Moto G4: The best budget smartphone

The Moto G4 has a big 5.5-inch screen, a great move for those who like watching movies and streaming videos, notes Gaurab Dasgupta.

Ever since Motorola came back into the fray of the smartphone segment, it has made a strong user base in India.

Most of its launches have been a success. And, the latest one to enter the market is the Moto G4.

Having a simple body design with smooth edges, the phone might give good competition to players in the budget smartphone segment.

The phone has a big 5.5-inch screen, a great move for those who like watching movies and streaming videos; you can even watch the ongoing Euro competition in France.

It doesn’t try to look premium though it is designed in a neat and compact manner. However, it does not have an IPX7 water-resistant screen unlike the Moto G (third generation).

The Moto G4 is a mere 9.8-mm thick, weighs 155g (seriously light for a 5.5-inch phone), and to top it all, it feels sturdy with a curved metal frame surrounding the screen adding to the high-quality feel.

The power and volume keys feature on the right while a microUSB port is placed at the bottom, and a 3.5-mm earphone socket at the top.

The removable plastic back panel shields the two SIM slots and a microSD slot underneath it.

It looks almost identical with the Moto G4 Plus barring the fingerprint sensor that the G4 Plus has. This might be a let-down.

The phone is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 SoC, backed with two gigabytes (GB) of random access memory (RAM), and 16GB of internal storage (expandable up to 128GB with a microSD card). It comes with a powerful 3000 mAh battery. 

The Moto G4 is 4G-capable on the primary SIM slot, and supports Bluetooth 4.1 and Wi-Fi a/b/g/n.

There is also USB-OTG and FM radio, but it has no near-field communication (NFC) connectivity.

It runs on Android 6.0.1, with a near-stock user interface using Google Now as its default launcher.

I found two features that induced my curiosity. The first one being the unavailability of the gallery application. This encourages you to use Google Photos.

To this, the phone has an offer which lets you back up photos clicked at their original resolution.

The catch is it does not impact your total cloud storage space for two years.

And the second one is the turbo charger. Just 20 minutes of charging and you’re good to go for the next six-eight hours.

The G4 has a 13-megapixel (MP) rear camera and a 5MP front camera coupled with a dual-light emitting diode (LED) flash at the back.

Picture quality is pretty decent with slight oversaturation, especially in bright images. 

All of this, and for how much? Rs 12,499. See if it fits your budget.