A smartphone with a 108-megapixel camera under Rs. 20,000 might have seemed unlikely, but it looks like anything is possible in 2021. There are now three smartphones in the market that sport 108-megapixel primary cameras while being priced under Rs. 20,000. The latest and the most affordable one is the Moto G60 which is priced rather aggressively at Rs. 17,999. Has Motorola done a good job with this phone or are there some compromises waiting to be discovered? I put the Moto G60 to the test to find out.
Moto G60 price in India
The Moto G60 is priced at Rs. 17,999 in India and is available in a single configuration with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Motorola offers the Moto G60 in two colours: Dynamic Gray and Frosted Champagne.
Moto G60 design
The Moto G60 is a part of the newly revamped Moto G series and caters to the sub Rs. 20,000 segment. It is a big smartphone with the display measuring 6.8 inches. This display has noticeable bezels all around and a big camera hole at the top that could be distracting for some people. The sheer bulk of this phone, at 9.8mm in thickness and 225g in weight, makes it hard to use one-handed . The phone has a plastic body but it did not feel cheap.
Motorola has positioned all the buttons on the right side of the Moto G60. The power and the volume buttons are well positioned but the dedicated Google Assistant button is hard to reach. The power button has a textured finish while the Google Assistant key is curved which makes them easy to distinguish purely by touch. On the left side, there’s only the SIM tray. Motorola could have moved the Google Assistant button to the left given the space available.
The Moto G60 looks striking in Dynamic Grey with its contrasting camera module
The 3.5mm headphone jack and secondary microphone are on the top, while the USB Type-C port, speaker, and primary microphone are at the bottom. As I mentioned before, the Moto G60 is available in Dynamic Gray and Frosted Champagne, and I had the former which has a funky-looking turquoise camera module. The glossy finish of the rear panel makes it a fingerprint magnet. The Frosted Champagne version has a matte finish which should be able to resist fingerprints better.
Motorola has gone with a triple camera module on the Moto G60, which protrudes slightly. The bright colour grabs eyeballs and looks refreshing. Motorola has stuck with a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner that sits right next to this camera module. Most of the competition has moved to side-mounted or in-display solutions instead. The scanner has a matte finish and has Motorola’s batwing logo on it.
The weight and bulk of the Moto G60 are partially due to the 6,000mAh battery Moto has crammed into it. Motorola has bundled a 20W charger in the box, which seems slow compared to the 50W charger that comes with the Realme 8 Pro.
Moto G60 specifications and software
The Moto G60 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 732G processor, which also powers competitors such as the Redmi Note 10 Pro. The processor is matched with 6GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB of uMCP storage. There is only one configuration of the Moto G60 in India, and those needing more storage will have to use the hybrid dual-SIM tray. The Moto G60 accepts cards of up to 1TB but using one will come at the cost of the second Nano-SIM slot.
The big display on the Moto G60 has a full-HD+ resolution, as well as support for HDR10 and a 120Hz maximum refresh rate which is the highest on a Moto G series smartphone yet. The refresh rate is set to Auto by default which lets the phone switch between 60Hz and 120Hz automatically. You get Bluetooth 5, NFC, dual-band Wi-Fi, dual 4G VoLTE, and six navigation systems.
The hole punch cutout could be distracting for a few people
Motorola ships the Moto G60 with Android 11 and its custom My UX on top. My review unit had the March Android security update which is acceptable. Motorola hasn’t customised the UI, and those who like a stock Android experience will appreciate this. You also don’t get a lot of bloatware preinstalled, and the only apps I could find on this smartphone were Facebook and a few Google apps. Moto Actions, which let you interact with the smartphone by performing certain gestures, were present on the device. Motorola also claims to provide business-grade security with its ThinkShield end-to-end protection.
Moto G60 performance and battery life
The Moto G60 did not give me any reason to complain, and it could handle my usage quite easily. I could multitask and the phone did not show any signs of slowing down. The LCD panel isn’t as vibrant as the AMOLED panels that some of the competition at this price level use, but the high refresh rate is a plus. Motorola’s capacitive fingerprint scanner at the back is quick to unlock the smartphone.
I ran our standard set of benchmarks to see how the Moto G60 fares against the competition, and particularly, the Realme 8 Pro (Review). In AnTuTu 9, the Moto G60 managed 2,90,182 points. In Geekbench 5’s single-core and multi-core tests, it managed 540 and 1441 points respectively. It also scored well in graphics benchmarks such as GFXBench with 17fps and 75fps in the Car Chase and T-Rex scenes respectively. These scores are better than those of the Realme 8 Pro which is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G processor. The Moto G60 packs in a bit more punch, but I can’t say the same about battery life.
The Moto G60 has three rear cameras including a 108-megapixel primary camera
I played Call of Duty Mobile on the Moto G60 which defaulted to the High settings for both graphics as well as frame rate and was playable without any stutter or lag. I played for ten minutes and noticed a three percent battery drop. The Moto G60 also got warm to the touch around the camera module and the top half of the display.
The big 6,000mAh battery is capable of lasting for over a day without any issues. However, it only posted average numbers in our HD video loop test. The Moto G60 managed 14 hours and 45 minutes, which is significantly lower than the 26 hour time that the Realme 8 Pro managed. Charging is slower too. The bundled 20W charger got the smartphone to 29 percent in 30 minutes and 53 percent in an hour, in my tests. Charging it completely took over two hours.
Moto G60 cameras
The Moto G60 is the first low-cost smartphone from the company to sport a 108-megapixel primary camera. The camera module houses three sensors: a 108-megapixel primary camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera, and a depth sensor. The ultra-wide camera is also capable of macro photography which is why Moto says these three cameras do the work of four. The camera app has a simple layout and it is very easy to figure out the different shooting modes. Scene detection was quick and the UI suggested different shooting modes based on the scene when required.
Daylight photos taken with the Moto G60 had average details, though objects at a distance were recognisable. Colours appeared washed-out and I did not find the sharpness to be adequate on magnifying photos on screen. Shots taken with the ultra-wide camera have a wider field of view but are slightly distorted on the sides. The output strangely was 12-megapixels in resolution, because according to Motorola, the smartphone upscales the image for consistency with the primary camera. Photos taken with the ultra-wide camera were not as detailed as those taken with the primary camera. I did also shoot a few photos at the full 108-megapixel resolution and found them to have better details than pixel-binned ones.
Moto G60 daylight camera sample (tap to see full-size image)
Moto G60 ultra-wide angle camera sample (tap to see full-size image)
Close-ups were better, and the phone managed sharp results with accurate colours and good details. Portrait shots had good edge detection, and the Moto G60 lets you set the level of blur before you take a shot. The Moto G60 captures 8-megapixel macros, and these had good detail, plus the relatively high resolution makes it easy to crop if required.
Moto G60 close-up camera sample (tap to see full-size image)
Moto G60 portrait camera sample (tap to see full-size image)
Moto G60 macro camera sample (tap to see full-size image)
Low-light camera performance was average and I found the colour tone to be slightly off in these images. The Night mode does not result in a significantly brighter image, but it does fix this issue.
Moto G60 low-light camera sample (tap to see full-size image)
Moto G60 Night mode camera sample (tap to see full-size image)
Selfies taken with the 32-megapixel front camera were also binned and saved as 8-megapixel files. Daylight selfies were sharp and accurate, and selfie portraits also had good edge detection. Low-light selfies were average but I found the colour tone to be slightly off here as well.
Moto G60 selfie portrait camera sample (tap to see full-size image)
Moto G60 low-light selfie camera sample (tap to see full-size image)
Video recording tops out at 4K for the primary camera as well as the selfie camera. Stabilisation is available on both, but it isn’t enabled by default. The Moto G60 does a good job at stabilising video shot in daylight at 1080p. It has a slight shimmer at 4K but I can excuse this given the price of the smartphone. I found low-light video to be a little too dark for my liking, and the stabilisation felt inadequate as the output had a visible shimmer effect at both resolutions.
Overall, the Moto G60 could do with a few tweaks for better colour reproduction and low-light camera performance.
Verdict
Motorola has been aggressive with the Moto G60, and the Rs. 17,999 price matches that of the Realme 8 Pro. While there have been compromises to get to this price point, Motorola hasn’t cut corners significantly in terms of performance or the software experience. The Moto G60 is more powerful than the Realme 8 Pro and offers a better user experience.
Motorola is marketing the 108-megapixel primary camera as the highlight of the Moto G60, but I think it could do with a few tweaks for improvement. The Moto G60 is a capable device at this price as long as you don’t have very high hopes from the cameras. If you would prefer an AMOLED display, the Realme 7 Pro (Review) and the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max (Review) are suitable alternatives that you can choose over the Moto G60.