Moto G37 Power 5G Review: 6 Things I Like & 4 Things I Wish Were Better

The budget 5G smartphone segment in India is more crowded than ever. Brands are competing on everything from charging speed and gaming performance to the software experience. Motorola’s answer to the segment is the G37 Power 5G, a smartphone built around a clear proposition: exceptional battery life, and it truly delivers there.

Its headline feature is a massive 7,000mAh battery. However, Motorola has also focused on clean software, a durable design, and practical connectivity additions that are becoming increasingly uncommon at this price.

Starting at ₹15,999, the G37 Power takes on rivals such as the Oppo K14x 5G, Realme C83 5G, and Redmi 13C 5G. If battery anxiety tops your list of smartphone frustrations, the G37 Power deserves your attention. Whether the rest of the package is as compelling is what this review aims to find out.

Things I Like About the Moto G37 Power 5G

1. Battery Life

The G37 Power’s name isn’t an afterthought. The 7,000mAh battery is the phone’s biggest talking point. During my testing, which included benchmarking, BGMI sessions, Instagram and YouTube scrolling, music streaming, and camera use, the phone consistently delivered around eight hours of screen-on time.

On lighter days, that figure stretched to around 10-11 hours of screen-on time, which is excellent for a smartphone in this segment. For call-and-text users, who average out three to four hours of screen time a day, the phone can easily last around two days on a single charge. You could even make it into a third day, though you’ll likely be left with around 10-20% battery by then.

Motorola also bundles a 30W TurboPower charger in the box, so you don’t have to spend extra on one. Considering the sheer size of the battery, a full charge takes a reasonable 85-90 minutes, depending on ambient temperatures and whether you’re using the phone while it’s plugged in. You also get 6W reverse-wired charging in case your earbuds run out of power mid-day.

2. Design & Build Quality

Motorola ships the G37 Power in three Pantone-curated colors: Capri and Nautical Blue, both featuring a vegan leather finish, and Impenetrable, which uses a PMMA plastic back.

The review unit I received was the latter. While I can’t comment on how the vegan leather variants feel in hand, the soft, visually textured rear panel, combined with its slightly grainy frame, offers a reassuring grip.

The back panel also houses the dual-camera setup alongside a decorative sensor housing. While some might find the design a bit busy, I think it adds some personality. As for the build quality, the G37 Power feels reassuringly sturdy, with no noticeable creaks or flex.

Additions like MIL-STD-810H certification, an IP64 rating, and Corning Gorilla Glass 7i are confidence-instilling.

At 215g and 8.89mm thick, the device isn’t particularly thin or light, but it doesn’t feel too bulky either. My only real gripe is the gigantic bottom bezel on the front; it undermines the otherwise premium look every time I fire up the screen.

3. Clean Android Experience

Software has always been one of Motorola’s strongest suits, and the G37 Power is no exception. It ships with Android 16 out of the box and runs the company’s Hello UI skin on top, which is about as close to stock Android as a custom skin can get. The back gesture, notification shade, quick settings panel, and even the theming options all feel instantly familiar.

The overall software experience is smooth. Animations are fluid for the most part, notifications are neatly presented, and the UI never feels cluttered with intrusive ads or promotions.

There are a handful of pre-installed apps, some genuinely useful and others deserving of the bloatware tag.

The Live Updates feature (released with Android 16) shows active background tasks as pill-shaped tiles in the status bar, ones that you can interact with. Then there are features like Notification History, Bubbles, and a dedicated Personalize section in settings that lets you change the theme, font, colors, and icon shapes as well.

Google Gemini and Circle to Search come preloaded, alongside apps for Perplexity and Copilot. Gemini can be invoked through a diagonal swipe from either bottom corner, a long press on the navigation bar, or the power button. If you prefer, you can even switch the default assistant to Perplexity.

I also appreciate Motorola’s Touch-to-Unlock option for the fingerprint scanner. Disabling it helps prevent the accidental unlocks that are common on many phones. Finally, with the “Show Refresh Rate” developer setting enabled, I noticed that most apps, including third-party ones, consistently ran at 120Hz.

4. Moto Gestures

Anyone who has used a Motorola smartphone long enough already knows how familiar the Moto Gestures are. I’d say they’re more than just a gimmick, simply because I’ve seen them embedded in Motorola users’ muscle memory. 

My father has been a big-time Motorola user (almost 10 years now), and I’ve never seen him turn on his phone’s flashlight except with the chop gesture. Even other gestures, such as Quick Launch, Quick Capture, and Flip for Do Not Disturb, are quite useful in day-to-day life. These gestures are intuitive, unobtrusive, and never fire accidentally.

5. Stereo Speakers With Dolby Atmos

Many phones in the segment skip a good stereo speaker setup, but the G37 Power isn’t one of them. It features a stereo speaker setup wherein the earpiece at the top doubles as a loudspeaker. The speakers also support Dolby Atmos, which adds a layer of virtual depth to compatible content. 

Whether you’re watching YouTube videos, listening to podcasts, or just simply playing music in the background, the speakers barely disappoint. There’s a bit of distortion at 200% volume, but otherwise the speakers are quite well-tuned. And yes, there’s enough separation between the two channels to make the stereo effect noticeable rather than cosmetic.

6. 3.5mm Headphone Jack & microSD Card Slot

Motorola brings back two things that budget phones have increasingly left behind over the last few years: the 3.5mm headphone jack and a dedicated microSD card slot.

The smartphone not only supports Dolby Atmos output through compatible wired earphones and headphones, but also offers Hi-Res Audio over a wired connection, making it a surprisingly capable option for wired-audio enthusiasts.

The phone also lets you use both SIM cards and a microSD card simultaneously, with support for up to 1TB of expandable storage.

Things I Wish Were Better On The Moto G37 Power 5G

1. Display Brightness & Sharpness

The display is where the G37 Power’s entry-level nature shows most clearly. The 6.67-inch IPS LCD panel with HD+ (1604 x 720) resolution at 264 PPI is functional, but it’s a noticeable step down from the G57 Power’s 1080p panel. The difference isn’t noticeable immediately, but it’s evident when you squint at it. 

In Vivid mode, colors are reasonably vivid for an LCD, and the 120Hz refresh rate keeps scrolling and animation smooth. However, the 1,050-nit peak brightness, while adequate for indoor use, struggles outdoors on a bright day. It was the camera viewfinder that I had the most trouble with, viewing outdoors under direct sunlight. 

Even though the phone ships with Gorilla Glass 7i, it has picked up quite a few scratches after about two weeks of regular use, something I haven’t noticed on other phones in the segment.

2. Only One Functional Rear-Facing Camera

The G37 Power’s 50MP f/1.8 primary camera delivers serviceable rather than spectacular results. In good daylight, it captures decent detail and manages highlights reasonably well.

Motorola’s color processing leans toward cold, desaturated images, which often result in dull, flat pictures. If you’re used to phones that produce punchy, Instagram-ready shots straight out of the camera, you might not like the results here.

While testing the camera in low-light conditions, I noticed images turning soft as the light drops, and noise becomes a visible problem in genuinely dark scenes. Night Vision mode meaningfully improves results, but it isn’t a complete fix. 

The secondary camera is actually a 2-in-1 ambient light and flicker sensor rather than a dedicated imaging sensor, so don’t expect any additional photographic versatility. Video recording tops out at 2K at 30 fps, which is fine for casual clips but little else.

The 8MP selfie camera is actually good. It produces natural tones, good detail, and decent output in most lighting conditions.

3. Only One Year Of Major Operating System Upgrades

This is Moto G37 Power’s most annoying limitation, something that keeps me from recommending this smartphone to long-term buyers, even those who plan to upgrade after two to three years. The phone launches with Android 16 out of the box, something that I praised earlier, but Motorola has only promised one year of major OS upgrades. 

In other words, Android 17 will be the last major operating system update that the phone gets. One of the smartphone’s most direct competitors, the Oppo K14x 5G, gets two years of Android OS updates and three years of security patches. 

The G37 Power 5G still gets three years of security updates, but the single Android update is a big letdown, especially against the company’s emphasis on the phone’s long-term performance. Motorola is confident that the phone will run smoothly for a few years, but isn’t willing to keep the software up to date.

4. Gaming Performance

Under its well-built hood, the G37 Power runs on the Dimensity 6400, an octa-core chip paired with 4GB of LPDDR4X RAM on this unit (plus 8GB of virtual RAM) and 128GB of UFS 2.2 storage. This is a dated combination, and its age shows up when you start pushing the phone. 

While regular tasks like opening and closing apps, switching between them, and scrolling the UI at 120Hz feel fluid, there are occasional jitters. When it comes to benchmarks, the phone’s score is only slightly better than models powered by the Dimensity 6300 chipset, including the Oppo K14x 5G I reviewed recently. 

When it comes to gaming, lighter titles run smoothly, but switching to heavier titles, like BGMI, reveals the chipset’s limitations. Running the game at low settings is fine, but pushing graphics and frame rate settings higher results in noticeable frame drops. 

Remember, this is not a smartphone-specific issue but rather a characteristic of the segment. If you’re looking for 90 fps BGMI gaming, consider the new OnePlus Nord CE 6 Lite (review). Otherwise, for all the basic tasks, the G37 Power holds up well. 

Review Verdict: Should You Buy the Moto G37 Power 5G?

The Moto G37 Power is a phone that knows exactly what it wants to do. That clarity, I’d say, works in its favor. Rather than chasing every trend, the handset goes after fundamentals: excellent battery life, a solid software experience, sturdy design, and practical features like Moto Gestures. The stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos are a genuine plus point.

The compromises are equally evident. The HD+ LCD display feels dated for the price, the cameras often produce flat-looking images, and gaming performance is merely average. More importantly, a single promised OS upgrade feels inadequate for a phone in a segment where buyers keep their smartphones for a couple of years before upgrading.

• Buy it if: Clean software, audio quality, and reliability matter more to you than benchmark scores.
• Skip it if: Gaming, low-light photography, or long-term software support are high on your priority list.

At ₹15,999, the Moto G37 Power is one of the more sensible budget phones available today. It doesn’t excel at everything, but it delivers where its target audience cares most.

Smartprix ⭐ Rating: 7.4/10

• Design: 8/10
• Display: 6.5/10
• Performance: 6.5/10
• Software: 7.25/10
• Cameras: 6.5/10
• Battery Life & Charging: 9/10
• Connectivity: 8/10

First reviewed in June 2026.

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