Motorola Moto G8 Review

Motorola was once clear go to if you wanted a reliable phone at a good price, an undisputed king. It's ever-popular G-series handsets have been renowned for their excellent value. But rule for long enough, and your reign will come under threat.

The iconic phone maker is now locked in a fierce fight for budget supremacy against the likes of OPPO and Realme who've pushed boundaries when it comes to what your money buys. Priced at $329, the Moto G8 is one of the cheapest G-series devices we've seen to date in Australia, and a clear response to heightened competition.

Despite the budget price tag, the Moto G8 does its best to act as a facsimile of a fancier phone. This is immediately made clear by the on-trend hole-punch display and the glasstic back. The selfie camera is embedded in the top-left of the screen, and is mostly unobtrusive. The screen itself is fine - not quite as sharp or vibrant as phones even just a little bit more expensive - but it's not bad by any measure. And measuring in at 6.4-inches, there sure is a lot of it.

I'm not the biggest fan of glasstic - it often feels the worst of both worlds - but Motorola has done a decent job with the finish on the Moto G8. It looks glass like, it doesn't feel cheap, and fingerprints aren't as pronounced on as with some other glasstic designs.

Performance also falls into the good enough basket. Day-to-day tasks are perfectly zippy, although you may occasionally notice a little bit of slowdown when opening up an app for the first time in a while. Nothing overly concerning however, no red flags here. In terms of battery, you should easily be able to get a full day per charge with a comfortable buffer.

Unsurprisingly, photo quality is the Moto G8's biggest weakness, as tends to be the case with budget smartphones. You can get perfectly acceptable photos when you're outdoors and have plenty of light, even if the phone is slow to focus. They're nothing to rave about, but they'll look fine on your 'gram. Camera performance starts to falter as soon as you lose natural light. Even images taken within my apartment around 5pm - with the lights on - exhibited notable grain. Picture quality only gets worse the darker it gets.

The camera also suffers from very limited dynamic range. Even with HDR on, focusing on a bright object will darken the rest of the shot. Focusing on an object covered by shadow will blow out the rest of the image. None of this is overly shocking, but the Moto G8 is easily out performed by other phones in the same price category. The $269 Realme C3 and $299 OPPO A52 can take markedly better images, for example.

It's worth noting that the Moto G8 doesn't have NFC. This won't be a big deal for everyone, but it means you can't use for phone for Google Pay. Not every phone at this kind of price-point offers NFC, but both the aforementioned Realme C3 and OPPO A52 have it as a feature.

One of the biggest differences between the Moto G8 and similarly priced OPPO and Realme handsets is that it ostensibly runs an unmodified version of Android. OPPO and Realme devices run highly customised takes on Android, which while functional, have some occasional quirks. Intense battery management settings can lead to delayed notifications, sometimes.

On the other hand, the Moto G8 runs Android as Google intended. There's no extra bloat and nothing you do need preinstalled out of the box. Any customisation is light, and mostly practical. For example, making a karate chop gesture with the phone will turn on the flash light, which is a neat little trick.

The software used by the likes of OPPO has become a hell of a lot more polished in the past half-decade, but I still prefer the simplicity of a classic Android experience as you get on the Moto G8. This shouldn't be confused with Android One, however (used by modern Nokia smartphones and select Motorola devices), where you're effectively guarantee software updates for three years from a phone's launch.

Motorola makes no guarantees about major operating system updates or monthly security updates when it comes to the Moto G8 - which, admittedly, is the same situation you'll face with similarly priced OPPO and Realme handsets. As of a few days ago, the Moto G8 was still stuck on the January 2020 security patch. It was recently updated to the April 2020 security patch, but come on guys, it's July.

In short, the Moto G8 is fine. For $329, it kind of does what you expect, and it's reliable. The camera isn't great, but otherwise, the Moto G8 is an affordable phone that isn't going to endlessly frustrate you or having you pegging it against a wall. There's a lot to like about the Moto G8 - the clean take on Android, the design, the speed - but it's a shame it doesn't just do a little more. Past G-series phones often made you feel like you were getting a fantastic deal. In the case of the Moto G8, it's still a good deal, but not to the point where you shouldn't consider alternatives.

Motorola Moto G8 camera samples

Alex Choros

Managing Editor + Group Telco Editor | X | Instagram | Threads | LinkedIn

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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