There’s pretty much a life cycle of sorts for most parts of smartphone design. And it’s quite simple. It lasts from an iPhone to the next generation of an iPhone. The dual camera position, for instance, stayed horizontal after the iPhone 7 Plus, till the iPhone X came along. Then a la iPhone X, it became vertical. Another example is the now famous notch that has made its way to so many other smartphones.

Pick up most budget phones sporting a dual camera these days, and you’ll find a vertical orientation with the fingerprint sensor moved to the back. Among all these templates, the Motorola G6’s design comes across as a breath of fresh air.

And it’s quite beautiful a design at that. The typical Moto watch-crown camera assembly blends in perfectly with the glossy back that curves into the sides, making the phone look a lot more expensive than it is. As much as its gorgeous to look at, please get a case lest that pretty back is smudged or cracked or scratched.

The volume rockers and the power button are on the right side and the SIM tray is on top, leaving the left side smooth and adding to the minimum-blemish beauty of the phone. It gets a USB type-C port, another welcome departure from budget phones these days, and retains the 3.5 mm jack. The fingerprint scanner stays on the front, but is reduced to a sliver of its previous self.

Software is still almost fully stock Android (8.0) — one great feature Motorola phones have had for a while now. There are some pre-loaded apps like LinkedIn, PhonePe, and Outlook, of which PhonePe could be uninstalled. Moto Gestures are still around and still very useful — for example, a double twist of your wrist powers the camera on, a double Karate chop and the flashlight bursts into life. In a nutshell, the software and interface are smooth, easy on the eye, and bereft of confusions.

There are two versions that the G6 comes in — 3 GB RAM and 32 GB memory and 4 GB RAM and 64 GB memory. We reviewed the latter and it performed mostly well, but the Snapdragon 450 processor powering it may just be better suited for phones a notch below. Given the price the G6 comes at, a more powerful processor would have been a better choice. But with 4 GB of RAM, the phone still holds its own. There are some lags during gaming and it does get warm pretty quickly, but daily tasks run without issues. The earpiece doubles up as the loudspeaker and it’s about time Motorola considers adding a loudspeaker grille somewhere to improve audio.

Battery life is above average and the 3,000 mAh battery can also be juiced up pretty quick thanks to the Turbo charger in the box. The display is good, and lives up to the benchmark set by Motorola phones in this parameter.

The 12 MP and 5 MP primary dual camera set does an averagely decent job. Day pictures are predictably all right, with colour reproduction being mostly on point except for some light shades that come across as too bright in the pictures. Night and low light pictures fall prey to noise and can be unnecessarily sharp.

It shoots video at 1080p and again, the results are pretty much budget phone material. There are some handy and fun features, such as converting text in a picture to actual text, spot colour that lets you retain colour for just one portion of an image, and cut out that lets you cut away a part of the picture you click and add a different background. The convert to text feature is not always accurate, however. The portrait mode is average at best, with the edge recognition not being on point most of the time. The front 16 MP camera is a typical selfie shooter with beautifying features that smartphone-makers have been obsessed with, for a while.

At ₹13,999 for the 3 GB version and ₹15,999 for the one with 4 GB, the G6 is priced considerably higher compared to its peers from Xiaomi, Asus, Honor, and the likes. It has good looks and the software going for it, but falls short in the other departments.

Price: ₹13,999 onwards

Pros: Great looks, stock Android software

Cons: Below-grade processor, average camera performance

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