Moto G52 with 90Hz pOLED display, triple rear cameras in India; full review

Every week we see a new smartphone launching under Rs 15000 price bracket. The Rs 15000 price bracket seems overloaded with multiple smartphones from multiple brands. Meanwhile, the exciting news is that we see the introduction of new 5G smartphones at this price. Motorola is yet another brand to launch a new smartphone in this price segment. The latest Motorola mobile phone debuts in the Moto G series with Moto G52 in India. Although, the latest Moto G52 is not a 5G smartphone. But this Moto G Series smartphone still comes with some unique features like pOLED display in this price segment.

Should you buy the Moto G52 over any other 5G smartphone? Also Read about the Motorola Edge 30 Pro review. Now, Let’s check out by putting this Moto G52 under the test. Also Read – Moto G Stylus 5G (2022) release date in June 2022; renders and specifications leaked online

The all-new Moto G52 price in India starts at Rs 14499 for the base variant, with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage. Another variant with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage is priced at Rs 16499. Motorola India offers this Moto G Series smartphone in two color options: Charcoal Grey and Porcelain White.

As for the availability, the latest Motorola Moto 4G smartphone is available for purchase via Motorola’s official India website, Flipkart, and other online and offline retail stores. Now, let’s look at the design of the all-new smartphone from the Lenovo-owned brand.

The all-new Moto G52 will succeed the last year’s Motorola Moto G51 5G in India. The Motorola Moto G51 5G price in India starts at Rs 14949 for the base variant with 4GB RAM and 64GB onboard storage. Currently, the same handset is available on Flipkart at Rs 13999 in India.

Moto G52: Design

The Moto G52 features a similar design to any recently launched Motorola smartphone. The latest smartphone gets an intensely prominent branding at the back, easily recognizable. Coming to the design, the Moto G52 sports a big 6.6-inch display with thin bezels at the front. In this price range, these are amongst the thinnest bezels all around. Thus, allowing the Motorola smartphone to offer a better screen-to-body ratio. Moreover, the display gets a cutout at the top center to accommodate the selfie camera.

The back of the Moto G52 comes with a plastic build. The complete handset is 7.99mm thick and weighs around 170grams. The frame of the Moto handset comes with flat sides, and it will offer an excellent grip on the smartphone. Furthermore, the Moto G52 smartphone comes with a side-mounted fingerprint scanner. The fingerprint sensor is present on the right edge and the volume rockers.

Buttons Layout

While testing the smartphone, our finger naturally rested on the fingerprint sensor. Thus, making it easy for us to unlock our smartphones. To access the volume rockers, we need to stretch out our fingers. The dual-SIM tray is present on the left edge. The bottom edge of the Moto G52 features stereo speakers. It also gets a USB Type-C port and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The back panel of the Moto G52 is flat at the center, and at the same time, the sides are slightly curved towards the edges. This back panel features a triple rear camera setup, and this camera module looks very similar to the one we have already seen on the Moto G51. The back panel can easily pick up the smudges with a plastic build. The Lenovo-owned smartphone brand is offering a good quality TPU case in the box pack to protect the smartphone from scratches and smudges.

Moto G52: Specifications

The Android-based Moto G52 smartphone sports a big 6.6-inch Full-HD+ pOLED display. This display gets a 90Hz maximum refresh rate, and it would have been more interesting if the Motorola 120Hz refresh rate was present. FYI, the pOLED panels are not very common in this price segment. These display panels will allow reducing the thickness of the smartphone.

This display gets a screen resolution of 1080*2400 pixels. Furthermore, this display gets an aspect ratio of 20:9 along with a 360Hz touch sampling rate. DCI-P3 and DC Dimming are among the other prominent features.

Hardware

An octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 SoC powers the Moto G52. This chipset comes along with Adreno 610 GPU and up to 6GB of LPDDR4X RAM. The Moto G52 offers up to 128GB of onboard UFS storage. Furthermore, the internal storage supports the storage expansion feature and can expand by up to 1TB via a microSD card.

Camera

For photos and videos, the latest Moto G52 carries a triple rear camera setup headlined by a 50MP primary sensor. This 50MP primary sensor comes with an f/1.8 lens, and the secondary camera is an 8MP ultra-wide sensor that doubles as a depth sensor. The camera setup also includes a 2MP sensor with an f/2.4 aperture.

Regarding other camera features, the Moto G52 camera supports a Dual Capture, Smart Composition, Spot Color, Live Moto, ProMotion, and an UltraWide distortion. Furthermore, it also supports Full-HD video recording at a 30fps frame rate. For selfies and video calling, the Moto G52 comes with a 16MP selfie camera sensor at the front, with an f/2.4 aperture.

Connectivity

In terms of connectivity, the Moto G52 supports Bluetooth V5, dual-band Wi-Fi, NFC, and six Satellite navigation system. Furthermore, it also gets 4G LTE, GPS/ A-GPS, USB Type-C, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Similarly, the Moto G52 gets an accelerometer, ambient light sensor, gyroscope, magnetometer, and proximity sensor for sensors. The Motorola smartphone also includes a side-mounted fingerprint scanner for device security.

Battery

A 5000mAh battery powers the complete hardware on Moto G52. This battery comes with 33W TurboPower fast charging support. Moreover, this 33W Motorola TurboPower charger comes inside the retail box. The stereo speakers on the Moto G52 come with Dolby Atmos and Snapdragon Sound support. Additionally, the Moto G52 smartphone gets a hybrid dual-SIM tray. This SIM slot can also get a microSD card of up to 1TB.

Moto G52: Software

The all-new Moto G52 mobile phone comes with Android 12 out of the box and Motorola’s MyUX custom skin. Our unit gets the April 2022 security patch for Android 12. Most of the smartphones in this price range ship with Android 11 OS, and this Android OS will slightly edge the Moto G series 4G mobile phone over others. Moreover, the Lenovo-owned smartphone brand promised to upgrade this Moto handset to Android 13.

Furthermore, this Moto G series phone will also receive three years of monthly Android security updates. We expect two Android version updates rather than just one.

Motorola MyUX on Moto G52

Motorola MyUX is almost a stock Android in terms of looks, and it also got some meaningful additions on top. In this custom skin, the Motorola apps will allow us to customize the UI’s color scheme. Furthermore, the Moto Gesture app will allow us to perform specific actions. The previous Motorola phone users will be familiar with these apps and features, and the Moto Edge series debuted with a Power Touch gesture function.

Moreover, the latest Moto G52 mobile comes with a few pre-installed Google apps. Furthermore, it also includes some bloatware such as Josh and Dailyhunt. These bloatware apps can push spammy notifications. Thankful, we can uninstall these apps right away. Also, Read about moto upcoming mobiles

Moto G52 4G: Performance

Moto G52 is a budget 4G smartphone. The AMOLED display with thin bezels and stereo speakers makes it more inclined toward the premium segment smartphone. Performance-wise, the display on the smartphone offers good viewing angles, and the display is bright enough outdoors.

The stereo speakers on the smartphones are excellent for a small room. Additionally, the side-mounted fingerprint scanner and face recognition work 9 out of 10 times to unlock the smartphone. Like any other smartphone, we can also change the display’s color profile, and the 90Hz refresh rate makes scrolling appears smoother. We can also switch it back to 60Hz, and it was set to Auto by default.

Gaming Performance

We played Call of Duty: Mobile and BGMI on the latest Moto G52. Both the games ran perfectly fine at the “Medium” setting. At these “Medium” settings, we did not notice any lag or frame drop issue. We played the game for around 30 minutes and saw a 10 percent drop in the battery levels. Since we are in North India, the phone did for slightly warm but not too hot.

Battery Backup

Moto G52 mobile phone offered good battery life. With normal usage, the battery life went on for about a day and a half. The smartphone can offer a battery backup for almost a day with heavy use. While charging, the 5000mAh battery can charge from 0 to 50 percent in 30 minutes. At the same time, 90 percent of the battery can charge in an hour by using the 33W TurboPower charger.

Moto G52 Camera Performance

The triple rear camera setup on Moto G52 consists of a 50MP primary camera and an 8MP ultra-wide-angle camera that doubles as the depth sensor. At the same time, the third camera is a 2MP macro lens. The Moto G series mobile packs in a 16MP selfie shooter for selfies and video calls.

Our testing found that the camera app on the Moto G52 will be familiar to the previous Motorola users. The camera app gets multiple features, and we can swipe to toggle between different shooting modes in this camera app. The Motorola handset also gets a Pro mode that offers better control over settings.

Dual Capture feature

Moto G52 also gets a Dual Capture feature that allows us to superimpose photos and videos using the selfie camera and the rear camera setup simultaneously. In our experience, the images clicked in daylight were average, and these images did not offer the best dynamic range. In most of the shots, the object lacks details.

Outdoor Photography

While shooting in bright conditions, the Moto G52 automatically enables the HDR mode. In HDR Mode, the sky still turned out to be overexposed. Even the shadow details were poor.

In bright settings, the ultra-wide-angle camera did not meter light adequately. With the primary camera, you can shoot at the full 50-megapixel resolution. These photos exhibited significantly more information when zoomed in, but the resulting files were 12MB in size.

Close-ups were good, and the phone could tell the difference between the subject and the backdrop. It also gave the background a soft, depth impression. The Portrait photos offer good edge detection. Furthermore, the Moto G52 allows us to adjust the blur level before taking a shot. I was able to go pretty close to a subject with the Macro camera, and the Macro camera managed to click some decent results.

Low-Light Photography

The low-light camera performance was average. The Moto G52 was able to limit noise to a minimum, although images seemed smooth. When set to Night mode, it produced somewhat more explicit photos with more crucial information. In the daytime, the selfie camera performed well, while in low light, it was acceptable. You can also use the selfie camera to take portrait selfies.

Video Performance

Video recording is restricted to 1080p for both the primary and selfie cameras. Moto G52 uses Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS) to stabilize video. Daylight footage was okay because the phone could control shakes, and there was visible jitter in the low-light footage. Overall, I feel the cameras need to be improved to compete with what other phones in this price range can do.

Moto G52 4G mobile phone: Final Verdict

Motorola India brings the Moto G52 4G like any other smartphone under the Rs 15000 price bracket. The Lenovo-owned smartphone brand has taken some exciting decisions to offer the Moto G52 a fighting chance in this category. The company has prioritized entertainment, with a sharp pOLED display and dual speakers that support Dolby Atmos and Snapdragon Sound.

The latest Motorola handset runs on Android 12 out of the box. Plus, the guaranteed software updates are icing on the top. Those looking to use their smartphone for an extended period will find this device appealing. However, the lack of 5G connectivity could be a deal-breaker.

Moto G52 mobile falls short in camera performance and fails to put up an intense fight in different conditions. If you are a casual user who prefers stock Android and is looking for a device for media consumption, this Moto G series smartphone should be a good fit.