Overview
Lenovo’s Moto G5 Plus again reaches for the top price performance – but has to admit a narrow defeat. The mid-range mobile phone combines solid all-round performance, appealing workmanship and a current Android version – but fails in the camera test. The strongest competition currently comes from our own company.
Pros
Long battery life
Good workmanship
fingerprint scanner
Almost unchanged Android version
Cons
Weak camera
No notification LED
Moto G5 Plus: Lenovo introduces an aluminium housing
For the first time Lenovo wraps the Motos in an elegant aluminium dress and wants to satisfy fans of high-quality cases with this step. Optically this is unquestionably successful, the matt metal back is more attractive than its plastic predecessors. The smartphone fits comfortably in the hand, but the frame offers more support than the smooth back. Some might be bothered by the discreetly projecting Moto logo, as it is a bit sharp-edged. Unfortunately, the device is not watertight.
The strength of the Moto G5 Plus is the great battery life
The very long battery life is really fun. The 3,000-milliampere-hour battery takes the Moto G5 Plus above the 10-hour threshold in an online runtime test. In everyday use, the mobile phone will reliably accompany most users through the day. But it goes even better: The big endurance runners in our best mobile phone list come to about 13 hours.
We also like the user interface, which is based on the native Android design and responds very quickly to input despite the midrange processor. The device also acknowledges scrolling on long web pages with smooth and even gliding of the image. Lenovo installs the latest Android 7, wants to play important patches regularly for a while, but unfortunately not monthly.
Fingerprint scanner with Handlings-Plus
Like the Moto G4 Plus, the G5 Plus also has a fingerprint scanner on the front, which unfortunately does not serve as a home button in the standard setting. Accordingly, above the lower device frame a black band with software keys occupies some screen area again.
That can be changed this time: Via the Moto app, users can hide the software bar under “Action | One-button control” and integrate the three functions into the fingerprint scanner button. A tap then triggers the home function, a wipe from the side opens the app changer or instructs the system to go back one step. This may feel a bit fiddly at first, but it is a practical addition.
Striking photo weakness
However, we don’t like the photo quality – no matter if it’s daylight or twilight. The Moto G5 Plus puts a powerful soft focus over the 12-megapixel camera to reduce image noise and artifacts, but ruins many details. In one of our laboratory photographs of a fine yarn, the individual threads are barely visible. At dim light the quality decreases again, but here a lot of cams fail in cheaper models.
Solid display, neat equipment
The display is 5.2 inches diagonal, but not huge. Lenovo strikes a good balance between image area and manageability. Thanks to Full HD resolution, the image sharpness is at a top level. With around 450 cd/m², the Moto G5 Plus does not shine extraordinarily brightly, but it is usually enough to recognize contents outside. Moto users have to do without a status LED to display messages. To do this, the phone turns on briefly when you take it in your hand and displays the number of missed events on the screen.
Lenovo sells the device with a nominal 32 GByte of memory, of which 23 GByte are still free. If you want more, simply expand it with a memory card. A dual SIM function and LTE support are also on board. Fast AC WLAN is missing.
The Moto G5 Plus is available in grey and gold at a recommended retail price of around €285. With our price comparison Bestcheck you get it a little cheaper.
