Moto G96 review: light on the hands and the pocket

After releasing a bunch of phones under the Edge 60 series throughout the first half of 2025, Motorola recently released the Moto G96 at a starting price of Rs 17,999. Despite it being an affordable smartphone, the company aims to offer a compelling vegan leather design, a durable build, and a high-grade primary camera. However, it is powered by the somewhat dated Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 chipset. Does this hold the device back, or does the Moto G96 still deliver a well-rounded experience? We put it to the test in our in-depth review. Read on to see how it performs in everyday use.

Short verdict

The Moto G96 boasts a sleek and lightweight design, along with a 144Hz display that offers a smooth experience. The primary camera is tuned to provide good photos, and the battery can last a full day. However, the phone’s performance lags behind competition, and the software support feels limited.

Slim, sturdy and water-resistant build

The Moto G96 takes a page from the Moto Edge 60 series’ notebook and boasts a vegan leather rear panel, which is slightly curved at the edges and is smooth to touch. We received the review unit in the Greener Pastures colour variant, and the Moto G96 is also available in Cattleya Orchid, Ashleigh Blue, and Dresden Blue colours. The back of the phone features an elevated camera island, which includes dual vertically aligned cameras, an LED flashlight, and the sensor name of the main camera. Then there’s Motorola’s “M” logo right in the centre.

Moving to the sides, the right side houses the volume rocker, a power button and a microphone, while the left side is completely plain. The top frame also features a microphone, the “Dolby Atmos” branding, and an earpiece speaker. At the bottom, there’s the speaker, a Type-C port, and a SIM card slot. The frame is constructed using polycarbonate, which doesn’t attract fingerprints or smudges. Also, the earpiece doubles as a secondary speaker. The speaker quality is above average, but it lacks a thumpy bass and produces high-pitched sounds. As for the call quality, the audio from callers at the other end was clear and audible.

One of the key highlights of Moto G96’s build is the IP68 protection. Only a few phones released in 2025 under Rs 20,000 come with strong ingress protection (the Realme 14T and OPPO A5 Pro come to mind), and the Moto G96 joins them. Coming to the weight and sleekness, the handset measures just 178g and has a thickness of 7.9mm. There’s no discomfort when holding the phone for long durations, be it in vertical or horizontal orientation.

If there’s something to nitpick about the design, it’s the size and positioning of the volume and power buttons. These are placed too close to each other and are quite small. Also, although the bottom corners at the rear are curved, they still dig into your palms when using the phone without a cover. Speaking of which, Motorola doesn’t include a back cover with the Moto G96, which it did with the Moto G85 last year.

Smooth and vibrant curved display

While most high-end and flagship smartphones have ditched curved displays in favour of flat panels, the Moto G96 continues to boast a 6.67-inch curved pOLED display. This panel comes with full HD+ (2,400 x 1,080 pixels) resolution and up to 144Hz refresh rate support. The high brightness and peak brightness figures are 1,200 nits and 1,600 nits, respectively.

With the default colour and temperature settings, the display produced punchy and vibrant colours, which were to my liking. I binge-watched “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina” movie on the Moto G96 and got an impressive visual experience. The movie features several dark scenes, but I didn’t come across any issues that could potentially ruin the experience. At the same time, the contrasting tones and highlights nicely popped out. As for the screen’s brightness, the Moto G96’s display was fairly legible indoors and outdoors at the maximum brightness levels.

I found the curved display of Moto G96 to be narrow compared to the Realme Narzo 80 Pro, which allowed for better reachability and in-hand grip. Although the display is protected using Corning Gorilla Glass 5, the screen incurred minor scratches in my one week of usage. Since Motorola doesn’t pre-apply a screen protector, you’ll need to rely on third-party solutions to safeguard the display from scratches.

Lastly, the Water Touch 2.0 feature of the display allowed me to use the display when I was caught in the rain one day, when returning home from work. The touches and swipes on the screen were registered without any issues, and I was able to use the phone freely as I normally would.

Detailed and ready to share camera outputs

The Moto G96 sports dual rear cameras consisting of a 50MP 1/1.56″ SONY LYTIA 700C OIS-enabled main camera and an 8MP ultrawide camera with a 118-degree field of view. The ultrawide lens also doubles up as a macro camera for snapping close-up pictures. With a good amount of lighting, the device can provide some decent macro shots for the price. The shots are detailed and have a certain amount of texture, resulting in usable pictures for sharing on social media.

Coming back to the main camera, on paper, the Moto G96’s main camera sensor size is larger than that of its rivals, such as the Samsung Galaxy M36 and Realme Narzo 80 Pro. Both of these come with almost half-inch sensors, giving the Moto G96 an edge. As for real-world performance, the G96’s colour science leans towards producing saturated and vibrant colours. The phone retains details and maintains a good dynamic range using the main camera. In overcast conditions, the camera tends to crush the shadows, though this is a specific situation.

The phone also possesses fast shutter speeds for reliably capturing fast-moving subjects. During night scenes, the main camera can pull in optimum details to the point that the shots don’t look too soft. Just like in day scenarios, the colours are kept on a slightly saturated side. Moreover, it tends to struggle in maintaining the exposure levels around the light sources, such as text boards.

Coming to the ultrawide, the 8MP sensor can produce workable shots in daylight, while at night, the pictures may turn out soft and grainy. The dynamic range and colours match the main camera, which is something I liked about the Moto G96. For portraits, the phone uses the main camera and can take shots in 24mm, 35mm, and 50mm focal lengths. At every focal length, the portraits have a soothing circular bokeh with proper edge detection in good lighting.

Moving to the front, the phone sports a 32MP selfie shooter that can capture videos in up to 4K 30FPS resolution, just like the primary and ultrawide cameras on the back. The shots captured using the front camera retained the natural skin tone colours and textures in outdoor lighting, while indoors, the skin textures may appear artificial.

To determine how the Moto G96 fares against the competition, I compared each of its cameras with the Samsung Galaxy M36. Here’s how the comparison went:

Daylight

Kicking off the comparison with a daylight shot, the Moto G96 offers better details and clarity when zoomed in. The bushes in the foreground and the plants in the background in Moto G96’s shot are crisper. The contrast levels in Galaxy M36’s image are off; however, it renders the scene naturally by maintaining near-accurate colours. When it comes to dynamic range, the Moto handset does it better.

Portrait

When switching to portrait mode, the Moto G96 renders the skin tones and colours more realistically compared to the Samsung Galaxy M36. Although the latter maintains better exposure, it has made the overall scene dull, resulting in poorer facial details. As for edge detection and background bokeh, the Galaxy M36 does a better job here by applying a natural-looking bokeh effect.

Selfie

Coming to selfies, the Moto G96 preserves the black points in the image better, resulting in close to natural skin tones. The Galaxy M36 has an edge over the Moto G96 in details and sharpness, while the dynamic range is better maintained on Moto, with less distortion around the corners.

Ultrawide

Both Moto G96 and Samsung Galaxy M36 get an 8MP ultrawide camera. In terms of details and sharpness, the Moto G96 outputs better results, while the Galaxy M36 makes the specific subjects in the shot look soft. The colour consistency between the main and ultrawide camera is better maintained on the Moto G96, while the dynamic range is slightly better on the Galaxy M36.

Low light

Upon analysing similar-looking shots taken from Moto G96 and Samsung Galaxy M36 in low light, we found that the Moto handset controls lens flare and exposure of light sources better. When zooming in on both shots, the Moto G96 portrays better details on the edges of the metallic subject, plants, and bushes. In terms of colour and realism, both are equally matched, with the difference being Moto’s shot is slightly brighter.

Night mode

When enabling night mode on both handsets, the Samsung Galaxy M36’s shot sees an improvement in terms of details. That said, the Moto G96 still fares better. Similarly, the exposure and lens flare are rendered better on the Moto smartphone.

Not so great real-world performance

The Moto G96 boasts the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 2, which is the same chipset we recently saw on the Moto Edge 60 Stylus and last year’s Moto Edge 50 Fusion. The processor carries a high clock speed of 2.4GHz and packs the Adreno 710 GPU. It is manufactured using Samsung’s 4nm process technology. Our review unit of the Moto G96 packed 8GB of RAM with 256GB of storage, while the phone also comes in an 8GB + 128GB storage variant. While the storage is non-expandable, the Moto G96 comes with UFS 2.2 storage speeds and LPDDR4X RAM type. 

Coming to benchmarks, the Moto G96 scored 6,25,098 on AnTuTu and 1,010 and 2,909 on single-core and multi-core tests of Geekbench, respectively during our in-house testing. As you can see from the graphs, the smartphone is not the best performer when it comes to raw benchmarks. As for its real-world usage, the Moto G96’s performance is fine but may feel lacking when pushed. What I mean by this is that, while the phone operates smoothly in regular everyday usage, things start to slow down during multitasking when the memory starts filling up with apps or games.

In such cases, pulling down the notification panel is laggy, tapping the media output switcher stutters, and the app opening animations also suffer slightly. In a nutshell, while the performance will be okay for casual users, the users who demand fast performance and quick software interactions may not find this phone ideal.

Moving on, credit where due, since the Moto G96 supports up to 144Hz display refresh rate, I’m happy to report that the phone runs on the peak refresh rate system-wide, including third-party apps. 

Coming to thermal performance, the phone remained fairly cool during my usage in all the non-gaming tasks I performed, such as watching videos, browsing the web, checking e-mails, and scrolling through Instagram. As for the performance in games, in our lab tests, the Moto G96 achieved average frame rates of 54.7, 135, and 28.7 FPS in Call of Duty: Mobile, Real Racing 3, and BGMI, respectively. The graphics were kept at the nominal settings, and phone temperatures remained well below 32 degrees Celsius in each game.

Clean and functional software but with limited OS support

To describe the software of the Moto G96, it is functional, customisable, and quite clean. The handset runs on Android 15-based Hello UI skin with a promise of just one OS upgrade, which is a bummer considering many phones under the Rs 20,000 mark promise at least two Android upgrades. While I didn’t encounter any unnecessary marketing notifications or ads during my usage, the G96 comes pre-loaded with several third-party applications, namely Glance lockscreen, Facebook, LinkedIn, Adobe Scan, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity.

The phone not only carries traditional Motorola features, such as a chop chop gesture to turn on the flashlight or a double twist to summon the camera, but also includes productivity and security features. These include Smart Connect, which allows you to connect the Moto G96 with a Windows PC to sync notifications, share files, or access the apps on your phone and Moto Secure 3.0 to lock apps and folders. While there aren’t many system-level AI features, the phone gains access to the entire Google suite of AI features, including Magic Editor, Magic Eraser, and Photo Unblur, through Google Photos, as well as Gemini and Circle to Search.

The phone also offers quite a bit in terms of customisation options. The ‘Personalisation’ menu allows you to change the app icon shapes, accent colour, font, homescreen layout, and fingerprint unlock animation. My favourite customisation feature on Hello UI is the ability to change the lockscreen clock style and colour. The lock screen also supports adding static widgets, such as weather, AQI level, humidity level, and more.

Furthermore, the software also features several gesture-based options that can be useful in daily use. I found myself using the three-finger screenshot, one-handed mode, and sidebar regularly.

Battery that lasts long and tops up quickly

The Moto G96 gets a 5,500mAh battery, which is higher than the Samsung Galaxy M36, but lower than the Realme Narzo 80 Pro’s. Similarly, phones like OPPO K13 and Realme P3, which also sell under Rs 20,000, get 6,000mAh and higher capacities. However, considering how Moto managed to make the G96 sleek and lightweight, the 5,500mAh is not a deal breaker. As for actual endurance, the phone lasted 10 hours and 53 minutes in our PCMark lab test, almost two hours more than the Samsung Galaxy M36.

As for charging, the Moto G96 gets 33W fast charging support, and the adapter is bundled in the box. We were able to charge the device from 20 to 100 percent in just over an hour. For preserving the battery health and maintaining its longevity, the software gets features like Optimised charging and Overcharge protection, which fluctuate the charging power based on the charging percentage.

Final verdict: gets the basics right but the performance 

Just like many smartphones launched by Motorola in the past, especially under the Edge 50 and Edge 60 series, the Moto G96 comes with a big emphasis on design and build, thanks to an IP68 rating. With a thickness of 7.93mm and 178g weight, the G96 feels quite ergonomic, especially during long durations. The slim width of the curved display further adds to its overall appeal, which enables reaching the top parts of the screen more easily.

Speaking of the display, it produces vibrant colours, enabling the colours to pop out when watching movies or YouTube videos. The presence of a 144Hz refresh rate system-wide makes the scrolling smooth, giving it an edge over the competition. The Moto G96 falls short in the performance department, where its competitors fare better, both in raw performance and real-world usage. Similarly, while the software is functional and customisable to a good extent, it can struggle in offering a smooth experience when pushed. Furthermore, the promise of just one Android OS upgrade sticks out like a sore thumb.

Coming to the cameras, with a 50MP main camera with a 1/1.56″ sensor size, the G96 produces detailed and vibrant shots both in daylight and lowlight. While others continue to remove ultrawide cameras under Rs 20,000, the Moto phone gets an 8MP ultrawide that can produce workable shots. If performance and software longevity are not at the top of your priority list, the Moto G96 can be your pick under Rs 20,000, with its IP68 rating, design and 144Hz display being the key standout points that work in its favour.

Editor’s rating: 7.7 / 10

Reasons to buy:

• Sleek, lightweight, and comfortable design which allows holding the phone for long durations.
• Display that can refresh at 144Hz throughout the system and produces vibrant colours.
• A decently large primary camera that can capture detailed and fairly saturated shots.
• A battery that offers a high level of endurance.

Reasons not to buy:

• Promised to receive only a single Android upgrade, whereas its rivals offer at least two OS upgrades.
• Performance can feel lacking when playing graphically intensive games or loading multiple apps in memory.