Motorola Moto G4 Plus Pro Reviews

The Moto G4 Plus is an impressive phone for the money and yet more evidence that the gap between flagships and budget smartphones is still closing.

As with most other smartphones, the Moto G4 Plus can struggle in low-light, and the lack of optical image stabilisation doesn't help here. However, we have been relatively impressed with the flash performance of the built-in dual LED flash system, and you'd normally have to spend noticeably more for a smartphone with optical image stabilisation. Without doubt, the Moto G4 Plus offers very good value for money, and doesn't necessarily feel like a budget smartphone anymore, with a 5.5inch screen, FullHD resolution, and built-in fingerprint sensor. The 16mp camera provides good results particularly in good light, and with an f/2.0 aperture is better than most smartphones at this price point.

My advice is to pocket your $50 and purchase the standard Motorola Moto G4 if you’re after an excellent budget handset. If you want to spend a full $250, I’d strongly recommend the Nexus 5X over the Moto G4 Plus, which provides much better value at its ultra-cheap price point.

Both the Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus are some well-done mid-rangers, marrying performance that should be adequate for casual users with some very attractive pricing. But a lot of companies give us well-executed phones; are the new Moto G4s anything special? Well, that's sadly to say a bit of a “no.” The Moto Gs in general have been experiencing a sort of drift over the years, and while they're still a cheap alternative to Motorola's flagships, they no longer feel like they're doing much that's unique to stand out in the mid-ranger space. That said, we really appreciate the variety of storage and memory options, especially for the low, low prices Motorola is charging for those upgrades. Two hundred dollars is a sweet starting point (even if it is a little pricier than last year's Moto G) and fifty bucks extra for a higher-res camera and fingerprint scanner isn't a bad premium – moving further still to four times the storage and double the RAM is an even easier $50 upgrade beyond that.

The Moto G4 Plus is an affordable midrange smartphone that gives you solid hardware, a crisp 1080p display, and broad carrier compatibility, but the competition is fierce.