Moto G82 review
Pure Android 12, the way Google intended
The Moto G82 runs on last year's Android 12 out of the box with minimal tweaks on Motorola's behalf. There are a couple of unique Moto features in there, but the software team didn't mess around with the pure Android experience at all. We would normally make a remark that the G82 runs on an older version of the OS but since the handset has been released in early 2022, we can't realistically expect Motorola to update its mid-ranger right away. With that being said, Motorola is indeed a bit behind schedule lately with its Android updates, which should used to be one of the key selling points for Motorola phones.
However, you still get the benefit of using a clean Android, and lots of people are after that. It's lightweight, it's familiar, and it's stripped of the heavy UI customizations. Still, Motorola includes a couple of unique features typically found in all smartphones from the company.
Even with the Snapdragon 695 on board, the device runs well with little to no hiccups and slowdown. In fact, we feel that the Moto G82 runs somewhat smoother than other Snapdragon 695-powered handsets with custom Android skins.
The UI and overall appearance are close to stock Android. That includes the new pill-shaped quick toggles in the notification shade. And once again, it does not include the toggle for automatic brightness, and you have to dig deep into the settings menu to enable or disable the feature.
Home screen, app drawer, notification shade, recent apps, settings menu
No change in the recent apps menu that displays apps in a carousel formation and no change in the app drawer as well. The iconography in the general Settings menu has been revamped, though, so it might take some time to get used to.
As is usually the case, Motorola has added a handful of useful extras. They are all placed in a Moto settings app that lists them in categories. The first one is Personalization which allows you to tinker with fonts, app icons layout, accent colors, icon shape and themes.
The more useful additions, however, involve gestures. The iconic ones - karate chop for turning on the flashlight or twisting your wrist to open up the camera app are here. There's also the Power touch (double tap on the power button) that brings out an additional app panel from the right edge of the display. It works exactly how the smart sidebar does in other Android skins.
The Attentive display keeps the screen on when the front camera detects a face looking at it so the display won't go dark when you are halfway through an article. Peek display lights up the lockscreen once the device senses you are close and you pick up the phone. It uses the proximity sensor and the accelerometer to detect motion. And in case there's a notification, you can just tap and hold on to the notification icon to see a quick preview of the text. The Peek display feature is almost as good as an Always-on functionality, but we would have preferred to have the ability to choose.
Attentive display and Peek display
Last but not least, the volume rocker keys can be used to change tracks by holding down the volume up or down key.
A relatively new feature is the Overcharge protection toggle in the Battery menu. It will cut off charging once it detects that the phone hasn't been unplugged for three days straight and keep the battery charged at a much healthier 80%.
Interestingly, there's no trace of the "Ready For" feature Motorola is offering on some of its Edge models. Even though the Moto G82 features the exact same hardware as the Motorola Edge 30 Neo, the Ready For screen casting functionality isn't available. Maybe it's part of Motorola's feature disparity scheme.
We only noticed a small slowdown outside of launching some heavier apps, which took a bit longer than usual. The UI doesn't feel heavy on the eye, nor does it take a toll on the hardware with excessive effects or animations.
Synthetic benchmark performance
The Snapdragon 695 powering the Moto G82 is a fairly popular chip. We have a good idea of the kind of performance we can expect from it. Generally speaking, it is an efficient and decent mid-range chip in terms of raw performance. Its noteworthy shortcoming is the limited DSP which caps camera video capture to 1080p.
Other than that, you get a decent octa-core CPU setup - 2x 2.20 GHz Kryo 660 Gold & 6x 1.70 GHz Kryo 660 Silver and a somewhat modest but still proper Adreno 619 GPU. Nothing chart-topping for sure, but good enough nonetheless.
The handset comes in two memory variants - 6GB/128GB and 8GB/128GB and seeing how little RAM affects user experience, we can't think of a reason to get the 8GB/128GB version. We received the 6GB flavor for this review.
GeekBench 5 (multi-core)
Higher is better
-
Realme 9 Pro+
2335 -
Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G
2063 -
Poco X4 Pro 5G
2063 -
Realme 9 Pro
2020 -
Snapdragon 695 average
1979 -
Motorola Moto G82
1977 -
Motorola Edge 30 Neo
1964 -
Samsung Galaxy A33 5G
1900 -
Samsung Galaxy A53 5G
1891 -
Motorola Moto G62
1697
GeekBench 5 (single-core)
Higher is better
-
Realme 9 Pro+
814 -
Samsung Galaxy A53 5G
743 -
Samsung Galaxy A33 5G
742 -
Realme 9 Pro
694 -
Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G
688 -
Poco X4 Pro 5G
687 -
Snapdragon 695 average
680 -
Motorola Moto G82
671 -
Motorola Edge 30 Neo
670 -
Motorola Moto G62
543
AnTuTu 9
Higher is better
-
Realme 9 Pro+
416031 -
Realme 9 Pro
401894 -
Samsung Galaxy A33 5G
394918 -
Snapdragon 695 average
389776 -
Poco X4 Pro 5G
384646 -
Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G
382902 -
Motorola Edge 30 Neo
380818 -
Motorola Moto G82
380812 -
Samsung Galaxy A53 5G
379313 -
Motorola Moto G62
303072
GFX Aztek Vulkan High (onscreen)
Higher is better
-
Realme 9 Pro+
16 -
Samsung Galaxy A33 5G
15 -
Samsung Galaxy A53 5G
15 -
Motorola Moto G82
13 -
Motorola Edge 30 Neo
12 -
Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G
12 -
Poco X4 Pro 5G
12 -
Realme 9 Pro
12 -
Snapdragon 695 average (1080p)
12 -
Motorola Moto G62
10
GFX Aztek Vulkan High (offscreen 1440p)
Higher is better
-
Realme 9 Pro+
10 -
Samsung Galaxy A33 5G
10 -
Samsung Galaxy A53 5G
10 -
Motorola Moto G82
8.2 -
Motorola Edge 30 Neo
8.2 -
Realme 9 Pro
8.2 -
Poco X4 Pro 5G
8.1 -
Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G
8 -
Snapdragon 695 average
8 -
Motorola Moto G62
6.7
GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)
Higher is better
-
Realme 9 Pro+
23 -
Samsung Galaxy A33 5G
20 -
Samsung Galaxy A53 5G
19 -
Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G
17 -
Poco X4 Pro 5G
17 -
Snapdragon 695 average (1080p)
17 -
Motorola Moto G82
16 -
Motorola Edge 30 Neo
16 -
Realme 9 Pro
16 -
Motorola Moto G62
14
GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)
Higher is better
-
Realme 9 Pro+
27 -
Samsung Galaxy A33 5G
23 -
Samsung Galaxy A53 5G
23 -
Motorola Moto G82
21 -
Motorola Edge 30 Neo
20 -
Poco X4 Pro 5G
20 -
Snapdragon 695 average
20 -
Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G
19 -
Realme 9 Pro
19 -
Motorola Moto G62
16
3DMark SSE Vulkan 1.0 (offscreen 1440p)
Higher is better
-
Samsung Galaxy A53 5G
3570 -
Realme 9 Pro
2773 -
Motorola Edge 30 Neo
2747 -
Motorola Moto G82
2745 -
Motorola Moto G62
2287 -
Snapdragon 695 average
2062
The benchmarks show proper Snapdragon 695 implementation, and most of the rivals we picked for this comparison seem to be running either the same SoC or hardware with a similar level of performance. The Realme 9 Pro+ is the only one that stands out with Dimensity 920 that edges out the Snapdragon 695 in most tests.
Sustained performance
The Snapdragon 695 isn't all that demanding, so keeping it running at relatively high clock speeds shouldn't be an issue. The results from our sustained load confirm this, at least for the most part. At 100% CPU load, the device maintained rather stable and almost maximum clock speeds in the first 20 minutes before tapering off for the next 20 minutes.
CPU throttle test: 30 min • 60 min
Until the end of the hour-long test, the handset kept about 80% of the CPU's theoretical performance, which is a decent result.
Reader comments
- Vinod
- 18 Jan 2024
- X%y
Moto G82 was Very Good Phone, With Great Display, Great Battery Life, Great Speakers Charging Time 1.hr 20 Minutes, Lag Free & Ad Free User Interface, Not for Gaming, for Camera Use Gcam. 8.7 Edition. Thanks
- indian user
- 17 Dec 2023
- K57
Yes the camera is atrocious. I expected atleast an average camera with this phone. I know that moto phones can't be trusted for camera. Even with gcam image quality is not good. other than that the phone is good.
- AndyOops
- 14 Dec 2023
- BiP
Great screen, great battery life, great charging speed. Awful, awful camera. And very basic camera software. I've gone back to my 5 year old Honor Play which has a better camera. I'm selling my G82 if anyone wants one.