Motorola Moto G8 review

Design and screen: Protected plastic

Camera: Three’s company

Spearheaded by a 16MP primary snapper, the Moto G8 packs three cameras around the back, and one selfie camera on the front. The main camera has a nice wide aperture – f/1.7, as well as both laser and phase detection autofocus for some snappy sharp shots. It’s accompanied by an 8MP ultrawide camera and a 2MP macro camera.

Impressively, the G8 can shoot 4K video, and it’s also loaded up with plenty of shooting modes too. These include Portrait mode for some blurry background realness, Cutout mode, which separates the foreground from background, creating some fun effects. There’s also Macro Mode which fires up the 2MP close-up cam, Spot Colour and more.

Fundamental photo quality is decent for the price. The G8 struggles in high-contrast environments, with less competent HDR chops than higher-end phones, but feed it good lighting and it can bash out a great shot across Automatic and Portrait modes – the two modes you’ll likely be using the most.

With no night mode, low light photography is going to be a no go zone unless you’re happy firing up the flash, with results looking graining and lackluster. It’s worth noting, at the price, unless you go with Huawei or Honor, that’s a pretty standard result.

On the plus, video shot in good lighting looks really respectable. Additionally, there’s a Video Stabiliser feature that holds the scene together nicely and compensates for a lack of OIS too. Ultimately, as a package the G8 is definitely one of the better £180 camera phones on the scene.

UI, specs and battery: Smooth sailing

The reason to buy the Moto G8 is its day-in-day-out performance. Fire up the phone and it’s a familiar, stock version of Android – no bloat, just simple, clean iconography and a few handy Moto features sprinkled atop for good measure.

Running Android 10 with full access to the Google Play Store, the G8 delivers excellent app support, and runs smoothly with Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 power. This makes it the best phone you can get for the price from a power point of view.

While it won’t playback taxing games at high refresh-rates, it handles basic 3D titles well enough, not to mention 2D games without breaking a sweat. Combined with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage, swipes and taps are smoothly registered, and there’s room for plenty of photos and videos. There’s also a microSD card slot inside too, so you can bump up the internal space with ease.

The G8 has a massive battery – 4000mAh, which is pretty close to class-leading for the price, and easily got us through one day of heavy use, or two days of light use.

It takes a while to power up, with 10W charging speeds, but the fact you won’t need to charge it too often is a boon.

The only feature of note that’s missing from the Moto G8 is NFC. The omission means one-touch mobile payments and pairing won’t be an option; but if you can get past that, the phone’s internals stack up very well for the price.

Motorola Moto G8 verdict

There’s a lot to be said for a phone that does the job.

The G8 looks decent, has enough power to get you through a full day without stutters, and packs a seriously respectable camera for the price.

Is the G8 perfect? No. At night, its camera crumbles, like most phones in its price range, and it also misses out on NFC. What’s more, for £10 more, you could pick up the battery-tastic Realme 6i.

That said, if you want a reliable experience, a stock interface, and a great value for money smartphone, you won’t be disappointed by Motorola’s latest G.