Motorola Moto G6 Plus review

Introduction

A flagship of sorts, within its own family at least, the Moto G6 Plus is the best equipped among the G6 brethren with a specsheet that covers all the bases and a price tag that won't break the bank. Another in a line of successful Moto Gs then? We'll get to that.

The Moto G6 Plus has a 5.9" 18:9 IPS display, 0.2 more than the non-Plus. It's naturally in an 18:9 aspect, so you can't blame Motorola (yes, well, technically Lenovo, but still) for not keeping up with the trends. There's no notch though, yay for that.

Another area where the Plus comes with improvements is the chipset - a Snapdragon 630 replaces the 400-series silicon in the other gee-sixes. A fraction more light makes it to the G6 Plus' main camera than it does on the G6's (an f/1.7 vs. f/1.8 aperture) but it's still a 12MP dual pixel affair with an additional 5MP cam for depth sensing. The 8MP front facing shooter is shared in the family, complete with a flash too.

Powering things is a 3,200mAh battery - 200mAh more than the vanilla model, but not quite as much as the Play's 4,000mAh. Then again, the Play's chips are made on a dated 28nm process, and the more efficient S630 can make do just fine with less juice. Plus, the near-stock Android Oreo should be easy on the battery anyway. And when it does eventually die, the bundled TurboPower charger is good for quick top ups.

Motorola Moto G6 Plus specs

• Body: Gorilla Glass 3 front and back; 160x75.5x8mm; 167 grams; p2i water repellent nano coating.
• Display: 5.9" IPS LCD, 2,160x1,080px resolution, 407ppi.
• Rear cameras: Main camera: 12MP, 1.4µm pixels, f/1.7 aperture, dual pixel autofocus; dual tone, dual LED flash; 2160p video recording. Secondary camera: 5MP, f/2.2 aperture.
• Front camera: 8MP, f/2.2 aperture; fixed focus; single LED flash; 1080p/30fps video recording.
• OS/Software: Android 8.0 Oreo; Moto experience customizations.
• Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 630: octa-core 2.2GHz Cortex-A53 CPU, Adreno 508 GPU.
• Memory: 4GB/6GB of RAM; 64GB/128GB of storage; dedicated microSD slot.
• Battery: 3,200mAh Li-Ion (sealed); 15W TurboPower fast charging (Qualcomm QuickCharge 4 compatible).
• Connectivity: Single SIM and dual SIM versions, market dependent; USB Type-C (v2.0); dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac; GPS, GLONASS; NFC; Bluetooth 5.
• Misc:Front-mounted fingerprint sensor, FM radio, 3.5mm jack, front-firing single speaker.

There's just a single speaker, but as single speakers go, this one probably makes the most sense - it's the earpiece that handles the task and is, by definition, front-facing. There's an FM radio too, and a 3.5mm jack - midrangers are still a safe space where this sort of goodies are more or less standard.

Motorola Moto G6 Plus unboxing

We didn't quite get a retail package with the Moto G6 Plus, strictly speaking. We did, however receive one with the Moto G6 and we got confirmation that the Plus will come with the same accessories. Those include the mentioned 15W TurboPower charger (USB cable too, naturally), and a clear silicone protective case. No headphones, though.

With no accessories to fumble with, we might as well get on with the review. Let's have a look at the design on the next page.