Moto G7 family Hands-on: Premium looks, affordable price

Concluding year, Motorola earned a lot of accolades with the G6 family by launching a series of smartphones that delivered incredible consumer value.

Based on what I saw on Wednesday later onMobileSyrup got to get hands-on with the visitor'southward new G7 series of smartphones, Motorola is poised to do the same in 2019.

This year, in North America Motorola's Thou-series includes three devices: the entry-level G7 Play, the new G7 Power with 5,000mAh battery and the tiptop-of-the-line G7. In Brazil and Mexico, Motorola is too offer the G7 Plus, which features slightly bumped specs, but as that device likely isn't coming to Canada, we didn't get a chance to run into it.

In any case, there's a lot of overlap between the iii phones, so instead of detailing them one by one, I'll highlight the ways they differ from ane another.

The most credible difference between the three phones is that they, well, look different, and nowhere is that more apparent than with the peculiar mishmash of notches on brandish with G7 Play, G7 Power and G7.

The G7 Play and G7 Power characteristic iPhone Ten-style display cutouts, while the G7 is the lone phone with a teardrop-shaped notch. Moreover, of the 2 more than affordable models, the G7 Play features the widest cutout.

If all of that seems maddeningly inconsistent, it is, but it turns out Motorola wasn't out to frustrate notch adverse consumers with its design choices.

In speaking with a visitor spokesperson on February 6th, I was told the notch design has to practise a lot with cost.

Essentially, it'southward more expensive to build a smartphone with a teardrop-shaped notch than information technology is one with an iPhone X-style cutout because the former entails, among other things, edifice the height speaker into the seam between the top of the display and the frame.

In other words, when it comes to smartphone display notches, yous get what you pay for, and so the most expensive of Motorola's new phones features the almost elegant cutout.

If you expect at photos of the phones, you'll notice that headphone jack placement is similarly inconsistent; the G7 Play and G7 Power characteristic pinnacle facing jacks, while the G7'southward headphone jack is located along its bottom. I was told this was a compromise Motorola had to make so that information technology could even fit headphone jacks into the G7 Play and G7 Power.

Each phone besides features a different finish. I want to highlight here the G7, and in detail the 'Clear White' model.

The G7 looks and feels almost every scrap as premium as the iPhone XS, which is an incredible accomplishment when i considers that the G7 will likely price close to $chiliad CAD less than Apple'southward latest flagship. That said, even the G7 Play, with its LG G7 One-like plastic end, feels solid.

In fact, if there's a through-line with Motorola'southward newest smartphones information technology's that they don't await or experience like entry and mid-range smartphones.

That's a theme that continues with each telephone'due south display.

Each of the devices features a slightly different display. The G7 Play includes a 5.7-inch screen with 720p pixel resolution, while the Power has a six.two-inch 1280 x 720 pixel resolution screen. Similarly, the G7 has a 6.two-inch screen but information technology displays at 1080p. Aesthetically speaking, this is the most significant difference between the G6 family and G7 family; the G6 and G6 Play had significant display bezels, which the G7 family unit does non.

The Motorola spokesperson I spoke to wouldn't tell me if the company sourced all the LCD panels for the G7 Play, G7 Ability and G7 from the same manufacturer. All the same, whatever the source of the screens Motorola sourced to make this year's G7 series, the company did a good job ensuring they all expect consistent with one another.

Whether it was the G7 Play, G7 Power or G7, all three phones had high-quality LCD panels that produced vibrant only accurate colours.

Moreover, even the 720p panels on the G7 Play and Ability looked sharp to my eye. Again, I want to emphasize that these phones don't look the part of a cheap device.

Internally, all 3 phones feature Qualcomm'southward Snapdragon 632 chipset. Where they differ in terms of performance is that they each accept dissimilar amounts of RAM at their disposal.

The G7 Play features a modest 2GB of RAM. The G7 Ability, meanwhile, includes 3GB of RAM. Lastly, the G7 has 4GB of RAM.

In use, I found in that location was a negligible deviation between how the three phones performed. Even without any apps installed, not even the G7 or G7 Play felt fast per se. By no means were whatever of the three phones sluggish, but there'south a noticeable difference betwixt the type of operation the 632 is capable of delivering and what Qualcomm'south more high-stop chipsets can do.

If at that place's an area where the G7 series feels like information technology doesn't surpass other phones in its price course, information technology's in the performance department. That said, the consumers Motorola is targeting with the G7 family won't mind — or, for that matter, notice — the less than fluid way in which the phones go almost tasks. Moreover, the 632 is still a pregnant upgrade over the 400 series chipsets that powered the G6 Serial.

Internally, another difference betwixt the three phones is that the G7 Play and G7 feature 3,000mAh batteries, while the G7 Power has a 5,000 power source. Motorola claims that the Power's battery can office the phone through three days of continuous utilise on a single charge.

The terminal major area where the phones differ is in terms of their camera specs.

Again each phone features a slightly different principal camera with the G7 including the about avant-garde camera of the 3. Moreover, the G7 is the only one of the three phones to feature a dual rear camera assortment. It also has certain exclusive capture modes, including Cinemagraph, a way that makes its way over from Motorola's more expensive Z-series lineup.

As is the example with most easily-on events, it was hard to brand whatsoever definitive judgments about photographic camera quality. I thing that did stand out is that the G7 Play and Power took great portrait shots, even without the help of a secondary depth-sensing camera.

I too noticed that all three phones did a great job of preserving highlight particular while exposing shadows equally best as they could. Moreover, all iii cameras were quick to launch and the shutter on each was responsive.

On the software front, all iii handsets will transport with Android ix Pie out of the box. They all besides characteristic Motorola'southward excellent 'Actions' and 'Display' customizations.

In the U.S., the Moto G7 Play, G7 Ability and G7 will price $199 USD, $249 USD and $299 USD, respectively. There is no word all the same on Canadian pricing. MobileSyrup will update this article once that data becomes available.

However, the company did ostend that Bell, Virgin Mobile, Videotron, Rogers, Fido and Freedom Mobile will all conduct members of the G7 family.

We'll have more on the unabridged G7 family in the coming weeks.