Motorola Moto G7 Play, G7 Power, G7 hands-on: Premium budget phones

My advice for friends and family looking to buy a new phone used to be simple: Stay away from budget phones unless you want a significantly inferior mobile experience.

It used to the case that you couldn’t expect much from a $200 phone — you get what you pay for! But that’s not true anymore. Motorola’s three new Moto G7 phones, which start at $199 and top out at $299, are budget-priced phones that defy the definition of cheap.

Phone fanatics won’t need any introduction to the Moto G series. Launched in 2013, the phone series has become synonymous with high-quality phones at really low prices starting around the $200 price point.

I’ve reviewed nearly all of Motorola’s G phones and each year Motorola adds more and makes them harder to ignore for people on a tight budget.

The new G7 Play ($199), G7 Power ($249), and G7 ($299) raise the bar for budget phones with premium features such as edge-to-edge displays with notches (you like notches, right?) you expect to find on phones at least twice as expensive.

Moto G7 Play

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The G7 Play is the new entry-level phone in the G series. $199 gets you phone made of plastic. But just because it’s plastic and not glass doesn’t mean it’s garbage. The backside has a high-quality sheen and subtle, ribbed texture that makes it grippy in the hand. 

The 5.7-inch screen’s nice and large with a 1,520 x 720 resolution, but like the iPhone XR, the lower-than-1080p-HD screen is not really an issue. It’s large and bright and though there is a little bit of a “chin” bezel below the screen, it’s also not like other Android phones don’t have one either.

Inside, the G7 Play’s packing a Qualcomm Snapdragon 632 chip, 2GB of RAM, and 32GB of internal storage (expandable up to 512GB via microSD card), and a 3,000 mAh battery. 

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Android 9 Pie would run a little faster with an extra gigabyte or two of RAM, but for $199, it’s good enough. Fortunately, Motorola’s software is pretty darn close to stock and doesn’t contain the kind of heavy resource-guzzling skin or bloatware apps found on other budget phones.

The G7 Play has a 13-megapixel rear camera with f/2.0 aperture and an 8-megapixel f/2.2 camera on the front for selfies. The front and rear cameras are capable of portrait-style photos that blur the background without a secondary camera. 

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Additionally, the G7 Play also has a “High-res Zoom” feature that shoots photos at 2x digital zoom, but with much sharper details than normal. It’s similar to the Google Pixel 3 camera’s “Super Res Zoom” that enhances digitally-zoomed shots. Another new camera feature is called “auto smile camera,” which only takes a selfie when it detects everyone in a shot (up to five people) are smiling and have stopped moving. Motorola’s also added the popular “cinemagraph,” “spot color” features from its flagship Moto Z phones to the G7 Play’s camera. 

Below the camera is a physical fingerprint reader. There’s also a headphone jack and USB-C port for charging.

If you want to pay the least amount for a new phone that’s still up-to-date, the $199 G7 Play is solid. Some people will complain about the large notch, but it’s really a non-issue in 2019.

Moto G7 Power

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Stepping up from the G7 is the $249 G7 Power, which as its name implies is built to last. The most notable difference is its massive 5,000 mAh battery. The huge battery can also be fast charged unlike the G7.

The screen’s larger at 6.2-inches with the same resolution, but with a smaller notch. The body’s also made of a slightly more premium glossy polymer plastic that looks and feels like glass.

Under the hood is pretty much the same, save for a few differences. The G7 Power is powered by the same Snapdragon 632 chip and has 32GB of storage (also expandable via microSD up to 512GB). Compared to the G7, it does come with 3GB of RAM, which I noticed helped with keeping animations fluid within the multi-task view of Android 9 Pie.

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The rear camera’s a lower resolution 12-megapixel shooter with f/2.0 aperture, but the front-facing camera is the same 8-megapixel camera as the G7 Play. It comes with the all of the same camera features in the G7 Play including the software-based portrait mode.

The G7 Power also has a fingerprint reader and headphone jack — so, no, Motorola’s not charging more and stripping away features.

If you value long battery over all else, the G7 Power’s the way to go. The smaller notch and prettier construction are just nice extras.

Moto G7

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And rounding out the new G7 family is, well, the G7. At $299, it’s the most expensive of Motorola’s new phones, but it also comes with a considerable number of upgrades that are worth the extra dollars.

The 6.2-inch screen has the highest resolution compared to the other two with 2,270 x 1,080 resolution and the smallest notch, too. It’s got the same processor, but there’s 4GB of RAM and the internal storage is double with 64GB (expandable with microSD up to 512GB, of course).

The G7 feels better as well with its glass back. It’s more slippery and attracts fingerprints like crazy, but so does every other phone made of glass.

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The 3,000 mAh battery seems a bit inadequate, but it does support fast charging, so quickly “topping off” your phone with a midday charge should be easy enough.

Where the G7 really differentiates itself between the G7 Play and G7 Power is its rear camera system. The round bump has a 12-megapixel f/1.8 main camera and a second 5-megapixel camera for depth detection. This dual camera system allows the phone to shoot more professional-looking portrait mode photos with noticeably better background blur.

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The more advanced camera also shoots 4K video compared to the other two G7 phones’ max 1080p-resolution video capture.

Even at $300, the G7 is a relative bargain compared to phones like the OnePlus 6T, which starts at $530. Sure, it doesn’t have the faster Snapdragon 845 chip, but it still offers a lot of value.

More for less

Flagship phones keep adding more features, but their prices also climb to match. Motorola’s Moto G7’s provide more for a lot less.

The phones are sleeker with almost bezel-less displays, the cameras take noticeably better photos, the Android software is up-to-date unlike on many other more expensive Android phones, and battery life has improved.

Motorola’s phones don’t have the same prestige as an iPhone or Google Pixel or Samsung Galaxy, but that’s fine because they’re not in the same league. But they are closing the gap and bringing many of the features found in these phones down to the masses who can’t afford to drop $1,000 on a slab of glass.