Motorola Moto G8 Plus review

A few Moto custom bits over Android 9.0

The Moto G8 Plus isn't on the Android One branch like the phones in the One series, so it has a bunch more options in the Moto custom features app. Other than that, it's mostly a stock-ish looking affair. The software build is still based on Android 9.0 Pie, however - there's no 10 just yet.

The G8 Plus has its own take on gesture navigation, same one Motos had since before Google came up with the pill. The Android 10's strip implementation now looks similar to the one on the Motos from 2018 - who's leading the way now, Google?

They call it One Button Nav, and it's a single elongated button in the center - tapping it once takes you to the home screen, a swipe up brings out the recent apps menu, swiping to the left acts as a back button while swiping to the right quickly switches back to the last opened app. The quick switch works pretty well, which is not always the case with Android's native implementations. If, on the other hand, you want to have the classic three-button navigation, you can switch One Button Nav off.

Other Moto actions include a karate chop for toggling the flashlight on or off, twist motion to launch the camera app, three-finger screenshot gesture, accelerometer-based ringtone silencing, and lift to unlock - if you have face recognition enabled.

Moto Display consists of just two options on the Moto One Actions, and the more important one is Peek Display - the not-always-on display. It'll display notifications and let you interact with them right there on the lockscreen plus it'll wake up when you pick up your phone. Another feature, Attentive display, will keep the screen on as long as you are looking at it.

One Button Nav • Moto actions • Peek Display

All of these aside, the rest is pretty much Android 9.0 Pie as Google intended it to be - well, there's also the greenish hue of the quick toggles.

Lockscreen • Homescreen • Folder view • App drawer • Task switcher • Quick toggles

As you'd expect, the Security & location menu contains the available biometric features - fingerprint and face unlock. Both seem to work pretty well but keep in mind that the face unlock feature works only with the front-facing camera without any additional 3D scanning tech so the fingerprint remains the more secure biometric unlock method. Which is fine, because it's fast and reliable.

Biometrics

Synthetic benchmarks

The Moto G8 Plus is powered by the Snapdragon 665 - a midrange Qualcomm chip, made on an 11nm manufacturing process. It packs an octa-core CPU in a 4x2.0GHz Kryo 260 Gold & 4x1.8GHz Kryo 260 Silver arrangement and an Adreno 610 GPU. A single RAM and storage configuration is offered - 4GB and 64GB is what you get, and that's it.

Running our usual set of benchmarks on the Moto G8 Plus, we got virtually the same results out of it for single-core CPU performance as we did from other phones with the Snapdragon 665. The Snapdragon 675-powered handsets do offer a considerable boost in single-core performance. They do also offer some improvement over the Moto G8 Plus under multi-core loads, but it's not as dramatic.

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• vivo V17 Pro
  509
• Samsung Galaxy A60
  507
• Motorola One Zoom
  501
• Nokia 7.2
  336
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8
  315
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
  315
• Motorola Moto G8 Plus
  314
• Realme 5s
  314
• Nokia 6.2
  276

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• vivo V17 Pro
  1657
• Nokia 7.2
  1425
• Samsung Galaxy A60
  1410
• Motorola One Zoom
  1409
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
  1402
• Realme 5s
  1373
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8
  1339
• Motorola Moto G8 Plus
  1325
• Nokia 6.2
  1255

It's a similar distribution in Antutu, where the S665 bunch is relatively tightly grouped together, while the S675-equipped Moto One Zoom flies the S675 flag somewhat in front of them.

AnTuTu 8

Higher is better

• Motorola One Zoom
  180000
• Motorola Moto G8 Plus
  168699
• Realme 5s
  168635
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
  167395
• Nokia 7.2
  164484
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8
  161572
• Nokia 6.2
  140736

When it comes to graphics, the Moto G8 Plus delivers decent performance, though once again the Snapdragon 675's more powerful Adreno 612 GPU gives the phones that have it a bit of an edge over the Moto. And then the Snapdragon 670 devices (of which we've only seen the Pixel 3a XL) score even higher still. That's because the S670 has an even more powerful Adreno 615 GPU - yes, Qualcomm's product nomenclature makes all the sense.

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Google Pixel 3a XL
  20
• vivo V17 Pro
  17
• Motorola One Zoom
  15
• Samsung Galaxy A70
  15
• Motorola Moto Z4
  15
• Samsung Galaxy A60
  15
• Nokia 7.2
  15
• Motorola One Action
  14
• Samsung Galaxy A50
  14
• Motorola Moto G8 Plus
  13
• Xiaomi Mi A3
  13
• Realme 5s
  13
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8
  13
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
  13
• Motorola Moto G7 Plus
  10
• Nokia 6.2
  10

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi A3
  27
• Realme 5s
  24
• Google Pixel 3a XL
  19
• Motorola Moto Z4
  14
• vivo V17 Pro
  14
• Motorola One Action
  13
• Motorola One Zoom
  13
• Samsung Galaxy A70
  13
• Samsung Galaxy A60
  13
• Samsung Galaxy A50
  13
• Nokia 7.2
  13
• Motorola Moto G8 Plus
  12
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8
  11
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
  11
• Motorola Moto G7 Plus
  9.7
• Nokia 6.2
  9.2

GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Google Pixel 3a XL
  11
• Samsung Galaxy A50
  9.2
• Nokia 7.2
  9
• vivo V17 Pro
  8.8
• Motorola One Zoom
  8.1
• Samsung Galaxy A60
  8.1
• Samsung Galaxy A70
  8
• Motorola Moto Z4
  7.2
• Motorola Moto G8 Plus
  7.1
• Xiaomi Mi A3
  7.1
• Realme 5s
  7.1
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8
  7
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
  7
• Motorola Moto G7 Plus
  6.3
• Nokia 6.2
  6.3

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi A3
  13
• Realme 5s
  12
• Google Pixel 3a XL
  11
• Nokia 7.2
  8.1
• Motorola Moto Z4
  8
• Samsung Galaxy A50
  8
• Samsung Galaxy A60
  7.3
• vivo V17 Pro
  7.3
• Motorola One Zoom
  7.1
• Samsung Galaxy A70
  7
• Motorola Moto G8 Plus
  6.5
• Motorola Moto G7 Plus
  5.9
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8
  5.9
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
  5.9
• Nokia 6.2
  5.7

3DMark SSE 3.1 Unlimited

Higher is better

• Google Pixel 3a XL
  1748
• Nokia 7.2
  1427
• Samsung Galaxy A50
  1353
• vivo V17 Pro
  1221
• Realme 5s
  1140
• Xiaomi Mi A3
  1131
• Motorola Moto G8 Plus
  1128
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
  1128
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8
  1126
• Samsung Galaxy A60
  1123
• Samsung Galaxy A70
  1112
• Motorola One Zoom
  1107
• Motorola Moto Z4
  1044
• Nokia 6.2
  998

All in all, the Moto G8 Plus is a noticeable performance upgrade over the Moto G7 Plus and sits well against key rivals. Having said that, there are Snapdragon 670 and 675 competitors, and those do offer some performance gains. And that's before taking into account the Snapdragon 700-series devices, which you can find for Moto G8 Plus money in some parts of the world. So if you're after the best performance for the price, perhaps this Moto shouldn't be on top of your list, but it's easily powerful enough.