The budget friendly Motorola moto g range always pushes the limits on what to expect from a mid-range device. The new Motorola moto g84, announced earlier this month for $399, continues this trend, offering up eye-catching colours and top tier hardware for a budget price.
The phone includes a large 6.5” 120Hz, HD+ resolution display on the front, and it’s powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 processor with 12GB RAM and 256GB of on-board storage. Powering it all is a 5,000mAh battery.
There’s several colour options available, including the Pantone Colour of the year 2023, Viva Magenta, and it comes in either a matte finish plastic rear, or a more premium, soft-touch Vegan Leather material.
Motorola have sent over the Midnight Blue coloured moto g84 5G for me to try out. I’ve been using the phone for two weeks now, and here’s how it went.
Hardware and Design
The Moto G84 5G take a different design approach from last years G82 with a slimmer and lighter body and now sporting an official IP54 dust and water resistance rating rather than the simple ‘water repellent’ rating of previous models – though IP54 only really covers a light splash, so you still need to be careful.
The phone comes in three colour options, with the review unit a Midnight Blue colour in a PMMA (Plastic) rear which is both sturdy and light and doesn’t show fingerprints, though I kept it mainly in the free TPU case included in the box for additional protection.
It’s a good looking phone though a fairly vanilla option in the dark blue colourway, however there are options in Vegan Leather – a softer, synthetic material which mimics the look and feel of leather. The Vegan Leather options are available in Viva Magenta, as well as Marshmallow Blue though this option is exclusive to JB Hifi.
On the rear you’ll find a dual-camera array, with Motorola dropping the dedicated 2MP macro sensor of the G82. The camera island makes the phone rock on a table, though the TPU case evens this bump out to lay flat when it’s on.
The phone has the usual button and port setup for Motorola, with the power and volume rocker on the right and hybrid SIM Tray/micro SD card slot on the left.
On the base of the phone you do of course get the USB-C connector for charging and data transfer, though it is only USB 2.0. There’s also a headphone jack, as well as a downward firing speaker which pairs with the earpiece for stereo sound which includes Dolby Atmos support – and sounds surprisingly decent.
Display
The phone comes with a nice bright 6.5” FHD+ (1080×2400) resolution P-OLED display on the front, with a small punch hole notch for the selfie camera. There’s a fingerprint sensor built-in to the display which works decently, though could be hit and miss.
It’s a big bright display which is Dolby Vision certified and looks great. The colours are excellent, with a choice between Natural and Saturated colour tuning in settings to personalise it to your liking. No matter which you prefer, videos look fantastic.
With a peak brightness of 1300 nits, I found the Moto G84 5G display to be easy to see in both indoor lighting and when out in the sunlight. The auto-brightness is quite effective at ramping up the brightness when needed.
The display is capable of up to 120Hz refresh rate which offers smooth performance scrolling, playing games etc. You can force the 120Hz at the cost of battery life, or force it down to 60Hz to improve it.
Performance
Underneath the hood we find a Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 5G platform with 12GB DDR4 RAM and 256GB of UFS2.2 storage. It’s a decently fast phone, with little in the way of performance issues though load times can be slower, which could be due to the slower UFS storage and RAM.
The phone runs quite well on 5G. I ran it through on the Telstra network and had good connectivity on both 4G and 5G.
I ran the phone through Geekbench and 3DMark and here’s how it went.
Camera
The specs for the moto g84 5G camera are impressive with a 50MP main camera equipped with Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) on the rear paired with an 8MP ultra-wide angle sensor with 118° Field of View which also pulls double duty as a Macro Vision sensor. On the front you get a 16MP sensor with fast focus to capture smiles instantly, nestled into a punch hole notch in the display.
The 50MP main camera can take some great shots in good lighting, with the ultra-wide able to capture a good shot as well. The ultra-wide sensor also doubles as a macro option if you need close-up shots, with macro mode kicking in automatically when the camera sees you getting close to the subject.
Low-light photography is hit and miss, depending on just how low-light you’re shooting in, but still delivers a decent result.
The front camera offers a decent shot, with an option to utilise a wider angle if you need it.
Motorola’s camera software is visually similar to most, with the carousel offering the most common shot and video options. There are more camera features in the ‘More’ section, and if you find yourself using these functions regularly – like Night Vision – you can just drag and drop it to the carousel to re-order it if you need to.
Battery
The moto g84 5G, like a lot of phones in the Motorola line, comes with a large 5,000mAh battery. There’s also a 33W charger included in the box – something of a bonus these days.
The moto g84 5G has a large battery, but it also has a large display with support for 120Hz refresh rate – but it solidly lasted over a day of heavy use and was fairly good for a few hours on day 2. That said, it’s better to look at the phone as a great device to last all day.
Charging is a relatively fast affair, with the phone supporting 33W ‘fast’ charging. It’s a decent speed, though pales in comparison to some of the higher charging speeds offered by the competition. That said, the G83 can get you to 50% charge in 30 minutes, with a full charge in just shy of an hour and a half.
Software
The Moto G84 comes out of the box with Android 13 with the Motorola myUX software on top. The phone runs the September 1st Security update and July 1st Google Play system update – as of January 2024, there’s no update available.
Motorola have advised the Moto G84 will be receiving one OS update, though haven’t announced a time-frame for when Android 14 will arrive. It is disappointing to see only one OS update, so it’s something to weigh up.
The Motorola myUX software is as usual very lightly applied with the helpful additions to stock Android cropping up when you need them – sort of like a butler hovering quietly at the side of the room to attend to your needs at a moment’s notice.
The Motorola Android implementation is clean and has very few pre-installed apps or services. There is of course a few, including a recorder app, as well as Motorola branded apps includin gthe Moto app, Notificationere’s the familiar gestures for loading the camera (twist) or launching the flashlight (chop), as well as the extended theming, building on Android’s Material You, allowing you to customise colours, fonts and icon shapes through My UX. There’s not a heavy handed approach, with the Moto app handling the additions in a central location – a handy addition, rather than having to dig through settings menus.
As usual, the My UX software is a great addition to stock Android and the moto g84 5G runs quite well because of the lighter touch when it comes to the moto ‘skin’. A little longer software support would be good, so be aware of it.
Should you buy this phone?
The Motorola moto g84 5G is another great entry in the moto g line, offering great hardware with the lightweight Motorola software experience we’ve come to know and love..
The phone isn’t perfect, with the lack of ongoing software support after one OS update quite disappointing. The camera, while take a good shot in most lighting, does lack some of the crispness of
All that said, the phone runs well, gets easily through a full day of use and has that big bright display with good speakers and good battery life. It’s also priced reasonably, with very few phones in the competition coming with similar hardware specs including the 12GGB RAM/256GB of storage combo.
Overall, the Motorola moto g84 5G is a hard to beat choice in this range, and is well worth checking out if you’re looking for something for yourself, or even for a first smartphone for one of the kids.
If you want to check it out, the moto g84 5G can be found for $399 RRP in Midnight Blue and Viva Magenta (vegan leather) at JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman, Officeworks, The Good Guys, Bing Lee, and Big W and Amazon online. You can also find the Marshmallow Blue coloured model with Vegan Leather rear at JB Hi-Fi.
