Motorola just announced a new affordable device called the Moto G Pure. The new phone offers a big display and a large battery. It also comes at a very appealing price – $159.99. But aggressive pricing comes with its tradeoffs, especially in the performance department. Let’s see what the new Motorola Moto G Pure is all about.
Design
The Motorola Moto G Pure’s design looks like it comes from two years ago. This phone has a big chin and a teardrop-style front camera, which reminds us of budget Motorolas from 2019.
It is a large phone though, with its big display and bezels. The phone measures 167.36 x 75.63 x 8.75mm, meaning it’s also not the slimmest. The Moto G Pure is made of plastic, which isn’t surprising considering its price point. Even though it is cheaply made, it offers some water resistance, an IP52 rating, which means the phone should resist the occasional water drops life might throw at it, but nothing more.
The Moto G Pure features a 3.5mm headphone jack and a microSD card slot. These are features that most 2021 smartphones lack, and it’s good to see them in a cheap smartphone. The speaker is a single bottom-firing one.
The back of the phone is where the fingerprint scanner is located. A dual-camera system is also present. The Moto G Pure comes in only one color option: Indigo Blue.
Display and cameras
Motorola’s new budget phone has a large 6.5-inch LCD screen with an HD+ resolution of 1600 x 720 pixels. This means that while the Moto G Pure doesn’t feature a great pixel density, it should do a fine job at playing videos.
Like we mentioned earlier, the Moto G Pure has a dual-camera system. It consists of a 13MP main camera with an f/2.2 aperture and a 2MP depth sensor with an f/2.4 aperture. Pictures taken with the Moto G Pure during the day were shared by Motorola. These look fine considering the phone’s price point.
Video recording resolution tops at 1080p 30fps. The teardrop-style front camera is a 5MP shooter with an f/2.4 aperture that can shoot in FullHD 30fps as well. To be honest, 5MP doesn’t sound very promising, but you need to remember this phone is very cheap.
Photo taken with the Moto G Pure
Performance, storage, and battery
The Motorola Moto G Pure is powered by a MediaTek Helio G25 processor, which is a budget chip comparable to the Snapdragon 439. This means that it does not have 5G connectivity, but this isn’t surprising considering its $159.99 price. The chip should be good enough for light tasks, and it should run the phone’s Android 11 operating system fine, but don’t expect any speed from this one.
As far as memory and storage are concerned, the Moto G Pure comes with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of expandable storage. The MicroSD card slot supports up to 512GB of storage, which should come in handy considering the phone’s rather small 32GB of storage.
The Moto G Pure has a 4,000mAh battery that Motorola claims will last easily two days. There is no wireless charging (figures), and you are stuck with 10W wired charging via USB-C. At least the phone comes with a charger, which isn’t something you can say about most 2021 phones that cost eight times the price of the Moto G Pure.
The Moto G Pure’s battery should easily last you two days
Price and availability
As mentioned before, the Motorola Moto G Pure will retail at $159.99. Pre-orders start on October 14 at BestBuy, B&H Photo, Walmart, Amazon, and Motorola.com. Verizon will also offer the device starting October 14. AT&T and T-Mobile will offer the budget phone in the coming months too. The Motorola Moto G Pure will also be released in Canada soon.In the box of the Moto G Pure you will find a USB-C charging cable, a charging brick, a headset, and even a protective case (varies by carrier).
