Motorola have been growing its G series with its latest Moto G84 5G, which the company is boasting high end performance and design thats bring all this to a low price point affordable for anyone and everyone and looking and testing out the device during the press event I can see they have certainly ticked all the boxes.
It’s good to see Motorola look at brings some great devices at various price points but I am beginning to wonder whether the Moto G84 5G will be able to be a potential pixel competitor in terms of price, specs and performance, so when they offered us a device to review, I jumped at the chance.
So can the Moto G84 5G take on an Ausdroid review? Let’s have a look shall we!
What’s in the box
Inside the box you get the Moto G84 5G, 1 meter USB-A to USB-C cable cord, a 33W charger wall brick, the usual paperwork and warranty information and s SIM ejector tool.
The Design
The front of the Moto G84 5G comes with a 6.5-inch ultrawide display with Full HD+ resolution (2400 x 1080 @ 402ppi) which is super bright and crisp. It also has a 120Hz refresh rate which is pretty fast and doesn’t skip a beat or well swipe.
There are some bezels located around the sides, top and bottom of the display of about an inch or two but this does not detract from the user experience and let´s be honest here, you wouldn’t be expecting an edgeless display, although it would have made this potentially further enhance the user experience for those wanting such a display.
The front display also houses the fingerprint sensor located near the bottom centre of the display and I do have to say it’s quite snappy and there has been no issues or lag trying to use it.
There is a 16MP front facing camera located in a punch hole in the top middle of the display and above this is the front speakers in a tiny little grill slot.
The bottom of the Moto G84 5G houses the USB-C charging port which is located in the centre and to the left of it is the 3.5mm audio jack for those that still like to use wired headsets and earbuds an next to this between the charging port and the audio jack is one of the microphones for calls and to the right of the charging port is the speaker grill.
The left hand side of the device houses the combined SIM and MicroSD card slot, which is helpful to expand the memory past the included 256GB of on board storage to at least 1TB.
The right hand side is the standby/power button and above this is the volume rocker. The top houses a second microphone which helps to filter out background noise to help provide additional clarity for voice and video calls.
Talking about what powers the Moto G84 5G under the hood, is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 5G, 12GB RAM, 256GB of on board storage which can be expanded to 1TB via microSD card. There are also NFC capabilities, Bluetooth version 5.1, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 2.4 GHz + 5 GH and a 5000mAh battery all of which I will go into further down in the review.
Lights, Camera, Action!
The moto g84 5G comes with a dual rear camera set up which is made up of a 50MP which comes with Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) alongside an 8MP ultra-wide angle and macrovision lens.
The features in the camera include, slow motion, video, photo, portrait, pro, night sight, panorama, spot colour, timelapse, scan, ultra-res, dual capture photo and dual capture video.
The OIS on the Moto G84 5G does help to take some really great pics, even when walking or in moving objects like a ferry. PhotoÅ› taken with the rear cameras in daylight are true to colour in real life and they certainly do pop but I will let you be the judge of it from the photo samples below.
The front facing camera is a 16MP lens which is far to say is still quite a good offering and does take some pretty great selfies during the day, during the night things can be a little bit darker even with night sight but honestly I am overall impressed by the picture quality but I will let you be the judge of that from the sample pictures taken below.
Software and Performance
In terms of software, The moto g84 5G runs android 13 right out of the box and at the press event I did alongside other outlets, ask if the device will get 2 years worth of updates and will see an update to Android 14 and if there was an ETA.
Motorola did confirm that the device will be updated to Android 14 sometime early in the new year, the only downside is that this will be the only major firmware update the device will see. There will be 3 years worth of security updates but that’s it.
Personally I would have liked to have seen Motorola offer more than just one major OS firmware update but hopefully they might be able to pull a miracle out of the hat and offer at least one more major OS firmware update but I am not holding my breath.
There is also a 2 years warranty on the device so in total you get 3 years worth of security updates, 2 years warranty and 1 year for major OS firmware updates in total.
In terms of performance, the Moto G84 5G comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 5G processor, 12GB RAM, 256GB of on board storage which can be expanded to 1TB via microSD card.
Performance wise, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 5G processor combined with the 12GB RAM allows the device to not skip a beat. Going between various apps like social media, YouTube, emails, some Netflix the device is able to keep up without overheating.
Although high intensive gaming can lead to a little lag, however, for everyday basic gaming the Moto G84 5G is able to handle it without any issues.
Software and Performance
In terms of software, The moto g84 5G runs android 13 right out of the box and at the press event I did alongside other outlets, ask if the device will get 2 years worth of updates and will see an update to Android 14 and if there was an ETA.
Motorola did confirm that the device will be updated to Android 14 sometime early in the new year, the only downside is that this will be the only major firmware update the device will see. There will be 3 years worth of security updates but that’s it.
Personally I would have liked to have seen Motorola offer more than just one major OS firmware update but hopefully they might be able to pull a miracle out of the hat and offer at least one more major OS firmware update but I am not holding my breath.
There is also a 2 years warranty on the device so in total you get 3 years worth of security updates, 2 years warranty and 1 year for major OS firmware updates in total.
The software running the Moto G84 5G right out of the box is Android 13 alongside Motorola´s MyUX software which is motorola´s light skin that is applied over the top of the stock Android. Though in all honesty it does feel very much stock Android.
The MyUx includes Motorola´s app that allows you to set up additional gestures such as holding the device in your hand and doing a chopping action twice to turn on/off the LED flashlight, flip the device over onto the display on any surface to enable do not disturb or DND and many more.
There is also Moto Secure available in the Moto app which helps protect your data, alongside being able to put apps and files into a secure folder which can be found in your app draw under a hidden icon and name which you can select. Moto Secure can also scramble your pins so people who oversee your device cannot work out your pin for banking and much more.
Bluetooth version 5.1 which was strong and able to connect to my bluetooth ANC earbuds and ensured that connection remained strong.
There is also Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, 2.4GHz & 5GHz and Wi-Fi hotspot which again connection was strong alongside NFC which I like because I tend to always forget my wallet and of course there is 5G connectivity, although I do tend to prefer to use 4G given 5G in my area is a little weak at the moment due to tower upgrades.
Should you consider buying one?
Honestly, the moto g84 5G has surprised my expectations and honestly it is a device I can easily recommend to friends and family, especially for those looking for a capable device for their school kids given school will be returning back in a week or so.
All in all I am very impressed with the Motorola overall performance, software, user experience and the cameras which are great and really can perform – so to me Motorola have outdone themselves.
My only criticism is the software OS update guarantee. As noted, you get 3 years worth of security updates, 2 years warranty and 1 year for major OS firmware updates in total. Personally I would like to see Motorola consider adding maybe 2 if not 3 years of firmware updates instead of just one and I hope they will look into this going forward. But this is only a slight disappointment to the overall positive experience and review I have undertaken.
The Motorola is available in Pantone colour of the year, Viva Magenta, alongside Midnight Blue and will be available through the following retailer partners JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman, Officeworks, The Good Guys, Bing Lee, and Big W and Amazon online only for $399.
Great little phone