The Moto G6 and Moto E5 are Motorola's first smartphones for 2018

Motorola is known for making some of the best affordable Android smartphones around, and today it's announced a whole stack of 2018 devices: the midrange Moto G6 series, and the valued focused Moto E5 series. There's three phones in both the Moto E5 and Moto G6 series: a standard model a "Plus", and a "Play". History does however suggests Australia won't get all six, but local availability has yet to be confirmed. Internationally, we'll start seeing them in stores from May.

Despite their lower-end price-points, Motorola's latest devices pip a couple of flagship design elements. All but one feature extra-tall 18:9 displays and some form of glass back. Every device has a P2i water-repellent nano-coating. While the phones aren't water-resistant or water-proof (don't submerge them), the coating helps protect against "moderate exposure" such as spills, splashes, or light rain. As is the norm for Motorola, all six devices run a mostly unmodified version of Android Oreo. 

Moto G6

The Moto G6 trio all feature glass front and backs and 18:9 screens, although material and display resolution vary. The G6 and G6 Plus both have scratch resistant Gorilla Glass on their back, while the G6 Play is built with polymer glass. The G6 and G6 Plus both have two-rear facing cameras that can be used in tandem for portrait mode. Hardware for the phones is as follows:

Moto E5

A major standout of the Moto E5 family is high-capacity batteries, measuring in at 4,000mAh and 5,000mAh for the E5 and E5 Plus, respectively. While Motorola says that this will get you a day and a half between recharges, we're guessing this might be a conservative estimate. From our experience, a 5,000mAh battery should easily last two full days.

The E5 Play is one phone in the Motorola's new line-up that doesn't have a glass back or an 18:9 display. Instead, you'll find a mostly plastic build and a more traditional 16:9 screen. Given that the E5 Play is likely to be Motorola's cheapest device (pricing hasn't been confirmed yet for any market), these trade-offs seem fair.

Here's how the phones compare in terms of hardware:

Alex Choros

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Alex Choros is the Managing Editor of WhistleOut Australia and an award-winning journalist. He's been writing about consumer technology for over a decade and is an expert on the Australian telco sector, to the point where he knows far too many phone and internet plans by heart. In addition to leading the WhistleOut editorial team, Alex is responsible for ruining the office Sonos with his troubled taste in music.

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