Virtually excellent for the value

Motorola unveiled its newest mid-range smartphone, the Moto G Energy 5G, late final 12 months. I received my fingers on the cellphone and put it by way of its paces. After utilizing it casually for a month, I took it to downtown Toronto to a Raptors sport to actually try it out in a busy, real-world surroundings, and actually, I used to be totally impressed with the G Energy.

Smooth design

To kick issues off, let’s discuss in regards to the design of the Moto G Energy 5G. From the entrance, the cellphone appears to be like fairly commonplace, although it is a little more rectangular than different gadgets, which have taken on a extra rounded form. It additionally has a normal hole-punch digital camera and decently skinny bezels. The display screen can also be a reasonably good measurement for my requirements, sporting a 6.8″ FHD+ show

The appropriate facet of the body has two separate quantity rockers on the highest, which I personally love, and an extended energy button on the underside, which additionally helps the fingerprint scanner. My solely downside with that’s that I method too usually by accident unlock the cellphone as an alternative of rapidly checking a notification. That is an especially minor annoyance, however it’s nonetheless an additional half-second I’d reasonably not spend locking the machine. The left facet, nevertheless, solely sports activities the SIM card slot. This slot not solely helps the SIM, but additionally a micro SD card slot that may develop storage as much as 1TB, which is a large plus I’ll positively be benefiting from.

Shifting onto the again of the machine, it has a textured design that actually appears to be like good in each the darkish blue and the sandy-white colors the machine is available in. The Moto G Energy 5G additionally has the cameras and flashlight arrange in a quad-camera formation within the upper-left-hand nook, which I actually actually just like the look of.

Additionally, as a small notice, there’s a headphone jack which I’ve used a good bit and actually admire. Thanks, Motorola!

Not at all times one of the best performer

One draw back I observed is the machine’s horsepower, which is actually form of missing at occasions. I observed it primarily when utilizing picture-in-picture mode: the cellphone would stutter and decelerate a good bit, which grew to become a nuisance.

Talking of energy, I ran a Geekbench 6 benchmark on the G Energy. It managed a single-core rating of 783 and a multi-core rating of two,093, which is surprisingly method decrease than I anticipated. The day-to-day efficiency feels fairly good to me, apart from the occasional slowdown.

The Moto G Energy sports activities the MediaTek Dimensity 6300 processor with a 2.4GHz octa-core CPU and an Arm Mali-G57 MC2 GPU. It additionally comes with 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM, which is expandable as much as 24GB with RAM enhance, which I’d think about down the highway if I resolve to develop the machine’s storage.

One factor I do have to offer this cellphone credit score for, although, is that it by no means received scorching as soon as whereas I used it. Even when operating video requires hours with my associate at school, which normally will overheat my Pixel 9 if I’m not cautious, the G Energy stayed cool.

Image excellent

To check the cameras, I took the cellphone to a Toronto Raptors and Philadelphia 76ers basketball sport to actually take a look at the system out in real-world settings with continually altering gentle and sound — and actually, it carried out higher than I anticipated.

The early ‘level and shoot’ photographs I took with the cellphone throughout the pregame got here out method higher than I assumed. One factor in regards to the machine that I observed from the beginning, which really benefited on this state of affairs, was the automated color adjustment. My each day driver (Google Pixel 9) has the same auto-adjust function, however the Moto G Energy 5G actually takes it up a notch. Once I first received the machine again in December, I actually struggled with this and ended up with numerous oversaturated photographs of my cat — though my condo has numerous tan in it, so that may have performed into it.

After some time, I put my images expertise to the take a look at and was actually happy with what I may obtain in each ‘Regular’ and ‘Professional’ digital camera settings. For starters, I received a really ‘ambient’ vibe from the photographs I took, together with rather more element from the gang than I anticipated.

I didn’t use the entrance digital camera a lot, nevertheless it was tolerable once I did. Clearly, there are ‘higher’ selfie cameras available on the market, however for the common person who doesn’t want ‘studio high quality’ selfie pictures, it’ll do completely advantageous.

The one place the place I discovered the digital camera setup actually struggled was the zoom. Once I actually examined the digital camera setup on the Raptors sport, I discovered that the zoom lens was just about unusable for photographs once I tried to zoom in on the gamers on the court docket to get a better shot. And I wasn’t within the nosebleeds both; I used to be within the decrease bowl, and I nonetheless had issues. If I have been sitting any increased, it’d be harder getting a transparent shot.

To point out an instance, I took a shot of 76ers centre Joel Embiid (above).

Battery life for the ages

My predominant reward for this cellphone is the battery life.

Through the time I’ve spent with the Moto G Energy 5G, I’ve primarily used it as my streaming machine for work and video calls, as beforehand talked about. Throughout all of that utilization, the cellphone’s battery has been completely stellar. Someday, I used to be operating YouTube for my total 8-hour workday, and even saved it streaming whereas I received dinner prepared; it by no means dropped under 70 per cent as soon as.

The machine sports activities a 5,200 mAh battery that I don’t suppose I’ve even utterly depleted but. It has been nothing in need of nice and has been a dependable backup whereas I’ve been busy or away from a charger for many of the day.

Value your cash?

I really feel like, for $449.99, it is a nice finances choice for anybody who wants a tool for modern-day use, reminiscent of scrolling by way of socials, searching the web, and streaming content material, with out having to emphasize about battery life.

I’ve positively loved my time with the Moto G Energy 5G, and I look ahead to turning to this machine each time I would like a reliable, long-lasting cellphone.

Canadians should buy the G Energy direct from Motorola for $449.99. On the time of writing, no Canadian carriers had the 2026 G Energy accessible. Nonetheless, Freedom Cellular nonetheless sells the 2025 variant, so it could finally decide up the 2026 model.