While last year was spent by Motorola expanding its expensive Edge series, this year, the manufacturer has released a new top model of its mid-range Moto G: The Moto G84 costs about US$320 and comes with a lot of storage and a bright OLED screen. Visually, Motorola has continued to take a leaf out of Pantone's book, selecting three different tones to choose from.
However, there are a lot of high-quality competitors active in this price range: Aside from the top dogs such as Samsung and Xiaomi, competitors also include OnePlus and the resurgent Honor. This won't make it easy for the Motorola Moto G84 to set itself apart from the rest, but it has certainly made a good start. Now, let's take a closer look at the mid-range phone.
When you open the Motorola Moto G84's box, you are met with the still relatively new Motorola scent which supposedly adds to the experience on the manufacturer's top-of-the-range models. The scent won't please everyone — but at least it is kept within the Moto G84's box (unlike with the Razr and Edge models) and in general, the scent isn't quite as strong.
The phone's design, which has slightly more pronounced polished corners, looks great. Thanks to its slim build and slightly smaller 6.5-inch screen, the Motorola phone can be held easily, even if you have smaller hands. Weighing in at about 167 grams, the Moto G84 is quite lightweight.
Color variants include Marshmallow Blue (a subtle blue that looks a bit more like a light gray), Midnight Blue (which looks rather dark gray) and Vivid Magenta (a light red, almost pink color). On the light blue and magenta phones, the back is covered with faux leather and the dark gray phone's back is smooth.
The phone isn't water or dust proof — it is only water-resistant to a certain extent.
With 12 GB RAM and 256 GB of storage, the manufacturer has shown itself to be rather generous when it comes to the Moto G84 — most of the time, you have to make do with far less within this price range.
NFC is also on board, meaning you can read tags and use mobile payment services such as Google Pay. Users of wired headphones can also look forward to a classic audio jack: The Moto G84 features this kind of connection, meaning you won't need an adapter.
Its USB-C port is only connected via USB 2.0 internally, which means wired image output to an external screen isn't possible. Via the apps Moto Connect or Ready For, you can connect to a display using WiFi, and you can even make use of the phone's designated desktop mode.
You can either put two Nano SIMs or one microSD card and one SIM into the phone's card slot. It doesn't support eSIMs.
Its microSD reader proved to be very fast in our benchmarks using the reference card Angelbird AV Pro V60 — both in the copying test and the CPDT benchmark. This is another good and fast way to store data besides its ample internal storage.
Motorola uses Android 13 on its smartphone and barely changes the user interface. All the important functions are bundled together in the Moto app and safety settings are located within the Moto Secure app.
The latest safety patch was from August 2023, meaning that at the time of testing, it was still just about up to date. The Moto G84 is supposed to be supplied with safety updates for 3 years, so until September 2026. The phone will definitely still see Android 14 but Motorola hasn't given any information on further operating systems.
The phone comes with quite a few third-party apps pre-installed but thankfully, they can be uninstalled quite easily.
The Motorola Moto G84 features WiFi 5 as its fastest WLAN standard and as a result, it is in good company within this price class. Its speeds between 319 and 358 MBit/s can be held very consistently. Although it can't quite make total use of a Gigabit line and it can't connect to the 6-GHz frequency, the Motorola phone still achieves good transfer rates when compared to other phones within this price class.
The phone is also 5G enabled. It has access to a lot of frequency bands, which means you can also connect to the web on your travels. Unfortunately, the Moto G84 isn't a true world phone, as quite a few more exotic frequency bands are missing — especially when it comes to 4G.
We regularly checked its reception quality during our test and compared it with high-end phones. The Moto G84 did a good job in this aspect, only occasionally did you see a bar less on the reception display than on the more expensive smartphones.
The positioning module supports a variety of satellite networks, but not SBAS for even more precise locating. As a result, the phone's accuracy remains within 3 metres, which is achieved very quickly when you step outside with the phone.
To provide an even more accurate practical analysis, we took the phone with us on a bike trip. We also strapped the Garmin Venu 2 to our wrist to compare — this is a smartwatch with extremely precise location services.
Both of the recorded routes were very similar, never showed us as riding through impassable terrain and they both impressed with their high accuracies. As a result, we would recommend the Moto G84 for navigation purposes that require a high level of accuracy.
Motorola uses Google's standard app, which should feel familiar to users of lots of other phone manufacturers.
Call quality when you hold the phone up to your ear is good — the person on the other end of the line sounds very present and our voice is transmitted well too, regardless of how quietly or loudly we speak. The sound feels a lot more distant and lacks body when you use the built-in speaker. The hands-free microphone works well and our voice is transmitted nicely.
The phone uses the Samsung Isocell S5KGN9 as a main camera sensor. It features a 50-megapixel resolution, but it mostly takes pictures in 12.5 MP — in doing so, it combines four pixels into one, which results in higher light yield.
Even so, our test photos appeared a little dark, lacking detail and very grainy. However, in view of the smartphone's price, the pictures are pretty decent.
Video can be recorded in a maximum of 1080p and at 60 fps. This is a step forward for this price range — usually, you only have access to 30 fps. The autofocus works quite quickly and reliably but sometimes, it makes itself known through a flickering display that can also be seen in the recordings.
We like that the Moto G84 features an 8-MP wide-angle lens that can also be used as a macro camera. This results in quite a flexible camera system, especially since there is a hybrid zoom between the wide-angle and main camera, but it shows very clearly when the lens is changed. In terms of detail, the pictures from the wide-angle camera are rather mediocre, so you shouldn't enlarge them too much.
The front-facing camera has a 16-megapixel resolution and takes quite detailed selfies in bright light, however, they could do with having a bit nicer dynamics.
In very bright light in our test lab, the picture taken on the main camera almost looks a bit overexposed, and the sharpness also clearly decreases towards the edges. At 1 lux illuminance, the subject is still roughly recognizable, but the image is hardly usable when you take a more detailed look at it.
The Motorola Moto G84 actually already comes with a silicone bumper, so you don't have to buy one separately. It also comes with a charger and a corresponding USB cable.
Motorola offers a 12-month warranty on its phones. If you want extra insurance covering broken displays and accidental damage, then you should look into getting Moto Care for 1-3 years. However, you can also find this sort of cover from lots of other providers nowadays.
Thanks to its 120-Hz screen, the Moto G84's touchscreen reacts really quickly to inputs. It remains sensitive right up to the corners.
Its fingerprint scanner is situated behind the screen, meaning it isn't visible from the outside. It recognises learned fingerprints really reliably and opens the phone quickly. The phone also supports facial recognition — this also works reliably. The phone can be unlocked the quickest when you make use of both biometric options.
Motorola has given this phone an OLED display with an enhanced 1080p resolution and a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz. It's really bright, especially when you consider the price of the smartphone: We measured an average of 889 cd/m² using the highest setting with the brightness sensor illuminated. Small areas (APL18) get even brighter — up to 1,230 nits.
This means that nothing stands in the way of the phone depicting HDR content, but Motorola hasn't given it an official certification. Even so, the app DRM Info shows that it supports HDR10 and HLG.
We measured some PWM flickering, so sensitive users should definitely try out the screen before purchasing the device.
In our tests using the software CalMAN, we measured a slight blue tint that is perceptible with the naked eye — apart from this, the display's color depiction using the mode "natural" is good all-in-all, meaning it should be possible to use it in a professional setting.
Its reaction speeds are very fast, which also makes the display well-suited for gamers.
Outdoors, the phone does a good job — in direct sunlight, the screen still remains somewhat legible.
If you look at the screen from the side, you will notice a slight change in brightness, but it always remains legible.
If you would like to render 4K or 1,440p content on this smartphone in the future, then the Motorola Moto G84 simply features too little power. Still, it completed the 1080p benchmarks relatively smoothly, apart from during very demanding tasks.
The Motorola Moto G84 allows you to navigate the web very smoothly — in all benchmarks, it came out on top. However, the newer browser version may also play a role here.
Even larger websites are loaded very quickly in everyday use and images are usually already depicted while you are scrolling.
Motorola has installed UFS 2.2 flash into this mid-range phone and in terms of speed, it came out about class-average: Data transfers are completed quite quickly and the loading times are bearable.
Now we want to see how well the Motorola Moto G84 is suited for gamers. To do so, we installed PUBG Mobile, Diablo: Immortal, and the software from GameBench which allows us to record the fps rates.
The results: You might not want to rely on getting more than 30 fps — when running PUBG, we achieved 40 fps but with very low details. Many games, such as Diablo, don't even allow you to choose a higher frame rate.
The phone is by no means a total gaming machine, but you can still play some more demanding games smoothly, as long as you keep your expectations in check.
Controlling games via the touchscreen and — depending on the game — the position sensor works very reliably.
In our stress test, the Motorola reached temperatures up to 45.1 °C. As a result, we can say that it never reached any critical values, however, it should be noted that we took these measurements at room temperature. In the summer, these temperatures may well rise under longer periods of load.
In any case, the SoC seems to be unaffected by this and it even managed to achieve very similar results when running the same benchmark 20 times (3DMark stress test).
The speaker along the bottom edge of the case is supported by the earpiece, so slight stereo effects are created when the phone is held horizontally. Thanks to Dolby Atmos, virtual surround sound is also supported.
The speakers sometimes sound very treble-heavy when playing professionally mixed pop music at maximum volume: We almost felt physical pain once because the sounds boomed so unpleasantly in our ears.
When we lowered the volume just a bit, the speakers didn't sound much better, but it at least no longer felt unpleasant. You can listen to speech and music quite well at medium sound levels.
The 3.5 mm jack for external speakers and headphones as well as the possibility to connect wireless devices via Bluetooth are both features we are happy to see. We like that Motorola supports almost all current wireless audio codecs, so listening to HiRes music on external devices is no problem.
The Moto G84 isn't totally frugal under low load, but at least its maximum consumption is held within limits. Other, similarly priced devices consume more power than our test phone in total.
The Motorola phone can be charged at a maximum of 30 watts. This means it sometimes takes 2 hours until the device shows 100% again, at least when the battery was quite empty before. Our test device does not support wireless charging.
The Moto G84's battery has a capacity of 5,000 mAh, making it about the same as its competitors. Our test device proved to have quite a lot of stamina, with runtimes of 15:08 hours in our WLAN test. In everyday use, you should be able to go 2 days without needing to charge the device.
If you like to play games on your phone, then you can expect to be able to do this for up to 4:37 hours if you are playing a demanding game. After this, you'll need to connect your phone to the charger again.
The Motorola Moto G84 offers a lot for its price: For US$320, you get a whole load of storage, a relatively flexible camera system, a bright display with good color accuracy, good runtimes, and stock Android with 3 years of safety patches.
The phone is slim and quite lightweight — plus, it looks great. In addition, it also supports the feature Ready For, a desktop interface which can be used when connected wirelessly to external devices. This makes the phone even more versatile and you can even use it as a replacement for a PC.
For audiophiles, the Motorola Moto G84 is a bit of a double-edged sword: Its speakers certainly won't make enthusiasts very happy — but on the other hand, it supports almost all current wireless audio codecs, and if needed, this even includes virtual surround sound using Dolby Atmos.
Lots is impressive, a variety of things are class-standard, there is little to criticize: For US$320, you get the Motorola Moto G84, an extensive total package featuring lots of storage.
Within this price-range, the Samsung Galaxy A34 features a similarly bright OLED display, and its WLAN is even a bit faster. If you have issues with PWM, then take a closer look at the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite. It features a fast IPS screen.
The Motorola Moto G84 can currently be found at online retailers like Amazon. It has an MRSP of around US$320.
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November 01, 2023 at 08:17PM
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Motorola Moto G84 5G smartphone review – Bright OLED & lots of storage for under US$350 - Notebookcheck.net
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