Should you buy Moto G4 Plus for Rs 15k?

Himanshu Juneja takes a closer...

The latest event of Motorola at New Delhi saw the company lifting the curtains off the much awaited Moto G4 handsets. As per the leaks and expectations, the much acclaimed and successful Moto G series saw not one, but two handsets being unveiled for the year 2016.

The Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus, as they are called, have a lot of common features between them. Both are dual SIM, LTE enabled devices. Both support VoLTE, Turbo Charging and microSD cards. Despite one of the siblings carrying the moniker 'Plus', both the handsets coming with identical screens was a surprise for many.

Despite the heated competition, the first batch of mobile phones under the 'Lenovo Moto' come with enough features which should keep the interest going for the series.

Time to take a closer look at the latest of the dynamic duo of Moto G 2016 series.

The Moto G4 Plus

The Moto G4 Plus comes with a plastic and glass construction, and has been given rounded corners. Flip it over, and the shape of the slightly rubberised back brings back memories of Samsung's Galaxy Nexus device of yesteryear. The curve on the back is gone, and the flatter rear's 16 MP camera along with the dual LED flash, and the familiar Motorola dimple at the back keeps things minimal.

At the front, the freshly included fingerprint scanner sits right beneath the display. As per Lenovo, the square shaped scanner can recognise 5 different digits. The phone gets unlocked rapidly, taking about 750 ms. The scanner is zippy and users will find hardly any reason to complain about, but not everybody may agree with the shape and the placement of the scanner.

Lenovo could have easily placed the scanner on the side edge or at the back, maybe even inside the dimple to give it a dual role of sorts. Maybe future iterations will see better implementations.

The Moto G4 plus comes with a 5.5-inch full HD display. We get an IPS LCD, a resolution of 1080 x 1920p, and pixel density of 401 ppi. Lenovo has provided Gorilla Glass 3 protection to bring more sturdiness.

As for the hardware powering the handset, the G4 plus comes with Qualcomm Snapdragon's 617 SoC. The Octacore CPU has Cortex A53 cores (clocked at 1.5 GHz), with Adreno 405 graphic processing unit. The users get to choose what is the best amount of RAM suited for their usage and/or budget. The two models of G4 Plus comes in either 2 GB or 3 GB model variations. The onboard storage capacity is 16 GB and 32 GB respectively. The handsets of course come with a microSD card slot, allowing the user to expand the storage capacity by another 128 GB.

Both the Moto G4 variants will be running on the Marshmallow (Android 6.0) operating system, with features like Moto display enhancing the user experience. Keeping the bloat to a minimum is one of the stronger selling points of the Lenovo owned Moto handsets.

The camera is another department where the Moto G4 Plus will try to entice the buyers. Compared to last year's model, the latest iteration gets a big boost in terms of 16 MP rear snapper, which comes with not only laser assisted autofocus, but also has phase detection autofocus to boot. An aperture of f/2.0 and 1.3µm pixels should translate in better night time photography.

There is also the dual LED flash at the back for those tricky light conditions. The camera at the back can snare videos in 1080p resolution.

Oh, and the users can definitely look forward to the pro mode, and the revamped camera app makes up for another piece of exciting news. The selfie camera is more of a regular affair. A 5 MP sensor, with a wide angle lens should deliver decent selfies.

Powering a 5.5-inch screen is not an easy task, and when it is a full HD unit, things only get tighter. The non removable 3000 mAh battery should keep things running for good duration. Lenovo included the fast charging technology, and a compatible charger as well for quelling the doubts. As per the company's claim, 15 minutes worth of charging will prepare the handset for 6 hour's worth of backup.

The Moto G4 Plus has been made available immediately for sale, and the base model (2GB RAM/16GB storage) is priced at Rs 13499, where as the more beefed up version (3GB RAM/32 GB storage) costs Rs 14999.

The Moto G4

While the Moto G4 model has been unveiled as well, Lenovo has not divulged any details about the pricing, or about its availability. The rumour mills suggest that the handset will go on sale only in the month of June.

As for the specifications, the Moto G4 comes sharing a lot of G4 Plus DNA. Equipped with the same 5.5-inch FHD screen, it also comes with the same SoC from Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 617. The GPU is again Adreno 405, but the G4 comes with only one variant 2GB RAM along with 16 GB storage capacity.

The microSD card slot shows up here as well, with a maximum limit of 128 GB.

The Moto G4 misses out on the fingerprint scanner, and the camera from last year's Moto G3 gets carried over here. A 13 MP sensor, with f/2.2 aperture means comparatively, the photography department will be less capable. The rear camera module though is the same as that of Moto G4 Plus. The battery department also mirrors the G4 Plus, and the 3000 mAh battery comes touting the fast charging advantage, but there will be no fast charging adapter included in the box.

One can safely assume that the Moto G4 will be catering to the budget segment and should cost about Rs 12,000 whenever it launches.

Both the handsets will be sold exclusively on Amazon.