At this point in time, I don't think the Moto G line needs any introduction. With the original Moto G in 2013 Motorola really went beyond what was thought to be possible in a mid-range smartphone. At that point in time, buying a $200 smartphone usually meant buying some Samsung or LG phone with a name nobody had ever heard of, and specs that left much to be desired. The Moto G showed that you could create an Android phone with an HD display, good performance, a good build, and good battery life at a price under $200.

Motorola has iterated on the Moto G in the years since the original model. The second generation saw an increase in the display size, but in all other respects it was the same phone as the original. The third generation Moto G was where Motorola provided a significant increase in performance, while also bumping up battery life and adding unique features like water resistance. At the time of its release, I recommended the 2015 Moto G to anyone looking for a well- rounded Android smartphone at a price around $200.

As another year comes and goes, we get another version of the Moto G. As the mid-range smartphone market gets increasing competitive, there's more pressure to improve on a phone each year rather than shipping a basic update like the second generation Moto G was. This year Motorola, now owned by Lenovo, has gone for a strategy of segmentation. I am personally not a huge fan, as to me the Motorola phone line was characterized by its simplicity, with there just being the Moto E, Moto G, and Moto X. However, having sub-models within the Moto G line allows certain higher priced models to add additional features on top of the standard extras like more storage and RAM.

For this review I'll be looking at the Moto G4, as well as the Moto G4 Plus. Motorola also sells the Moto G4 Play which isn't part of this review, and it represents a less expensive option with reduced specifications that are similar to those of the 2015 Moto G. Below you can view the specs of both the Moto G4 and G4 Plus, with last year's Moto G thrown in for comparison.

	Moto G (2015)	Moto G4	Moto G4 Plus
SoC	Snapdragon 410 4 x 1.4GHz Cortex A53 Adreno 306	Snapdragon 617 4 x 1.5GHz Cortex A53 4 x 1.2GHz Cortex A53 Adreno 405
RAM	1GB/2GB LPDDR3	2GB LPDDR3	4GB LPDDR3
NAND	8/16GB eMMC + MicroSD	16/32GB eMMC + MicroSD	16/64GB eMMC + MicroSD
Display	5-inch 1280x720 IPS	5.5-inch 1920x1080 IPS
Network	2G / 3G / 4G LTE Cat4
Dimensions	142.1 x 72.4 x 11.6mm, 155g	153 x 76.6 x 9.8mm, 155g
Camera	13MP Rear Facing, f/2.0, 1.12µm, 1/3.06" (Sony IMX214)		16MP Rear Facing, f/2.0, 1/2.4", PDAF + Laser AF (OmniVision OV16860)
	5MP Front Facing, 1.12µm (Samsung S5K5E2)	5MP Front Facing, 1.4µm (OmniVision OV5693)
Battery	2470 mAh (9.39 Wh)	3000 mAh (11.4 Wh)
Launch OS	Android 5.1	Android 6.0
Connectivity	2.4GHz 802.11a/b/g/n, BT 4.0, GPS/GNSS, USB2.0	2.4/5GHz 802.11a/b/g/n, BT 4.2, GPS/GNSS, USB2.0
Fingerprint Sensor	No	No	Yes
SIM	MicroSIM	MicroSIM + Included NanoSIM Adapter
Price	$179 (1GB/8GB) $219 (2GB/16GB)	$199 (16GB) $229 (32GB)	$249 (2GB/16GB) $299 (4GB/64GB)

On paper, the Moto G4 and G4 Plus look like a good improvement over the 2015 model. The SoC has moved from Qualcomm's Snapdragon 410 to Snapdragon 617, which bumps the max CPU frequency to 1.5GHz and uses the much faster Adreno 405 GPU. RAM has also moved to 2GB standard, which is good to see as the 1GB Moto G was crippled compared to the 2GB model due to aggressive application eviction. In the case of the Moto G4 Plus, you have two different SKUs. The first commands a $50 premium over the equivalent Moto G4, which gets you an improved camera with PDAF and Laser AF, as well as a fingerprint scanner. An additional $50 brings the total to $299, but doubles the amount of RAM to 4GB and quadruples the storage to 64GB.

Both the Moto G4 and G4 Plus increase the display size to 5.5 inches, while also increasing resolution from 1280x720 to 1920x1080. With the increased size comes a larger but thinner chassis, and the mass is actually kept the same. Battery capacity has increased accordingly, moving from 9.39Wh to 11.4Wh. As for the cameras, the Moto G4 uses the same 13MP IMX214 rear-facing sensor from Sony, while the Moto G4 Plus adopts a much larger 16MP sensor from OmniVision. Both phones use a larger 5MP OmniVision sensor than the 2015 model's Samsung sensor.

Connectivity is mostly the same, with cellular support staying at Category 4 LTE. 5GHz WiFi has been added which is great to see, but it's still 802.11n only. NFC is still nowhere to be found, which isn't a serious issue now, but may cause some disappointment as Android Pay expands to other countries. Curiously, Motorola continues to use a MicroSIM slot despite most phones having moved to NanoSIM. They do provide a NanoSIM to MicroSIM adapter pre-installed, which saves you from having to buy an adapter.

Design

The Moto G4 still retains Motorola's design attributes, but it departs from the design of the 2015 Moto G and other previous Motorola devices in several ways. When you hold it, the most obvious change is the fact that the back cover levels off and is mostly flat, which contrasts with all the other Motorola devices I have where the back has a continuous curve going from the left to the right side edges of the chassis. The reasoning behind this is fairly clear, as a curved back would make the phone thicker and more difficult to hold, and that wouldn't pair well with the jump from a 5-inch display to a 5.5-inch one. This does mean that the Moto G4 is not as comfortable to hold in the hand as its predecessor, but that's also just what happens when you keep increasing the screen size until a device is no longer usable in a single hand.

The back cover is still removable, and the material it's made of is distinctly different from the 2015 Moto G. It has a very fine texture, and it almost feels rubbery in a way. In contrast, the 2015 Moto G's back cover was made of a fairly hard plastic with diagonal lines running across it to create texture. I personally prefer the feel of the Moto G4's back cover, and I think it lends itself well to the new flatter design. I still don't understand why the back cover is removable when it only serves to access the SIM tray and MicroSD slot. This kind of chassis works well with removable trays, and it would eliminate the seam between the back cover and the edges of the phone.

One thing you lose with the Moto G4 is the waterproofing of the previous model. In general I don't think this is a deal-breaker, although I do have to say that I'm a bit disappointed as the 2015 Moto G has always been my go-to device for taking photos when kayaking due to its waterproofing.

Like the previous Moto G, the Moto G4 and G4 Plus have both the sleep/wake button and the volume rocker on the right side of the phone. With the previous models this wasn't necessary from a usability standpoint, but with the move to a 5.5" display it's definitely a good call. The sleep/wake button maintains its textured feeling so you can distinguish it from the volume rocker, which has always been a nice touch. Unfortunately, I don't have any other good things to say about these buttons. I've never used buttons with such a poor click to them before, not just on a smartphone but on any mechanical device I can recall using that has some sort of button. With the sleep/wake button this isn't a huge issue as you don't use it often, but with the volume rocker it becomes a legitimate usability problem.

Motorola's previous phones actually had pretty nice buttons given their prices, with the Moto E surprising me by having decent buttons despite the fact that the upper part of the mechanism was part of the removable band around the phone. The Moto G4's buttons have almost no clickiness to them at all, and in the case of the volume rocker the mushy feeling ends up compromising their usability because if you try to repeatedly press them they seem to stay in the depressed position and won't click at all until you let it reset. I had hoped that this was just some sort of flaw with one of the units, but both have the same issue. Every other Motorola device that I've reviewed has had a similar feeling to the buttons, and I don't understand why the Moto G4 has downgraded their quality this significantly.

Moving on to the front of the phone, you'll see one of the other visual differences that help to distinguish the Moto G4 Plus from the normal Moto G4. Both phones are the same in size so they have the same front plate design, but the Moto G4 Plus has placed a fingerprint scanner on the bottom bezel. Unfortunately, this is really another poor design decision on Motorola's part. The Moto G4 and G4 Plus both use on-screen buttons, and so the fingerprint scanner doesn't act as a home button with capacitive buttons for back and recent apps on the left and right. While the fingerprint sensor does its job fine apart from some scanning issues due to its small size, I find the fact that it can't act as a home button to be quite an annoyance. It's positioned exactly where you'd expect a home button to be, and I've lost track of how many times I would instinctively tap it instead of tapping the on screen home button. The entire implementation just feels very thoughtless, and the decision to put the sensor in that spot while still using on screen buttons is one of the pitfalls of segmenting products in this manner while trying to maintain a common design between them.

Owners of the 2015 Moto G may miss having two speakers on the front of their phone, but with the Moto G4 Plus putting a fingerprint scanner in that spot the feature had to go on both versions of the phone. Motorola has also made an interesting choice by putting the microphone on the bottom bezel rather than on the bottom or side of the phone. On the Moto G4 Plus this does concern me as far as durability is concerned, because you now have breaks in the glass for the microphone and the fingerprint scanner side by side, potentially creating an area that can easily crack.

In the end I'm torn on how to feel about the Moto G4's design. I really don't like that Motorola has moved to such a large display, as I have always advocated them to users looking for a smartphone that can be reasonably used in one hand. I think the design of the phone has matured from the previous Moto G, and the materials certainly feel nicer. On the other hand, the buttons don't feel good at all, and it presents a legitimate usability problem in the case of the volume rocker. The fact that the fingerprint scanner isn't a home button is also really strange given its placement, and it can take a while to train yourself to not attempt to use it as one. For me personally, I'd honestly have to describe the new design as a downgrade due to the large size, sub-optimal fingerprint scanner UX, lack of waterproofing, and poor buttons. The change in size is the biggest issue for me here, but even if you find it manageable I don't think you can really describe the Moto G4's design and build quality as a definite upgrade from its predecessor.

System Performance

The Moto G has had an interesting history regarding performance improvements. The original model launched with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 400 SoC, which was very good for its time with four Cortex A7 cores. In a strange move, the second generation Moto G launched with the same SoC, and was pretty much just the original Moto G with the screen size increased from 4.5 to 5 inches. A few months later, the second generation Moto E launched with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 410 SoC, which outperformed the existing Moto G on all fronts, leaving it in an awkward position. The third generation Moto G also moved to Snapdragon 410 later that year, and for the fourth iteration we now see the use of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 617 SoC.

Because the internal hardware of our Moto G4 and G4 Plus units is only differentiated by the amount of RAM included, I have only run our standard benchmarks on the G4 Plus. Given that they share the Snapdragon 617 SoC, the CPU and GPU performance of the phones should be identical. I would have liked to have the Moto G4 Play in the comparisons, but it shares an SoC with the 2015 model of the Moto G and so that can be used as a point of comparison instead.

The Moto G4 pulls ahead of the 2015 model in PCMark, with the most significant gain being in the Photo Editing test. This test makes use of the GPU for processing, and the greater GPU performance that Adreno 405 provides compared to Adreno 306 is to thank for the nearly doubled photo score. As for the other tests, there are improvements, but apart from the web test the differences between the new Moto G and the old one are fairly small.

Moto G4 and G4 Plus Hot App Launch Times

Moto G4 and G4 Plus Cold App Launch Times

DiscoMark is one of the best benchmarks we have to describe the speed of a device. Delays in switching between apps can be painful from a UX perspective, and DiscoMark allows us to evaluate how quickly a device can resume an application that is resident in memory, as well as how quickly it can start one up from scratch.

One would think that the 64GB model of the Moto G4 Plus having 4GB of RAM would lead to improvements in DiscoMark, but in both cold and hot app launches the Moto G4 and G4 Plus perform similarly. To be honest, in this case the issue comes down to the size of the test set, as it is obvious when using many apps that the Moto G4 with 2GB of RAM has to reload them more frequently than the G4 Plus with 4GB of RAM. The only thing to note is that the G4 Plus seems to be more consistent with how long it takes to cold launch an app, which may be due to the additional memory being used for data caching.

The cold start times demonstrate the performance gap between mid-range and high-end devices. The average median time to launch an app on the Moto G4 and G4 Plus is nearly one second, which feels like an eternity when you just want to open something like a weather app to quickly check if it's going to rain. When you go from a $200 phone to a $400 one, this time is nearly halved. It may be that inexpensive phones can do a good job of scrolling a list and swiping between tabs smoothly, but high-end devices still have a clear advantage in circumstances such as these where the speed of launching an app is primarily a function of your SoC and DVFS settings.

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 is an exception to the rule. Priced around $150 depending on your storage configuration, the use of Snapdragon 650 with its Cortex A72 cores gives it a huge lead over mid-range phones that only have Cortex A53 cores. Being able to launch apps in half the time is a big advantage, and I think it's safe to say that the $50 extra for the Moto G4 Plus would have been better spent on improving the SoC instead of adding an IR rangefinder to the camera and a poorly implemented fingerprint scanner.

The general lack of improvement in web performance isn't unexpected. I re-tested the 2015 Moto G on Marshmallow with the latest version of Google Chrome and saw no improvements. The Moto G4 and G4 Plus still run only on Cortex A53 cores, and the performance cluster is at 1.5GHz which is only 100MHz faster than the Snapdragon 410 in the 2015 Moto G. JavaScript performance is really bound by the performance of a single core, so there was never going to be much improvement here.

Real World and UI Performance

I reviewed the 2015 models of the Moto E and Moto G. I recommended both of them as the best Android devices in their class, because they made smart decisions regarding the balance of specifications, and they made the most of what you could do in a smartphone at their price points. At this point I've come to expect that even inexpensive Android devices can handle the basics of the Android interface without dropping too many frames. Motorola was a pioneer in making inexpensive phones that ran a lightly modified version of Android and did so with great UI performance. Obviously you didn't get the speedy app launch times of flagship smartphones, but once you were in your apps they all ran fairly smoothly.

The reason I bring this up, is because I can't say any of these things about the Moto G4 and G4 Plus. To address my first point, it's clear from the Moto G's specs that under Lenovo there's now a much greater focus on appealing to the Chinese market, and in many ways that really doesn't lead to a better smartphone. I already commented on how moving to 5.5" compromises usability compared to the previous models of the Moto G, but the internal specs of the phone tell a story of their own. The Moto G4 replaces the Snapdragon 410 SoC from the 2015 Moto G with Snapdragon 617.

Choosing an eight core Cortex A53 SoC to appeal to the Chinese market instead of a six core Snapdragon 650 was not a good decision for the user experience. There is basically no tangible CPU performance benefit that Qualcomm's eight core Cortex A53 SoCs provide over their quad cores, apart from the obvious speed improvements that come with higher clocks. Snapdragon 650 may not have been in the cards for the $200 Moto G4, but in the $250 model of the Moto G4 Plus the use of an SoC with a much faster CPU would have been a wiser investment than the fingerprint scanner and the laser autofocus for the camera. Playing the specs on paper game was never what the Moto G was about, it was about providing a well-balanced smartphone at a great price, and I don't see that philosophy in the new Lenovo-owned Motorola.

Any bar above the green line is a frame that took too long to render, causing sub-60fps rendering

Sticking with Cortex A53 throws away the chance to increase the phone's speed by cutting down load times, but Motorola has shown in the past that they can keep animations smooth even with relatively little processing power. For whatever reason, the Moto G4 often can't accomplish this either. There's clearly more stuttering throughout the UI than on the 2015 Moto G, with many ListViews and even RecyclerViews stuttering constantly when scrolling, while the 2015 Moto G remains smooth in the same situations. The level of input lag is also really bothersome, and scrolling seems to not respond correctly at times, with forceful swipes only shifting a list by a few rows. While the Moto G4 is pushing a higher resolution, it also has significantly more GPU processing power and I doubt that the performance issues are the result of inadequate hardware. More likely is that we're dealing with less than optimal firmware on the Moto G4, and later in the review you'll see other info to support this idea.

In the end, I don't feel that the Moto G's speed or fluidity is at the level it should be for a mid-range phone launching in the second half of 2016. When Xiaomi is bringing Snapdragon 650 to $150 smartphones, the performance of quad and octa-core Cortex A53 SoCs really only remains acceptable in low-end smartphones priced at $100 or less. On top of the relatively slow performance for an H2 2016 mid-range smartphone is the stuttering and input lag in the UI that makes the Moto G4's fluidity and responsiveness worse than its predecessor. The performance of the first Moto G to launch under Lenovo's ownership is unimpressive to say the least, and I think Lenovo and Motorola need to take a look at what made the previous Moto G phones great in order to understand why they've gone so far off course.

GPU Performance

As I mentioned on the last page, moving from Snapdragon 410 to Snapdragon 617 doesn't really lead to a significant improvement in real-world CPU performance. What does improve is GPU performance, which is something that has always been a bit of a problem on low-end and mid-range smartphones. The 2015 Moto G used Qualcomm's Snapdragon 410 SoC. Snapdragon 410 uses Qualcomm's Adreno 306 GPU, which put the 2015 Moto G in a bit of an odd position because that same SoC was used in the significantly cheaper Moto E. Snapdragon 617 uses Adreno 405, which we've demonstrated as providing significantly faster performance than Adreno 306 in past reviews of other devices that use it. It's worth testing a device to ensure everything is working correctly even if you already have results for another device with the same SoC, and so I've run our 2016 GPU benchmarks on the Moto G4.

The 2015 Moto G doesn't support OpenGL ES 3.1, and so there's no way to run 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme Unlimited which uses ES 3.1 on Android and Metal on iOS. Snapdragon 617 uses the same Adreno 405 GPU as Snapdragon 615, and you can see in the results that the performance is right in line with the Huawei Honor 5X which uses Snapdragon 615. For a mid-range phone this is generally good performance, but once again the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 sits far ahead of the rest of the mid-range smartphones, including the Moto G4.

The situation in BaseMark ES 3.1 is the same as 3DMark, with the G4 Plus achieving roughly the same performance as the Huawei Honor 5X. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 with its Adreno 510 GPU ends up being a little over 75% faster, which is a huge improvement even if both devices technically don't get close to a playable frame rate in this very heavy test.

In GFXBench Car Chase it's the story is the same. The Moto G4 Plus is in line with other Adreno 405 devices, but the question is really whether or not that's good enough for a device launching this late into 2016.

We've generally moved to Manhattan ES 3.1 / Metal for our reviews, but in cases like this where a device's predecessor doesn't support OpenGL ES 3.1 it's helpful to bring back Manhattan ES 3.0 to do a direct performance comparison. As expected, the Moto G4 is much faster than the 2015 Moto G, with on screen performance being about 85% faster despite the move from 720p to 1080p. and off screen performance being over four times faster.

It's clear that the Moto G4 provides much better GPU performance that the 2015 Moto G. However, much like the CPU benchmarks, I keep looking at the charts and seeing the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 sitting well above the Moto G4. Adreno 405 is much better than Adreno 306, but Adreno 510 is two times faster than Adreno 405. I feel like the Moto G4 is simply launching too late for this kind of performance to be competitive, as it's tied with the Honor 5X which was launched at $200 nearly a year ago. While I don't mean to take away from the fact that the Moto G4 does provide faster GPU performance than its predecessor, I think there are devices right around the corner that are going to make a mid-range smartphone with Snapdragon 617 look decidedly last generation.

NAND Performance

NAND performance is still an area of concern on mid-range smartphones, but the situation has gotten better in recent times. The 2015 Moto E was an example of a device with very poor NAND performance, but the 2015 Moto G was significantly faster across the board. Motorola is still using eMMC memory, but there's definitely room for improvement over the 2015 Moto G even when sticking with an eMMC storage solution. To evaluate the Moto G4's storage performance I've run AndroBench 4.0 on both the 16GB Moto G4 and the 64GB Moto G4 Plus.

Among mid-range devices, the 64GB Moto G4 Plus performs very well. Random write results are ahead of all other devices on the chart except the Huawei P9, which isn't really a mid-range device and is just there for SoC comparisons. In the sequential write test the Moto G4 leads, which is due in part to the larger capacity allowing greater write parallelism. Sequential read performance is very good as well, although obviously not competitive with UFS 2.0 storage solutions like the one used in the OnePlus 3.

Display Analysis

One of the standout features of the original Moto G was its display. It was a 4.5" 1280x720 display, which gave you a higher pixel density than many other smartphones at the same price which still used 960x540 displays. It certainly wasn't the best calibrated display, but for its time it was one of the best you could find in a mid-range smartphone.

Fast forward to 2016, and we now have $200 mid-range phones shipping with 1920x1080 LCD displays. Phones have also continually gotten larger, with 5.5" seemingly being the new norm for mid-range devices. The Moto G progressed from its original 4.5" display to a 5" one with the 2014 and 2015 models, and has now gotten even larger with the 5.5" display on the Moto G4. Like competing smartphones, the Moto G4 also moves to a resolution of 1920x1080. I really feel that this continued increase in size has been at the expense of usability, but I've already mentioned that in this review, and at this point consumers don't really have any smaller alternatives at this price point anyway.

While the first three models of the Moto G maintained a 720p resolution, Motorola improved the accuracy of their displays as well as other attributes like the peak brightness and black levels. With the Moto G4 moving to a 5.5" 1080p display, I'm curious to see if there have been similar improvements to attributes beyond size and sharpness. To examine the display in greater depth than what is presented on a spec sheet, I've run our standard suite of display tests. As always, measurements are performed with an X-Rite i1Pro 2 spectrophotometer, and managed using SpectraCal's CalMAN 5 software.

Both the Moto G4 and G4 Plus achieve a high peak brightness, as well as a relatively low black level relative to that brightness. This leads to the G4 achieving the highest contrast ratio that I've seen on a device at this price point. Among the mid-range devices that I've chosen for comparison, the Moto G4 definitely has the best display as far as brightness and contrast is concerned.

SpectraCal CalMAN

Moto G4 Plus DeltaE 2.92

SpectraCal CalMAN

Moto G4 DeltaE 4.45

Having two devices with the same LCD presents an interesting situation where the two can be compared to examine the degree of variance with the calibration. It was clear to me right after I turned on both phones that the normal Moto G4 exhibited a slight green tint and was warmer than the Moto G4 Plus, which was definitely shifted more toward blue than our target white standard of D65. In both cases gamma is a bit high, although this is more pronounced on the Moto G4 Plus. It's also clear that between these two units, the Moto G4 Plus exhibits a greater level of accuracy. For a phone that starts at $200, I would consider both results to be acceptable, but the greyscale accuracy on the G4 Plus unit is definitely a step ahead of the normal G4 unit.

SpectraCal CalMAN

Moto G4 Plus DeltaE 3.71

SpectraCal CalMAN

Moto G4 DeltaE 3.25

The tables turn when examining saturation accuracy, as the normal Moto G4 demonstrates a slightly greater level of accuracy. The Moto G4 Plus has higher error levels with blue, cyan, and magenta due to the blue-shifted greyscale. Again, in both cases the display is more than acceptable for a $200 smartphone, but it is interesting to see what tolerances Motorola has for display variance from one unit to another.

SpectraCal CalMAN

Moto G4 Plus DeltaE 4.1

SpectraCal CalMAN

Moto G4 DeltaE 3.88

Accuracy in the GretagMacbeth ColorChecker test is very similar between both Moto G4 units, but the normal G4 again has a slight advantage. This difference is mostly academic, and I would actually argue that you'd be better off with the G4 Plus because in this case the normal G4 has a critical error in the light skin shade, which is a color you're likely to come across more so than others. Ultimately both displays are very good for the price, and I don't think users are going to have any issues with the level of accuracy if it can be assumed that all Moto G4 and G4 Plus phones have similar calibration.

Drawing conclusions about displays can be a bit difficult when you have two devices to compare. On one hand, my less accurate unit could be exceptionally poor. On the other hand, my more accurate unit could be exceptionally good. I can only make concrete conclusions based on the data I've collected, and so it's probably best to evaluate based on the worst results. In this case both devices were similar enough, although the G4 Plus has the display I favor because green shifting in the greyscale is something I find much more bothersome than blue shifting, as I've gotten used to the latter due to its pervasiveness on WLED-backlit LCD displays.

The fact that both displays were relatively close in their accuracy hopefully indicates that users can expect this level of accuracy on any Moto G4 device, although I can't say that for certain. Based on the information I have, I'd say that users buying a Moto G4 should be getting a display that is exceptionally bright, with good black levels, and decent color accuracy, and I think that makes for a pretty good $200 smartphone display.

Camera Architecture

Camera quality on mid-range smartphones has gotten much better during the past few years, but it hasn't advanced to the same degree that other aspects such as the display have, and so it still ends up being one of the weaker aspects of a non-flagship smartphone. In general, we're at the point where still image quality with ample lighting is more than acceptable even on phones that only cost $200, but the relatively small sensors and less advanced ISPs on mid-range phones tend to produce poor images in low light and less than stellar video quality.

In the case of the Moto G4 and G4 Plus, there's a different camera in each model. The Moto G4 is advertised as using a 13MP sensor, while the Moto G4 Plus uses a 16MP sensor with PDAF and laser autofocus as well. This can be useful when shooting in low light, as pretty much every PDAF implementation on a phone with the exception of the Galaxy S7 fails to work in low light, while laser AF continues to work well. One would think that the Moto G4 Plus simply uses a higher resolution sensor in the same line as the sensor used in the Moto G4, but the story is actually more complicated than that. I've arranged data on the cameras for the previous Moto G and this year's Moto G4 and G4 Plus in the chart below to give a more comprehensive picture of their respective camera systems.

	Moto G (2015)	Moto G4	Moto G4 Plus
Front Camera Resolution	5MP (2560x1920)	5MP (2592x1944)
Front Camera Sensor	Samsung S5K5E2 (1.12 µm, 1/5")	OmniVision OV5693 (1.4µm, 1/4")
Front Camera Aperture	f/2.2
Rear Camera Resolution	13.0MP (4160x3120)		16.0MP (4608x3456)
Rear Camera Sensor	Sony IMX214 (1.12 µm, 1/3.06")		OmniVision OV16860 (1.3µm, 1/2.4")
Rear Camera Focal Length	3.6mm (27mm eff)		4.7mm (27mm eff)
Rear Camera Aperture	f/2.0
Autofocus	Contrast		Laser + PDAF

My original assumption about the Moto G4 was that the G4 Plus simply shipped with a higher resolution sensor of the same size. However, further investigation has shown that this is definitely not the case. The normal Moto G4 ships with the same Sony IMX214 sensor as the 2015 Moto G, although one can hope that the improved ISP built into Snapdragon 617 will help to improve image quality. As for the G4 Plus, it actually uses an OmniVision sensor, and it's a lot larger than IMX214. In addition to being 16MP compared to 13MP on the G4, the increased sensor size means that those pixels are also larger, at 1.3µm compared to 1.12µm. This is a very interesting situation, because in all likelihood it means that the Moto G4 Plus will be much better at low light photography than the less expensive model, and that's not what I expected from a $50 price bump.

Still Image Testing

This first daytime test involves a scene with variant lighting conditions, which can cause some smartphones to overexpose their photos. There's also a lack of direct sunlight throughout the entire area due to the leaves of trees, which provides a good way to see how different phones handle the balance of exposure, noise processing, and sharpening to maintain detail in both bright and dark areas.

Moto G4

Moto G4 Plus

In this first scene both Moto G4 phones do a good job of retaining detail in the image. One can't really say that the G4 Plus has a noticeable advantage when it comes to sharpness. The one area that did stand out to me is the text on the base of the statue sitting to the left of the flag pole, which isn't legible at all on the Moto G4's image, but is in the image taken by the G4 Plus.

More noticeable than the small sharpness differences is the fact that the Moto G4 Plus pulled off a much more natural exposure than the G4. In the Moto G4 image it almost seems like the photo was taken on a cloudy day where the light from the sun was obstructed. In reality there were only a few clouds in the sky and the sun was shining down directly, and this is better reflected in the photo taken by the G4 Plus.

Moto G4

Moto G4 Plus

In my next outdoor scene there's shade provided by the trees, and many phones attempt to trigger their auto HDR, although I disabled it for the purposes of camera testing. The mixture of dark areas and highlights makes it a more difficult scene to get a good exposure than the previous one.

In this scene the Moto G4 and G4 Plus perform similarly. Much like the first scene, the exposure of the two shots is different. Given that both phones share the same ISP, I'm going to attribute this to either different processing being done for the different sensors, or different sensor attributes in general. In any case, both images are similar as far as detail, noise, and sharpness are concerned. The one thing I would note is that the G4 Plus does a better job of maintaining detail in the grassy patch.

One other interesting comparison is between the 2015 Moto G and the Moto G4, as they differ only in their image processors. It's clear when examining the images that the Moto G4 provides superior image quality, and this is especially obvious when looking at details like the tree branches and leaves. In the 2015 Moto G's image it's just a blurry mess of green and brown, while the Moto G4 actually resolves a good level of detail and allows you to see the thin individual branches and different leaves.

Moto G4

Moto G4 Plus

It's pretty clear from the photos above that the Moto G4 Plus is in a completely different class than the normal Moto G4. Looking back to the 2015 Moto G, it's hard to say whether the Moto G4 actually improves in its image quality. Snapdragon 617 provides a better featured ISP, but in the end it's still down to the quality of the sensor and the image processing algorithms to produce a good shot. In this case, the Moto G4 doesn't have the distracting color noise that made the 2015 Moto G basically unusable for low-light photos, but the tradeoff is that the photo is quite blurry and devoid of detail due to heavy noise reduction. In fact, because both phones can only manage similar levels of exposure, I would have to say that the 2015 Moto G actually did a better job here because it maintains a good level of detail and sharpness in the exposed areas despite the color noise.

As for the Moto G4 Plus. the difference can be seen instantly. The phone is able to show much more of the scene by virtue of its larger sensor capturing more light. You can see details on the right side of the frame and in the distance that are obscured on the normal Moto G4 due to its dark exposure. The level of detail and sharpness is also improved, and the photo is actually much better than what you'll get on Google's latest Nexus devices with the HDR+ mode disabled.

Moto G4

Moto G4 Plus

The Moto G4 suffers from the same blurry output in this next test as it did in the previous one. However, in this circumstance the brighter exposure of the images means that the color noise on the 2015 Moto G is much more distracting, and so I would probably opt for the Moto G4's image this time around. As for the Moto G4 Plus, there is an improvement over the normal Moto G4 but not to the same degree as the previous image as both phones manage a similar exposure in the scene. What is clear is that the Moto G4 Plus isn't using the same heavy noise reduction that smears away detail, leading to a slightly noisier but also much more detailed result.

Overall, I think the Moto G4 provides acceptable image quality for a $200 smartphone. IMX214 is definitely showing its age, although it's funny how Google's less-than-optimal image processing leaves the Nexus 6 with worse image quality despite having a much more powerful SoC and OIS paired with the same sensor. The Moto G4 does outperform the Huawei Honor 5X, which has been my general recommendation at this price point. As for the Moto G4 Plus, it has surprised me in how well it performs for a $250 smartphone. The low-light image quality is much better than any other $200-300 device that I've personally used, and I think it's definitely worth the $50 if you're a user who likes to take a lot of photos but is on a tighter budget for a smartphone.

Video Recording

Both the Moto G4 and G4 Plus can record 1080p video at 30fps. I've opted to do my test with the Moto G4 Plus, but in general there's not really any difference between the two. If you decided to do video recording at night the circumstances may change due the G4 Plus's larger sensor, but I don't think either phone is going to produce any sort of usable video at night.

The Moto G4's video quality is acceptable for a mid-range device, but there's nothing exceptional about it. Video is encoded using the H.264 High profile, with an average video bitrate of 17Mbps. It's good to see devices leaving behind the H.264 Baseline profile, which was used by several devices last year and is missing many features that can improve video quality at a given bitrate. The audio is a 96kb/s stereo track. In general, the video isn't too detailed, but Motorola does a good job of managing the exposure and maintaining a smooth frame rate, both of which have been issues on inexpensive smartphones in the past.

Battery Life

Regardless of how good a phone's hardware is, if it can't last through the day then it's never going to provide a good user experience. We use a few different tests to analyze the battery performance of a mobile device under different workloads that put a heavy stress on a certain part of the system. In our web test, the workload is display-bound, although there is a significant amount of CPU processing done which will impact results. In GFXBench the test is GPU-bound, and in PCMark the test tries to simulate typical interactions that will make use of all the hardware. For these benchmarks I've opted to just test the Moto G4 Plus, as both the G4 and G4 Plus share the same SoC, display, and battery capacity, so there should be no difference between the two as far as battery life is concerned. As always, I'll start with our own WiFi web benchmark before moving to the battery tests that exist as part of the performance benchmarks that we use.

In our internal WiFi web browsing test the Moto G4 Plus lasts exactly one hour longer than the 2015 Moto G. This isn't surprising given the significant increase in the battery capacity with the move to a larger form factor, but it does put to rest any concerns about the Moto G4's higher resolution display leading to worse battery life in display-bound workloads than its predecessors.

The Moto G4 performs as expected in the GFXBench Manhattan ES 3.1 battery test. Both the runtime and performance are in line with the Huawei Honor 5X, which has essentially the same specifications. Obviously a frame rate of 4.5fps isn't going to be playable, but in a graphical workload more reasonable for the Moto G4's hardware you should be able to play for a good period of time before your battery dies.

Normally I would run PCMark's battery benchmark, which is my favorite battery test because it performs tasks that users do on a daily basis. In my view it provides the best idea of whether or not a phone will last through the day. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the Moto G4 or the G4 Plus to complete the test. Early on in the benchmark it would simply freeze, and the phone would sit there in that state until it drained and died. I attempted the test three times, at which point I gave up on my attempts. The only other device this has happened to is the Google Pixel C, and we all know how that turned out. Suffice to say, this kind of issue is a hint that there are probably other software problems and stability issues in the phone's firmware, and it's not a good sign.

Charge Time

Something that I found to be quite ridiculous about previous versions of the Moto E and Moto G was the charger included in the box. This was market dependent to a degree, but in North America the first problem with the charger was that it had a low power output of roughly 2.5W. This meant that the phones charged incredibly slowly, which was a big problem when paired with the relatively large batteries in the 2015 Moto E and Moto G. On top of that, the charger was a single unit where the block and cord were connected together, rather than being a separate block and cord. This meant that by default, the Moto E and Moto G could not be connected to a computer to transfer media.

While the old charger could be somewhat excused as a cost saving measure, Motorola has clearly recognized the ridiculous nature of it. With the Moto G4 and G4 Plus they now ship a separate cord and charger. Something that confuses me is the fact that Motorola's website explicitly advertises that the G4 Plus ships with their 15W TurboPower charger. While this is the case, the normal Moto G4 unit I received also has it so it's not really a selling point for paying the extra $50 from what I can see. I'm not sure if this differs by market, so it's probably best to check the box when buying to see what charger you get inside.

By including a reasonable charger in the box, Motorola has cut down charge time significantly. The 2015 Moto G had the longest charge time on record for a smartphone, while the Moto G4 Plus is in line with what is expected of modern smartphones. Fast charging has more than halved the time it takes to charge the battery fully, despite the fact that the battery has increased in size from 2470mAh to 3000mAh. My only complaint is that Motorola's TurboPower charger makes a whining noise when the phone reaches a full charge and is left connected. I noted this around the time of the Nexus 6 review as it uses the same charger, and I was told by many users that they don't experience this. However, I now have three of these 15W TurboPower blocks and they all do it, so I think it actually comes down to whether or not you can hear the frequency emitted. If you want to look on the bright side, it lets you know when your phone is done charging, but I think I'd rather have an LED indicator instead.

Final Words

The Moto G4 and G4 Plus represent the fourth entries in Motorola's Moto G line. For me, the Moto G has always been about balancing the different features of a smartphone to provide a well-rounded smartphone that doesn't really excel in any area, but does well in all of them. One would expect that as a product is continually developed, its quality will improve with each iteration. However, in the smartphone market there have been devices where this has not been the case. On paper, the specs of the Moto G4 and G4 Plus make them look like obvious improvements over the 2015 Moto G, but I'm not so sure that you can truly say that based on their specs alone. Over the course of this review I've looked at each aspect of the Moto G in detail, and I found that some areas impressed, while others left something to be desired. I think the question of whether or not a user should buy the Moto G4 or Moto G4 Plus is heavily dependent on what they value in a smartphone, so before trying to make any conclusions it's worth going over how each aspect of the phones compared to their predecessor.

At first glance the chassis of the Moto G4 seems to represent an upgrade over the 2015 model. It's thinner, and at least in my view the slightly rubbery feeling plastic back feels nicer than the hard plastic shell from the 2015 Moto G. However, Motorola has made a number of design decisions that I consider questionable at best. By far the worst one is the choice of buttons. I already went over this in detail in the intro, but the buttons really are terrible and the volume rocker is actually difficult to use because of it. The size of the phone also poses problems. Making the phone much larger has helped to slim it down while still putting in a large battery, but it comes at the cost of usability. I find the 2015 Moto G much easier to use due to its 5-inch display, even though it's a thicker phone and a bit more slippery in the hand due to the hardness of the back cover. The Moto G was one of the only mid-range Android devices that hadn't moved to 5.5-inches, and now there are really no options for someone looking to get a mid-range 5-inch Android smartphone.

Another strange decision is having a removable back cover just to access the SIM and MicroSD trays. This isn't something that only Motorola does, but I just don't understand why you would opt for this over removable trays when your battery isn't removable. I suppose that it simplifies the manufacturing process when the phone is ordered using Moto Maker, but you end up with an unnecessary seam between the back cover and the edges of the phone. This isn't a change from the previous Moto G, but it feels like design improvements are being left on the table. As for the Moto G4 Plus, the fingerprint scanner really feels like an afterthought, and putting it on the bottom bezel in order to keep the chassis the same between both models despite the fact that it can't be used as a home button was a really poor decision. I constantly try, and fail, to use it to return home, due in no small part to the fact that the borders are raised above the glass in such a way that you frequently feel it with your thumb. It's almost like it's inviting you to press it, but you're just greeted with failure every time you try.

My misgivings about the size aside, the Moto G4's display is actually quite good. Having two units allowed me to get an idea of what variance there is between units. It seems clear that regardless of the calibration, these displays have class leading brightness and contrast ratios, and the outdoor usability is great. Color calibration ranges from just okay to good, and it's clear that the displays target the sRGB gamut but don't really have a standard about what the white point should be or how high errors can be before they're not acceptable. In this case, the Moto G4 Plus exhibited greater accuracy, but I wouldn't attribute this to anything more than panel variance. Even if both displays had the error levels of the normal Moto G4 results, I would still say that the display is one of the best I've seen on a phone of this price.

The Moto G4's performance hasn't impressed me in any respect. Moving from Snapdragon 410 to 617 has very little impact on the CPU performance results. The GPU performance improvement is significant, but in the face of current and upcoming mid-range smartphones that use Snapdragon 650, the performance improvement going from the 2015 Moto G to the Moto G4 simply isn't large enough. We're already in the third quarter of 2016, and $200 phones with Snapdragon 615 launched in late 2015 and early 2016. Cortex A53 just doesn't provide compelling performance when competing phones are moving to an SoC with Cortex A72 cores, and Adreno 405 is only half as fast as Adreno 510.

The performance issues aren't just limited to benchmarks. Motorola's previous phones provided a smooth experience despite their limited specifications, and the Moto G4 and G4 Plus are significantly jankier throughout the UI, with even the simplest of ListViews stuttering at times. This is most certainly an issue of software rather than hardware, and stability issues with tests like PCMark battery don't inspire any confidence in the Moto G4's software quality either. Couple that with Motorola refusing to commit to monthly security updates and there's a lot of reason to be concerned about whether the Moto G4 is ever going to get to a state where it's performant and secure.

The standard Moto G4 isn't really interesting as far as camera quality is concerned because it shares a sensor with the 2015 Moto G. It makes some improvements to image quality due to the newer ISP and some altered image processing algorithms, but in general it's fair to say that the Moto G4 has just kept camera quality at the same level as its predecessor. That is to say, you can use it for daytime shots and some occasional video recording, but you won't want to take any low-light photos with it.

The Moto G4 Plus is a completely different story. One would normally not expect that a $50 upgrade comes with a significantly larger camera sensor than the base model, but that's what Motorola has done. The OV16860 sensor in the Moto G4 Plus is actually larger than some flagship smartphones, and with that comes a large improvement in low-light image quality. You also get PDAF and Laser AF, which makes focusing quick in any scenario. I do think the addition of Laser AF is questionable when the money could have been spent on improving other parts of the phone, but it does mean that you can focus effectively in low light. As far as $200-300 smartphones go I don't think there's anything that competes with the Moto G4 Plus, and if you're someone who likes taking photos and wants to buy the Moto G4 it will probably be worth paying the $50 to get the better camera.

Perhaps the most important aspect of a smartphone is its battery life. Unfortunately, the Moto G4's software stability problems that prevent it from completing the PCMark battery test leaves us without the complete story of battery life. Based on the web test and GFXBench test results, the Moto G4 appears to provide good battery life. This reflects my own experience when using the phones, with both generally making it through the day unless they're subjected to a heavy battery stressing app like Pokémon Go.

When I think about the Moto G4 and G4 Plus as a whole, it really seems to me that they weren't designed with the same attitude as their predecessors. There are areas where money shouldn't have been spent, and others where more money needed to be spent. The only thing that is truly great about the Moto G4 is its display, and even with that Motorola is just getting on par with what Huawei has been providing for quite some time in the Honor 5X. Everything else about the phones feels like a sidegrade at best, with the chassis feeling nicer but having terrible buttons, and the camera on the normal model not really improving in any significant way. CPU performance doesn't improve much, while competing phones will be making large gains with the move to Snapdragon 650. In the case of the Moto G4 Plus the extra $50-100 does get you a better phone, but the only upgrade that is truly significant is the camera.

Ultimately, I don't think the Moto G4 is a bad smartphone, but the Huawei Honor 5X provides an equally good experience and has been widely available since the start of the year. The Moto G4 has just arrived too late to be relevant. As we move toward the end of 2016 and into 2017, there are going to be new mid-range devices at these prices that greatly surpass the performance, camera, and build quality of the Moto G4, and even right now there are better options available.