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Battery life
- The rapid charging is very fast
- Daily charging is required
The battery life of the Moto G5 is typical. On a normal day of mixed use, you’re going to want to charge it up at night. We never dropped below 10% before bedtime, even on a busy day of shooting photos and gaming, but it also never lasted beyond a day and a half.
At the end of our 90-minute HD video test the Moto G5 had lost 22% of its battery power, which is a perfectly respectable result, though not quite as good as its predecessor, which only lost 17%.
That might be explained by the fact that Lenovo has shrunk the capacity slightly from 3,000mAh to 2,800mAh, though it has also shrunk the display by half an inch.
Gaming tends to drain batteries quite quickly and that’s true for the Moto G5. It lost 8% in 20 minutes playing Asphalt 8, and 7% in 20 minutes of Super Mario Run.
The 10W rapid charger is impressive though. If the battery is low it climbs extremely fast, but it slows down as the percentage ticks up. Just 20 minutes plugged in was enough to go from 20% up to 50%.
Overall, Lenovo’s claim that you can get hours of power in minutes of charging holds up.
Camera
- Low light performance is poor
- Camera app includes a professional mode
- 5MP wide-angle front camera is good for group selfies
On paper, the 13MP main camera in the Moto G5 sounds impressive. However, it doesn’t have the dual-LED flash of its bigger brother, the G5 Plus, or the large f/1.7 aperture which improves low light performance.
The G5 Plus camera may only be rated at 12MP, but it’s a superior Sony IMX260 sensor.
The camera in the Moto G5 is decent, but unremarkable. In good lighting conditions, when you take your time, it’s possible to capture some stunning shots. The off-the-cuff performance, which is how most of us really use our cameras, is not as good.
If there’s any movement, then shots come out blurry, and noise creeps in when there’s anything less than bright daylight.
The Moto G5 does have the same camera app as its more expensive Plus variant though. It’s straightforward to use and supports automatic HDR. You can tap and hold to lock in a subject to focus on and there’s a brightness wheel around the reticle.
There’s also a professional mode, which lets you adjust ISO, white balance, and a few other bits and pieces. Slow motion and panorama are present, too, but neither is very good. Video recording is basic at up to 1080p and 30 frames per second.
The 5MP front-facing camera has a wide-angle lens for group selfies and we like the option to tap anywhere to capture, so you don’t have to do contortions to reach the shutter button.
