Moto G62 review: a decent option for Stock Android aficionados

Name: Moto G62 5G
Item: Moto G62 5G
Rating: 7.0
Author: Kshitij Pujari

The Moto G62 starts at Rs 16,999 and has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 at the helm. Here's our full review.

By Kshitij Pujari

Published On: 16 August 2022 | 18:42 IST

Last Updated On: 4 November 2022 | 16:25 IST

Review Summary

Expert Rating

7.0/10

Motorola is updating its G series lineup with new devices in the form of the Moto G62 and Moto G32. Both the phones compete in the crowded budget space and will have to fend off the likes of Xiaomi, Realme and POCO to sway buyers over to Motorola’s doorsteps. While we’re still evaluating the Moto G32, I’ve spent a good chunk of time testing the Moto G62, which starts at Rs 16,999 in India. Understandably, G-series smartphones usually check the right boxes and offer good value to the end consumer. In this review let’s find out if the Moto G62 conforms to the same notions, or not.

Table of Contents

Verdict

The Moto G62 encompasses a standard budget smartphone experience and the device brings a clean Android interface, capable performance and decent battery life to the mix. However, buyers eyeing the set will have to contend with the phone’s sub-par low-light camera capabilities and less than optimum charging speeds.

The lowdown

The Moto G62 stays true to the company’s design philosophy and the device draws quite a few parallels with its predecessor, the Moto G52 (review). To wit, the device touts a sultry matte finish over a polycarbonate back, which imparts a premium in-hand feel. Furthermore, much like other devices in the company’s G-series lineup, you can find Motorola’s branding embossed in the middle, with the triple-camera setup arranged vertically inside an elliptical camera module on the G62 as well.

Moving on, the phone weighs just 184g but is relatively thick at 8.6mm as well. The power button and the volume rocker are present on the right side and I did find the toggles a tad hard to reach with my thumb. Towards the bottom, the device ships with a standard ordinance of a USB Type-C port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a speaker grille.
In terms of the display, the G62 packs in an FHD+, LCD panel that refreshes at 120Hz. The same can be construed as a minor downgrade over the G52’s pOLED screen which, by the way, refreshed at 90Hz. Be that as it may, the G62 offers a decent media consumption experience and the panel boasts acceptable viewing angles and exhibits reasonably accurate colours. Brightness levels are capped at 600nits which should suffice for outdoor usage as well.

That’s not all, as the device comes with WideVine L1 certification for HD streaming from OTT services like Prime Video and Netflix. Much to my dismay, the handset’s punch hole appears a tad bigger and the cutout has a noticeable backlight bleed as well. Further, the device cannot relay HDR media from Netflix either. Rest assured, while the G62 ships with a serviceable panel, the handset’s LCD screen feels a bit out of place amidst competing devices that feature an AMOLED display.
Camera-wise, the Moto G62 relies on a 50MP quad-pixel primary sensor which works alongside a standard 8MP ultra-wide sensor and a 2MP macro shooter. As far as the daylight HDR shots are concerned, the images captured by the set are replete with good dynamic range, balanced exposure levels and ample detailing. The colours in the frame were a bit on the saturated side, although the sensor’s focusing and shutter speeds felt snappy enough for my usage.

The smartphone’s ultra-wide sensor keeps the fish eye effect to a minimum as well and even outputs photos with minimal colour temperature disparity when compared to the primary sensor. The macro shots from the phone will leave you wanting for more though, and the colours in the frame appear a bit washed out. Furthermore, it’s quite challenging to get the camera to focus on the subject whilst clicking closeups as well.

If anything, I wish the primary sensor would click better stills in low-light scenarios. To wit, the images appear over processed and the sensor glosses over a ton of details, especially around the edges of the composition. That’s not all, as the focus is generally quite soft and exposure levels can go wayward at the drop of a hat. Making matters worse, the smartphone’s dedicated Night mode feature doesn’t resolve the aforementioned grievances either. My guess is that a future software update can help resolve some of the issues but as of right now, night shots on the G62 are not up to the standard. Lastly, the device features a 16MP selfie camera which snaps satisfactory photos that demonstrate the correct skin tone and ample facial details.

Coming to the meat of the matter, the Moto G62 is backed by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 695 SoC. The phone excels in benchmark numbers with Antutu V9 and Geekbench 5 churning out respectable results amounting to 408,340 and 1,907 points respectively. Unsurprisingly, the device can comfortably juggle a handful of apps including resource-hungry utilities like Chrome alongside various other social media services.
The phone also managed to maintain 86 percent of its peak performance under sustained load, which is evident by the CPU Throttle test. In terms of heavy-duty gaming, BGMI runs without a hitch at 45 FPS with the graphics set to the Balanced preset. What’s more, the handset remains relatively cool to the touch even after a 30-minute gaming session. The phone comes with up to 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB uMCP storage, with the option of further expanding the storage up to 1TB via a microSD card.

Moving on, I quite like the stereo speaker setup on offer here and the G62 relayed crisp audio with great clarity and minimal distortion, even at high volume levels. I should also add that the device comes with Dolby Atmos support and even features a 3.5mm headphone jack for a wired interface, which is great.
Motorola has also made a big deal of supporting 12 5G bands on the device. India’s current 5G infrastructure is non-existent but there are hopes for full functionality in the coming months. For software needs, the MyUX skin, which is Moto’s amalgamation of stock Android, is still one of the cleanest interfaces you will find on an Android phone. The company is offering up to three years of software upgrades and two years of Android upgrades on the Moto G62.

As far as the battery backup goes, the Moto G62 is backed by a 5,000mAh cell which lasts a full day and then some, off a single charge. Unfortunately, the device can only be charged at 20W and as such, the phone takes over two hours to juice up completely.

Final verdict

The Moto G62 starts at Rs 16,999 in India which seems reasonable given the specs on hand. I would’ve liked to see an OLED panel as well as faster-charging speeds with the phone. More importantly, the handset’s lowlight photography chops are in dire need of some tweaks and photography enthusiasts will be better off with the Redmi Note 11 Pro or the POCO X4 Pro (review). However, the Moto G62’s excellent software along with a decent battery backup and performance metrics make it a worthwhile choice in the affordable segment as well.