Motorola announced their latest moto g handset, the moto G85 last month offering an edge-to-edge curved display in a new ultra-thin premium frame.
Priced at $399 and available in a range of colours, the moto G85 also offers both plastic and Vegan leather on the rear as well.
There’s a large 6.7” FullHD+ resolution pOLED display inside the phone, powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 6s Gen 3 processor with 5G support and paired with 8GB RAM and 128GB of on-board storage. A 5,000mAh battery runs the phone, with enough juice to get you through a few days of use, says Motorola.
It’s a lot of phone, and with a very decent price tag to match, so should it be your next phone? I’ve been using it for a week and here’s how it went.
Hardware
Design
The Motorola G85 takes a step up in design from last year’s moto g84, moving on from the square rails on the side and incorporating a curved edge-to-edge pOLED display that’s super thin in the hand.
The new curved display is covered by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 for protection against drops, making it more durable, though the phone itself only carries a ‘water repellent design’ rather than an official IP rating.
Motorola have sent over an Urban Grey coloured moto g85 5G which has a PMMA (plastic) rear. The phone is also available in both Cobalt Blue and Olive Green in a vegan leather finish if you prefer a brighter finish, or a softer feel on the rear.
You won’t feel the rear of the phone much though, with a basic TPU case included in the box.
There’s a volume rocker and power button on the right, with a USB Type-C port and speaker on the base. What is missing is the headphone jack that was included on last years moto g84, but seems to have fallen off the spec list this year.
Display and Audio
There’s a large 6.7” FullHD+ resolution pOLED display in the moto g85 5G, bookended by large stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos.
The display is bright and easy to see in all lighting conditions, including in bright sunlight. The higher resolution makes for easy to read text, and the OLED display offers bright and vibrant colour reproduction, while the 120Hz refresh rate makes for a smooth experience in apps and scrolling through the system.
My only feedback on the display is that the curved sides can cause issues when trying to hit a small touch target on the edge such as the fullscreen icon on YouTube. I’m not a huge fan of curved displays because of this sort of thing, however the borderless look is very sleek.
Audio wise, the paired speakers are pretty good. There’s a decent mids and highs, with a surprising amount of low-end, though it tends to distort at higher volumes. Overall though it’s an impressive audio setup for a phone.
Performance
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 6s Gen 3 is paired with 8GB of RAM which includes a RAM Boost which utilises part of the 128GB of on-board storage as virtual RAM.
The phone handles quite nicely, though has a few glitches which were smoothed out with the RAM boost. The RAM boost is an interesting idea, which sees the phone able to automatically add 8GB of virtual memory for a total of 16GB RAM. You can force it to use a set amount, or use AI to choose the optimum mix – which seemed to work best.
As usual I ran the moto g85 5G through the Geekbench and 3DMark tests and here’s how they went.
As far as connectivity goes, the moto g85 5G includes 5G (sub-6) and 4G LTE support. Your mileage may vary, but I’ve been getting good consistent signal on the Telstra network.
There’s also Bluetooth 5.1, NFC and GPS support – with the only disappointment being the simple dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 ac, which while it works well, an update to Wifi 6E would be nice.
Camera
There’s an impressive spec list for the moto g85 5G camera system, with a 50MP Main sensor on the rear paired with an 8MP Ultrawide sensor capable of 118° Field of View (FoV), while on the front you get a 32MP sensor embedded in the display.
The camera setup is similar to last year’s moto g84, though the main sensor has slightly improved low-light capture at 0.8µm.
The main camera sensor on the moto g85 5G takes a decent shot in daylight, capturing vibrant colours and details in the images. The improved low-light works well with a little ambient lighting, though extreme low-light still poses some issues.
The Ultra-wide works well, though it is only 8MP, so you lose some details and though there’s no optical zoom, the digital zoom works quite well.
The 32MP sensor embedded in the display does a decent job – even if the subject isn’t great.
Battery and Charging
There’s a 5,000mAh battery inside the moto g85 with motorola still continuing to buck trends and include a 33W Turbo Charger in the box.
As far as battery life is concerned, the moto G85 is hard to kill, with a battery that’s measured in days rather than hours – especially stand-by time. I was able to easily get through a day, and almost through a second day when using the moto g85
Charging with the 33W TurboPower charger is swift, with a 30 minute charge netting you just over 50% charge, with a full charge taking just under an hour and a half.
As most of us tend to charge overnight, and the phone easily gets through the day, the moto g85 5G is a pretty solid option when it comes to battery life.
Software
Android
As usual, Motorola has delivered a very clean build of Android with their MyUX software over the top. The build has only a few pre-installed apps, but more importantly adds in the popular moto gestures like chop to launch the flashlight and twist to quickly jump to the camera – but apart from some more personalisation options, it’s as clean a build of Android as you’d like.
Updates
The Motorola moto g85 5G includes Android 14 out of the box, and runs the May 1st security patch out of the box.
There’s no current updates available for the moto g85 now in September. There is an update promise for the phone, though it’s not fantastic with Motorola promising ‘one major android OS upgrade and 3 years of bi-monthly security updates’.
That means the moto g85 will receive the Android 15 update which just launched, but that’s the last OS update it will receive – though Motorola haven’t announced when that update will be available for the phone.
Pre-installed apps
While the Motorola ‘My UX’ software is fairly light, there are a few extra features baked into the OS, however the main use is pre-installed apps.
Motorola includes a number of pre-installed apps including their own Moto app, as well as Moto Secure, Family Space, Moto Unplugged andSmart Connect. These apps contain a number of features including the ability to secure your apps, media and files in a secure folder, or connect to tablets, PCs or Displays, and of course just personalise your phone with the Moto app.
There’s also a couple of unrelated apps that load when you login including Adobe Scan, Linkedin, Booking.com and TikTok – as well as the usual load of Google apps.
While you can uninstall the third-party apps, it’s still annoying they’re installed by default. So, just spend a minute and clean up these apps if you don’t use them.
Should you buy it?
Overall, the moto g85 has a great design with the almost borderless, curved display and a list of specs that make it a great deal for $399.
The phone is snappy to use and includes a great camera that can take some good shots in almost any lighting condition. The only letdown for me really is the lack of ongoing OS updates past the single update, though three years of security updates offers some longevity.
The only other consideration at the moment is the great deals you can get on the previous gen moto g84, which sells at $299, or options from OPPO, Samsung and even Nothing. The moto g85 does bump the design up with that almost borderless, curved display though and if looks matter, it’s a great option.
The moto g85 5G is available in Australia for $399 in Cobalt Blue and Olive Green with a luxury vegan leather finish, as well as Urban Grey with a PMMA (Plastic) finish. You can check it out at JB Hi-Fi, The Good Guys, OfficeWorks, Big W, Harvey Norman, Bing Lee,
Mobileciti, Amazon, and motorola.com.au.
Daniel has been talking about, learning about and using tech since he was able to toggle switches and push buttons. If it flashes, turns on or off or connects he wants to use it, talk about it and learn more about it. Like this article? Buy me a coffee!
