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In lack of a true new flagship to follow in the footsteps of last year’s Snapdragon 865-powered Edge+ and while we continue to wait for the mid-range Edge 20 5G to break cover, we’re happy to report the Moto G100 has just become officially available stateside with little to no fanfare.
Unlike early members of the budget-friendly Moto G family, this thing is certainly no pushover, pairing a high-end Snapdragon 870 processor with a reasonably generous 8GB RAM. That actually makes the G100 Motorola’s most powerful mobile device to date, which is why we’re absolutely delighted to see it cost just $499.99 in a GSM unlocked variant compatible with AT&T and T-Mobile.
Technically, the phone’s list price is set at $599.99, but if you hurry, you can save a cool $100 on Motorola‘s official US website with no questions asked and absolutely no strings attached.
At $499.99, the Moto G100 is undoubtedly a top candidate for the title of best budget 5G phone available in 2021, but only for T-Mobile customers. At least for now, the 6.7-inch handset can’t be used on Verizon (at all) while forcing you to settle for 4G LTE speeds if you choose to activate it on AT&T.
Compared to Samsung’s $500 Galaxy A52 5G, for instance, the G100 comes with both a bigger screen and a heftier 5,000mAh battery in tow, as well as a faster chipset. The triple rear-facing camera system, however, is not necessarily better, consisting of a 64MP primary shooter, 16MP ultra-wide-angle lens, and 2MP depth sensor, and the same goes for the 16MP selfie snapper.
But there’s also a second 8MP cam mounted on the front of the Moto G100 5G to handle ultra-wide selfies, which is… nice. On the not so bright side of things, the handset’s “water repellent” design is obviously inferior to the IP67 dust and water-resistant build of the aforementioned A52 5G.
We’re not particularly impressed by the G100’s 215-gram weight, 90Hz display refresh rate technology, or side-mounted fingerprint scanner either, but the headphone jack and microSD card slot are still there, and with 128 gigs of internal storage space, the high-end (ish) Android 11 smartphone is an undeniably solid deal at five Benjamins.
