Motorola Moto G34 Review

One of the reasons I became an avid Oppo user was the range of features they crammed into their lower-priced phones. Well, Motorola is now taking a swing at a premium-ish phone for a low-end price, so I checked out the Motorola Moto G34 to see how it stacks up.

Style

What initially caught my eye was the style of the Moto G34. Cheap phones normally look and feel cheap, but not this one. It has a solid premium phone that reminded me of the Samsung-type phones in the $1000 price range. It looks solid. There isn’t anything that overly stands out, but it definitely doesn’t look cheap.

Fortunately, it is also nice and light. The Ocean green, which is actually blue, Moto G34 that I tested out has a dope faux leather backing. It was a small touch but it feels damn good on the fingers.

It also comes with a gel case out of the box, which is a plus I always love in phones. The simple, clear case is one less thing to faff around with after buying a new phone. Though that does defeat the purpose of the nice backing, but still.

What it does well

First off, it has 5G. Surprisingly, this technology isn’t in every phone yet, so this is a damn cheap way to get those sweet speeds on your phone. On top of this, the OS, which is Motorola’s version of Android, is relatively clean and simple. There are some pre-installed apps, but they are easy to delete.

The battery I got consistently a day to a day and a half out of which is solid. Keeping in mind that battery life tends to reduce over time, we are talking about a budget phone here. That battery life is more than decent for the price.

There is also a 3.5mm jack, which is rarer and rarer these days. If that’s something you’re looking for, then this is a big plus.

Where it lacks

There is a lot about the phone that is decent, but meh. When using apps, it seemed to run them all fine, but nothing special. The speakers offer surround sound but are also a bit meh. It sounds fine, but nothing more than that. One premium feature I missed was the lack of fast charging. 

It took an hour or so to go from empty to full, which doesn’t sound that bad, but I am so used to fast charging these days that I needed to squeeze out some more battery life to get home. The cameras are also solid for the price, but again, a bit meh.

Should you get one?

If you are looking in the $300 price range, I doubt you will find it better than the Motorola Moto G34. The biggest challenge I had was that it looked and felt like a premium phone, which unfortunately meant I kept expecting it to act like one. But this is good value for money.