Motorola shows what it is good at and offers for about 200 euros a smartphone with a battery life of two to three days, smooth hardware and a clean version of Android. That makes the Moto G7 Power an excellent buy, although you have to take some things into account.
Get started Motorola Moto G7 Power review
When Motorola released the Moto G7 series earlier this year, most of the attention went to the regular Moto G7 and more powerful Moto G7 Plus. Yet the Moto G7 Power is perhaps the most interesting smartphone of the bunch, and that is mainly due to the huge 5000 mAh battery.
Motorola previously released a smartphone with such large batteries, but these were mainly devices in the Moto E line. Those devices are less powerful and sometimes failed in terms of performance. In that respect, the Moto G7 Power, which feels much more complete, is a hit. In this review, we will tell you more about it.
Motorola design and HD screen
Let’s start with the least exciting part of the Moto G7 Power: the design. The smartphone is made of polymer glass, which looks like glass but feels more like plastic in practice. At the back is the round camera island that we know from other Moto phones, with the fingerprint scanner in the Motorola logo.
When we turn the device around, we see the 6.2-inch screen with a notch at the top. The notch is there for the front camera, speaker and all necessary sensors. The display is far from borderless: there is a thick bar at the bottom, and clear bezels are also visible at the top and around the screen.
The screen has a resolution of 1570 by 720 pixels and that is not too good on this screen size. Motorola makes this concession to save battery life and hardware, and in practice, it is not even that disturbing. Text, photos, and videos are pretty sharp and images usually look great. The IPS LCD panel cannot be very bright but is still reasonably visible in bright sunlight.
Smooth hardware and fingerprint scanner
Nice to compare the Motorola Moto G7 Power review with last year ‘s Moto E5 Plus, which also had a 5000 mAh battery, is that the smartphone is a lot more powerful. Under the hood is a Snapdragon 632 and that is the same chip that is also in the normal Moto G7 and cheaper G7 Play. Combined with 4 GB of memory, this ensures excellent performance.
The phone feels nice and smooth, apps start up quickly and multitasking is also without problems. With very intensive use, faltering can sometimes be seen, but that is understandable in this price range. Furthermore, the Moto G7 Power comes with 64GB of internal storage, of which more than 50GB is available for the user. That is also great and can also be expanded via a micro-SD memory card.
We are also pleased with the fingerprint scanner on the back. Setting your fingerprint (s) is quick and unlocking is even faster. You only have to touch the scanner lightly with your finger and you can get started right away. Face unlocking is also present, but this is a bit slower and much less safe.
Software: bare Android with few updates
The Motorola Moto G7 Power review runs out of the box on Android 9.0 (Pie) with minimal adjustments from Motorola. The software is basically the same as on, for example, the Google Pixel devices, although Motorola does add extra functions via the Moto app. They are generally quite handy, work great and are not in the way.
Only Moto’s own gesture control is mediocre: it is woody and the manufacturer could have better implemented the gestures of stock Android. In our Moto G7 Plus review, you can read more about the software functions of the G7 series.
The Motorola update policy is mediocre. The company promises the entire G7 series – and thus the G7 Power – give one major Android update, which in this case Android Q is. In addition, the manufacturer says to release a security patch once every quarter for two years after the release. Strangely enough, our review model is currently running on the December 2018 update at the time of writing. All in all, the support is certainly not bad, but compared to Nokia, for example, is rather poor.
Cameras are not great
We can be brief about the cameras of the Motorola Moto G7 Plus: they are not great. At the back, there is a single 12-megapixel lens and an additional depth sensor – which we do see with the Motorola Moto G7 Power review and G7 Plus – is therefore missing. The camera is rather limited and does not deliver great pictures, although you can take pretty pictures with a lot of daylight and the sun.
The quality deteriorates indoors and outdoors in poor light conditions, although it is certainly not bad. As you can see on the right photo below, you can take a nice photo in the dark, although the contrast is a bit lost and visible detail is missing.
For portrait photos, the G7 Power camera relies entirely on software, which is simply not that good. The same applies to selfies with the 8-megapixel front camera: snaps of eyes washed out and detail is soon lost. With less light conditions, the results are even less and you have very little use of the selfie camera.
Battery life of two to three days
The most important reason for bringing in the Motorola Moto G7 Power review is, of course, the battery life. Under the hood is a 5000 mAh battery and in combination with a relatively low screen resolution and an economical processor that ensures an incredibly good battery life. Motorola is talking about ‘longer than two days without recharging’ and doesn’t even overdo it.
With normal use, you can easily tap the two days and if you take it easy, three days is feasible. Draining the battery in one day is virtually impossible. The G7 Power lasts so long that I achieved a screen-on time of seven hours and still had more than 50 percent of the battery. The G7 Power lasts a bizarrely long time and beats almost any other smartphone in this area.
In the box of the Moto G7 Power is an 18 Watt charger and that is very neat in this price range. Charging is via the USB-C port, but due to the enormous battery capacity not very fast: after half an hour of charging you have about 25 percent. Charging the full battery completely takes over two hours, and that is not bad at all.
Conclusion Motorola Moto G7 Power review
The budget devices from Motorola usually offer an excellent price-quality ratio and the Moto G7 Power is no exception. The battery life is incredibly good, the hardware is nice and smooth and the software does not bother you with unnecessary apps or functions. The cameras and the moderate update policy of Motorola are clear downsides, but otherwise, this device knows how to convince. In this price range, the G7 Power is without a doubt one of the best options.