50.

The fingerprint reader placement is a bit off - it's positioned a bit higher than it should, so you'd have to stretch your index finger to reach it, even if you have average-sized hands. Motorola should have accounted for the 6.5-inch display plus the borders.

Speaking of the borders, the front panel has some thick bezels around, with the bottom one being particularly noticeable. To our surprise, the front-facing camera sits on a good old waterdrop-styled notch instead of a punch-hole type of cutout. Don't get us wrong, though, as the bezels fit the price of the handset, we didn't expect razor-sharp borders to begin with.

As opposed to the glossy body, the frame has a matte finish, but it's still plastic, and it's rather slippery. The left side holds the hybrid SIM + microSD card slot (you can either put two SIM cards or a SIM card + microSD), while the right has all the buttons. The power button is placed lower, and it's textured, so you can't miss it. The next one is the volume rocker, and then comes the dedicated Google Assistant key. All of those keys are convenient and can easily be reached with your right thumb.

As for the bottom, we have the speaker grille and the USB-C connector.

Motorola Moto G50

A good build overall with a bonus water-repellent design. There's nothing inherently wrong with the chassis except for the slightly inconvenient fingerprint reader placement. One could make a case that 192g for a 6.5-inch device is maybe a little too much for an all-plastic body, although the G50 feels bottom-heavy and sits comfortably in the hand.