The Motorola g51 5G is the company’s first 2020 Australian release. It is a 6.8″ Qualcomm SD480+, 6/128GB phone at a very reasonable $399.
Upfront, be clear that it is a no-risk purchase if you only have $399. It is future proof knowing you can use 5G if, and when, it is in your area and you want to pay a lot more for mobile data. So, think of it as a good 4G phone with potential future benefits.
But if you only want 4G and use a low-cost mobile reseller plan, there is a wide choice of decent 128GB handsets from $269 upwards. There are some ‘beauts’ in that group.
It is now in two parts – a five-minute overview for most readers and a separate 300+ line database-driven spec including over 70 tests to back up the summary. It also helps us compare different phones and features.
We issue a strong warning that you must buy a genuine model with Australian firmware if you want to use 5G. Read Don’t buy a grey market phone to ensure you get the Australian model.
Do not buy any with 4GB, 16MP selfie or single SIM. These are models XT2171-1 or XT2171-3. But we are aware of country and telco carrier-specific models for the USA, China, LATAM and Europe that won’t work on 5G here. Make sure the software version is ‘retapac’.
It is easy to identify the Australian version – usually under Settings, About Phone, Legal Information, Regulatory compliance, you will see the Australian RCM C-tick mark.
The Motorola g51 5G is an Indigo Blue or Bright Silver glass slab. Thankfully the back is glossy plastic and hides fingerprints well. The front Panda glass is reasonably scratch-resistant, and the plastic unibody won’t flex. It comes with a pre-fitted clear bumper case – use it.
It’s a big phone at 170.5 x 76.5 x 9.1 mm x 208g. All the buttons are on the right side, making them higher than you expect. It is not a one-handed use phone – unless you have big hands.
It is a relatively bright and colourful 1080p FHD+ with a choice of 60/120Hz. It is not adaptive, although our test software reveals a 90Hz setting– it swaps between 60 and 120Hz, and the latter takes about a 20% toll on battery life. Leave it on 60Hz.
It is daylight readable (in the shade), but you cannot expect more at this price.
Screen orientation is an issue. The combo Accelerometer and Gyroscope are very sensitive, and the slightest movement sends it to landscape. I had to turn autorotation off.
Summary: Good IPS screen for the price
To put this in perspective, it is faster than a MediaTek Helio P0/G90/G70/Dimensity720 and slower than an SD730G.
It has a Gen 2 X51 modem for a maximum of 2.5Gbps download (it will never reach this).
The Adreno 619 GPU maxes out at 40fps for most games – not for gamers!
Performance is enhanced by the Australian version getting 6GB (all other versions are 4GB), and overall, it is pretty smooth.
The 128GB storage has microSD expansion to 512GB.
It passed all tests commensurate with this price bracket. Impressively, it does not throttle under load.
Wi-Fi 5 AC is all you can expect, and it connects at 433Mbps. The antenna strength is not as strong as some, and we experienced occasional Wi-Fi dropouts, but it does work out to 10m on the 5Ghz band.
BT 5.1 has Qualcomm standard codecs – SBC, AAC, aptX (most versions) and LDAC.
The dual GPS is welcome, but it easily loses satellites on cloudy days (and we are in the middle of a 100-year rain bomb).
It is a dual hybrid SIM with one fitting a SIM or MicroSD. Only one can be active at a time, and if you have a 5G plan, it must be in SIM 1. It has two ringtones that are excellent for home and business users.
All you need to know is that it supports all Australian 4G/LTE and 5G sub-6Ghz and its low-bands.
It is a great city, suburbs, regional and rural area device with good strong antenna strength and it found four towers were many phones find one.
The battery is 5000mAh. But it is laughable that it comes with a USB 2.0 5V/2A charger that can take over 5 hours. Using a USB-C 100W (well, anything above 25W) reduces this to 2 hours 33 minutes. We repeated the tests several times.
BTW – the supplied USB-A to USB-C cable is for charging only – it won’t transmit data, and it will not handle 15W charging – but a new charger and 3 to 5W cable.
PC Mark 3.0 battery test is one of the more accurate tests for heavy use, and it gives 14 hours and 29 minutes on the Adaptive setting.
It has excellent battery life. Moto should have provided a 15W faster charger for the pittance that would cost.
Interestingly Motorola claims Dolby Atmos (DA). That’s like my Dolby Atmos toaster – good as a toaster and bloody useless as a speaker.
Overall, it’s a tiny, tinny speaker for clear voice only.
It can decode DA for the headphones only. DA comes into its own and sounds excellent when using the 3.5mm buds (supplied) or BT headphones (depending on earphone quality).
It is well-made and should withstand the knocks, especially with a clear bumper cover. However, IP52 is a joke – ‘Vertically dripping water shall have no harmful effect when the enclosure tilts at an angle of 15° from its normal position.’ Still, it should withstand light rain.
It ships with Android 11 and Motorola’s overlay My UX. You can reasonably expect Android 12 soon and two years of updates.
Android is almost pure, and the MY UX adds things like a camera app and Moto gestures.
It has everything you need apart from a faster charger.
Let’s face it – it is an entry-level Samsung SK5JN1, 50MP with tiny .64um pixels binned to 12.5MP and 1.28um. Add to that the Qualcomm SD480+ has entry-level AI image processing and, well, it is adequate.
The result is generally good photos in day or office light. It struggles with low light introducing a lot of noise, but you will not see that on a 4×6″ print.
Night mode combines a bracket of shots to give an acceptable, still noisy result.
The new Google Camera 8.4 features (not all features are supported)
It’s the same that runs on Google Pixel phones.
The more I tested and stressed it, the more impressed I became. At $399, it is terrific and punches well above its weight. If that is all I had to spend I would buy it.
I keep talking about what’s coming from other brands in 2022 in similar price brackets. At the end of the review, I can safely say this phone is all you need, so don’t wait.
Motorola, you are on a rolla! First the excellent Edge 20 series, now this. And I know you have even more up your sleeve.
You can read the ratings at the end.
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