Moto G71 5G Review: A mid-ranger that gets you through your day?

Motorola has added a new G Series smartphone to its line-up with the Moto G71 5G. It is the first smartphone in India to come with a Snapdragon 695 chipset. Motorola has also stacked a triple camera setup led by a 50MP primary rear sensor at the back. Another highlight of the phone is its near-stock Android software. Priced under Rs 20,000 Is the Moto G71 a worthy buy? Read on to find out. [हिंदी में पढ़ें]

Unboxing | Specs | Price & Availability | Design | Display | Battery | Performance & Software | Camera Review | Verdict

Price & Availability

The Moto G71 5G comes with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage only. It is available for Rs. 18,999 in India on Flipkart. There are 2 color options- Neptune Green and Arctic Blue. I had the Green Variant with me.

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MOTO G71 5G REVIEW: DESIGN

The Moto G71 5G has a minimalist design, much like the other mid-rangers from Motorola. Just like the Moto G31 (review), it has a plastic body with a matte finish on the rear panel. The matte finish makes the device home to fingerprint smudges and that is always a downer for me. Otherwise, it has a polycarbonate body and a good color gradient. The Green color looks good though it is not anything different.

The back panel has an oval-shaped camera island that has 3 camera sensors and an LED flashlight. There is a SIM tray on the left while the right side of the smartphone has volume rockers, a power button, and a special button to summon Google Assistant. The buttons have gotten better (more tactile) than previous Moto phones and the phone is lightweight & compact too, making operation with one hand easier. It weighs around 179 grams which are lighter than previous models. Its dimensions are 161.19×73.87×8.49mm.

The Moto G71 has a 6.4-inch AMOLED display with thin bezels and a slightly thick chin, which gives a slightly old-fashioned look to the device. There is a fingerprint scanner on the rear which has reaffirmed that Moto wanted a traditional look for this one. The edges are curved and it is water repellant as claimed by moto. There is no Gorilla Glass here and neither does the device come with a screen guard which is a bit of a surprise in today’s times as the phone becomes more prone to scratches and cracks.

The bottom of Moto G71 has a 3.5mm headphone jack, primary microphone, and USB Type-C port along with a speaker grille. The top side of the device has a secondary microphone too. The device comes with face unlock for additional security and is available in 2 colors- Neptune Green and Arctic Blue. The variant I received was Neptune Green.

MOTO G71 REVIEW: DISPLAY

Moto G71 5G sports a 6.4-inch AMOLED display with a Full HD+ resolution and a standard 60Hz refresh rate, which is too low because even the lower end phones get at least 90Hz refresh rate which helps in smoother switching between apps. Otherwise, the AMOLED display is a star it gives lively and vibrant colors with excellent contrasts. Watching videos on Instagram or YouTube, or anything else is a good experience.

The best part was there was never a disturbance while watching a video or gaming on this device. Also, the Moto G71 is good to use outdoors. I never had to increase the brightness or squint to see the display under sunlight. The peak brightness is very good which is something to be considered while buying a device with an affordable price tag. On the downside, there is no HDR support and the refresh rate is 60Hz which made animations blurred and jittery.

MOTO G71 REVIEW: BATTERY

The Moto G71 5G houses a 5000mAh battery with a 33W fast charger. On moderate usage, the battery lasted for 1.5 days for me. But, as soon as I threw in some hours of gaming in the mix, the battery life starts dropping. An hour of aggressive gaming made the battery drop by 10-12 percent, which means gamers will have to charge the phone once every day.

One major drawback is its slow charging speed as the 33W charger takes slightly more than 60 minutes to recharge the device completely. This is too much time if we compare it to other phones in the market. However, as I am normally light to moderate user, the battery lasted for more than a day at a stretch and I could easily give it an hour to charge after 1.5 days.

MOTO G71 5G REVIEW: PERFORMANCE & SOFTWARE

The Moto G71 5G is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 chipset which made it the first smartphone in India with this particular SoC. This octa-core chip clocks at 2.2GHz and comes with 6GB RAM. The RAM boost feature allowed me to expand the reserve 1.5GB of storage as virtual RAM. Mind you, it’s not the same as regular RAM. It can’t be used to run apps or games.

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As far as performance is concerned, the Moto G71 5G offers good day-to-day performance. I could switch between apps quickly and multitask with ease. Apps opened very seamlessly most of the time, apart from when the battery was below 20%. The video playback was also smooth even with the H265 codec. I also ran some benchmarking tests on Moto G71, results are as follows:

I played several games on the Moto G71 including BGMI and Call of Duty Mobile. The gaming experience was smooth without a hiccup. The battery drops by about 8-9% after 45 minutes of gaming but the phone was not warm to touch, which is good. The phone is rated IP52 for being water repellent which meant I didn’t have to worry about it getting slightly wet.

The smartphone is said to support 13 5G bands which is huge considering the price range. Connectivity options include 4G Volte, Bluetooth 5, NFC, Dual-band Wi-Fi, and 6 satellite navigation systems. It also has carrier aggregation so thumbs up for that.

Moto ships the phone with stock Android 11 and assures that it will get Android 12 too. It comes with near-stock Android with Clean UI without ads or bloatware, which is a boon. It comes with only Google apps pre-installed apart from Facebook and Cred which can be easily removed. What I loved the most was that my notification bar was not flooded with messages from too many apps, which I don’t even use.

Like most Motorola phones, it also gets useful Moto Actions. It allowed me to perform some actions using gestures. Calling on Moto G71 is satisfactory as the voices on the other end sound clear even when I was in a crowded place or basement, where the signal is weak. There were no call drops even in low signal areas.

MOTO G71 5G CAMERA REVIEW

The Moto G71 5G comes with a triple camera setup on the rear which consists of a 50MP primary camera with an f/1.8 aperture, an 8MP ultrawide camera with a 118-degree field of view, and a 2MP macro camera. For selfies, there is a 16MP front camera. The camera app is simple and easy to use.

The Moto G71 camera app offers several shooting modes and features video stabilization and video snapshot. It includes dual capture, shot color, timelapse, and so on. The video recording peaks at 1080p for both front and back cameras and EIS is available which is enabled by default. Videos come out in good quality, but nothing extraordinary. All in all, the cameras could have been made much better on the Moto G71 5G.

The main 50MP sensor does a very decent job. In daylight, the picture quality is sharp and detailed. The camera is good with exposure, contrasts, and colors in the daytime. The only time picture quality suffers is during low light or night conditions. The night vision makes the pictures look like an oil painting many times while the zoomed view of low light pictures shows grains.

The ultrawide camera and macro camera give strictly average photographs. Although close-up shots are ok, they lack richness and sharpness. On the other hand, the ultrawide lens gives pictures without much detailing. The 16MP selfie camera takes good selfies most of the time.

However, at times, the face looks overexposed and even a slight shake of hand distorts the selfie, which is a downer. One plus point is that the camera app itself asks you to switch to macro mode if you are too close to an object. This way, I could know when a macro shot would be a better option.

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REVIEW VERDICT: SHOULD YOU BUY MOTO G71 5G?

The under 20k price range market has been fast growing in the country and the Moto G71 5G aims to create space for itself. It comes with a good processor, a powerful battery, and 5G connectivity. The camera is decent but clearly not the best in class.

If you aren’t someone who is not really finicky about details in images and videos, the Moto G71 should meet your expectations. Its basic design is also prone to smudges. Baring these couple of drawbacks, the Moto G71 is a capable performer that comes with Clean UI. You may consider buying under Rs 20,000.

Reasons to buy

• Clean UI
• Good Performance
• Large Battery
• Good audio & video quality

Reasons to not buy