Motorola’s new budget beast in the sub-Rs 15,000 price bracket is the first smartphone in the world to be powered by the Snapdragon 6s Gen 4 chipset. It carries all the Motorola essentials – Pantone shades for the back panel, a balanced camera performance, and a tasteful software experience. On top of that, it is equipped with a massive 7,000mAh battery pack that promises to offer a lot of mileage. We got our hands on the device earlier this month and have been daily driving it for the last week. Here is our review of the Moto G57 Power.

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Moto G57 Power Review: Design and Display

Here’s what you get inside the G57 Power’s retail box:

• Smartphone
• 33W power adapter
• USB-A to USB-C cable
• SIM ejector
• Quick guide
• Safety booklet

While there’s no phone cover in the box, the G57 Power inspires a lot of confidence with its strength and durability. It is compliant with MIL-STD-810H standards, easily absorbing impact from low falls. Its eco-leather back panel can take a knock without cracking, as opposed to its glass counterparts. The textured finish feels quite premium – something you’d be deprived of after slapping a case on the device.

There are 3 Pantone shades on offer – Regatta(Blue), Fluidity (Turquoise), and Corsair (Blue-Green). The camera array is not housed in a separate island on the back panel. Instead, the vegan leather panel gently elevates around the camera system, causing little to no wobble. The plastic frame houses the volume rocker and the side button on its right edge. This side button doubles as the fingerprint sensor. The right edge houses the dual SIM tray. Unfortunately, this tray does not have a slot for a microSD card. At the bottom lies the 3.5mm headphone jack, primary microphone, and primary speaker. The secondary microphone is positioned up top. The earpiece doubles as the secondary speaker.

The 6.72-inch IPS LCD panel has a 120Hz display and can reach a peak brightness of 1,050 nits. It isn’t the brightest display we’ve used in this price bracket, but it gets the job done in outdoor conditions. Of course, if you’re using the phone under harsh sunlight, you will need to use your hand as a shield to improve legibility. The touch response offered by this display is on par with other devices in this segment. There is no in-display fingerprint scanner on offer here. We don’t mind this too much, as the side-mounter scanner is very snappy. The bezels surrounding the display get thicker around the chin.

During the week-long review period, we used the Moto G57 Power as our primary media streaming device. We used to stream titles across OTT apps like Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney+ Hotstar. The 1,080 x 2,400p display did a good job of relaying vibrant and detailed visuals. While it doesn’t match up to its AMOLED counterparts, especially when it comes to contrast and dynamic range, the viewing experience on offer here is quite enjoyable. The dual speaker setup produces a loud, albeit boxy, audio output.

Moto G57 Power Review: Performance and Cameras

Powering the G57 Power is the Snapdragon 6s Gen 4 SoC. It is the first smartphone in the market to come with this processor. The device is available in a single 8GB RAM (LPDDR4X) + 128GB storage (UFS 2.2) variant. With no expandable storage on board, Motorola should have put out higher storage variants for this device. 128GB of internal storage isn’t enough if you take pictures frequently and use a lot of apps.

Before we dive into the performance review, here is a quick look at this device’s benchmark numbers.

• AnTuTu 3D: 814,665
• Geekbench 6: 1,020 (single-core) | 2,915 (multi-core)

The G57 Power handles routine tasks like calling, instant messaging, web browsing, media streaming, and navigation with ease. The browsing experience is seamless and lag-free. The UFS 2.2 storage takes longer than usual to load the apps on the device, but that is the case with every budget phone out there. The LPDDR4X RAM makes juggling different apps quite easy. It is very rare to come across a stutter or a hiccup in everyday use. Our biggest gripe lies with the haptic motor. Its blunt feedback puts a wrench in the texting experience. We recommend turning it off entirely.

We were quite surprised by how this device handled gaming titles like New State and Call of Duty Mobile. The gameplay offered at medium graphics and a 60fps frame rate was smooth and enjoyable. The touch response is quite decent, leaving us with no big complaints. We did not experience any frame drops during our time with the device. The phone starts heating up after 20 minutes of continuous gameplay, but you can carry on for another 20 minutes without facing any throttling-related issues.

The G57 Power runs Android 16 out of the box. Motorola’s very own Moto UI brings some personalisation, convenience, and security features to the table. This includes an exhaustive wallpaper library, motion effects for the lockscreen and homepage, and special fonts. You can use quick gestures to take a screenshot, turn on the flashlight, launch the camera app, enable DND, and more. The ‘Quick Launch’ gesture, triggered by double-tapping the top third of the back panel, carries out a particular action or launches any app of your choice.

You also get Google’s standard AI features like Gemini Assistant and Circle to Search on this device. Motorola has promised the bare minimum software coverage for the G57 Power – 1 major OS upgrade and 3 years of security patches. It needs to do better in this regard.

The 7,000mAh Si/C battery pack is one of the biggest we’ve seen in this price bracket. This makes it a 2-day phone on normal usage. If your screen time runs above 6 hours, you may need to plug in the charger on Day 2. The battery pack supports 33W wired charging, but it takes over 2 hours to fully charge due to its large capacity.

The rear camera array of this phone comprises a 50MP Sony LYT-600 main sensor and an 8MP ultrawide lens. An 8MP front camera is placed inside a punch-hole cutout on the display.

The 50MP primary shooter captures good images in bright outdoor conditions. The images flaunt a good dynamic range, and the colours are balanced and true to the scene. We were quite happy with the HDR, too. In limited lighting conditions, the Night Mode does a decent job of illuminating the shot and getting rid of the grain.

Images taken with the 8MP ultrawide were visibly softer compared to the results we got from the main sensor. This is something we expect from every budget phone. The colour profile of these shots is decent, although the tonal shift is quite visible in comparison to the main camera pictures. Images taken in limited lighting are dimly-lit and quite grainy.

The G57 Power takes good portrait shots. It does a fine job of detecting the edges of the subject and applying a decent background blur. Although the bokeh effect leaves a bit more to be desired, the portraits appear well focussed. The 8MP front-facing camera takes clear and bright selfies without messing with the skin tone and texture.

Verdict

The Moto G57 checks all the essential boxes for a budget phone. The Snapdragon 6s Gen 4 chipset powering this device makes it a versatile performer. It can handle everyday tasks with ease, while also taking care of basic gaming needs. The LCD panel isn’t the brightest in its category, but it offers a decent indoor viewing experience. The massive 7,000mAh battery pack ensures that you never have to suffer from any battery anxiety. The software experience is clean for the most part, but Motorola needs to do better when it comes to software coverage. 1 OS upgrade is the bare minimum, even for a budget device.

Buy on Amazon for Rs 14,498

Pros

• Nice design
• Durable
• Big battery
• Good main camera

Cons

• No 256GB storage variant
• No expandable storage
• Only 1 major OS upgrade