motorola launched the moto g14 as the successor to last year’s g13 in India a few days back. This has several upgrades, such as a FHD+ screen, a slightly faster SoC, faster charger, and lots more. Is this the best budget phone under Rs. 10,000? Let us dive into the review to find out.
Box Contents
- moto g14 4GB + 128GB in Sky Blue colour
- 20W fast charger
- USB Type-A to Type-C cable
- SIM ejector tool
- Clear protective case
- User manual and warranty information
Display, Hardware and Design
Starting with the display, the moto g14 has a 6.5-inch Full HD+ LCD screen with a pixel resolution of 2400 × 1080 pixels, 20:9 aspect ratio and a pixel density of about 405 PPI. The display is bright, the colours are vibrant, and the sunlight legibility is good as well. Viewing angles are decent, but it could have been better.
The phone has 60Hz refresh rate and 120Hz touch sampling rate. It also has HDR support, which works for YouTube, but it is limited to 720p videos, which might be a restriction with the processor. Under the display options there are different options to adjust colours from Natural, and Saturated. The video display enhancement feature improves video display quality in apps like YouTube, Photos and meet.
The phone has about 85.5% screen-to-body ratio, which is somewhat less, mainly due to the large chin. It has Active Area-Touch Panel (AA-TP) of 90.2%. There is Panda Glass protection for the display.
The phone has a punch-hole screen that houses an 8-megapixel camera. The phone doesn’t have a notification LED, but it comes with peek display option that lets you see interactive notifications and quick information while the screen is off, but it doesn’t act as always on display present in AMOLED phones.
In terms of placements, the power button, which integrates a fingerprint scanner, is present on the right side along with the volume rockers. The dedicated dual SIM and microSD card slot that accepts cards up to 1TB is present on the left side.
The primary microphone, USB Type-C port and the loudspeaker grill are present on the bottom. The 3.5mm audio jack is present on the top. The phone is just 7.99 mm thick.
On the back there is a 50-megapixel camera along with a 2-megapixel macro sensor. This has premium Acrylic Glass (PMMA) back, so it offers a smooth finish and looks premium. The phone has IP52 ratings, so that the phone is resistant to dust, light rain and splashes. The phone packs a 5000mAh built-in battery, yet weighs just 177 grams.
In addition to the Sky Blue, the phone also comes in Steel Grey colour, and is planning to Pale Lilac and Butter Cream Vegan Leather version soon.
Camera
- 50MP main camera with f/1.8 aperture
- 2MP macro camera with f/2.4 aperture
- 8MP front camera with f/2.4 aperture
The camera UI is familiar with most Motorola smartphones that include a quick toggles between main camera and macro camera on the bottom, quick toggles for flash, timer, aspect ratio, and more. Other camera features include Night Vision, Portrait, Live Filters, Panorama, Pro Mode (w/ Long Exposure), Digital Zoom (up to 4x), Auto Smile Capture, Google Lens integration, Watermark and Barcode scanner.
Coming to the image quality, daylight shots came out well with good dynamic range, thanks to Quad Pixel technology that gives you get 12.5MP output. HDR shots are better with improved dynamic range, and it is recommended to enable auto HDR. The 2MP macro is just average. Portrait shots have decent edge detection, even though it doesn’t have a depth camera. The 8MP front camera is decent in daylight, and average in low-light.
Check out the camera samples
The phone is capable of recording 1080p at up to 30 fps resolution from both front and rear cameras.
Software, UI and Apps
The moto g14 runs Android 13 with Android security patch for July, 2023. The company has promised an assured upgrade to Android 14 and 3 years of security upgrades for the phone. As usual, it is stock with added Moto features. There is nothing to mention regarding the software in specific, since it offers stock Android 13 experience with added features.
It comes with the usual My UX with Ambient Display option and gestures such as Quick capture, Fast flashlight, Three-finger screenshot, Sidebar, Double press power key, Press and hold power button.
Apart from the usual set of utility apps, Google apps, there is a motoHub by Swish widget and three folders for Shopping, Entertainment and Games Hub that recommends some apps. Otherwise, you don’t find any bloatware in the phone. It packs 4GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB UFS 2.2 of storage. Out of 4GB RAM, you get 3.8GB of usable RAM, out of which about 1.2GB of RAM is free on boot with just the default apps running in the background.
Out of 128GB of internal storage, you get about 108GB of usable storage. We got sequential read speeds of about 873MB/s, which is good for a phone with UFS 2.2 in the price range, since most have eMMC 5.1 storage.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
The phone has a fingerprint sensor on the side. It immediately unlocks the phone just by keeping your finger so that you don’t have to press it, and it is obviously faster than the in-display fingerprint scanner. You can add up to 5 fingerprints. You can also use the fingerprint for app local and payments in apps. The phone also has face unlock, but it is not as secure as fingerprint.
Music Player, FM Radio and Multimedia
YouTube Music is the default music player with usual audio effects and equalizer, which can also be directly accessed from Audio Effects shortcut app. It also has FM Radio with recording. Audio through the stereo speaker is loud, compared to mono speakers that other phones in the range offer. It also has Dolby Atmos. Audio through earphones, is good as well.
It has Widevine L1 support, so you can play HD content on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and other streaming apps without any issues. Even though the company hasn’t mentioned if it’s an HDR panel, some HDR videos worked in 720p, but some videos were also limited to 720p, instead of 1080p. If this is a bug, the company should fix it.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
It supports 4G VoLTE, and support Dual 4G VoLTE that offers 4G in both the SIM cards at a time, but doesn’t support Carrier Aggregation on 4G. Other connectivity options include Dual-Band Wi-Fi 6 802.11 ac (2.4 + 5GHz), Bluetooth 5.0 LE, GPS + GLONASS.
The phone also USB OTG support that lets you connect USB drives. Moving on, the call quality is good, and we did not face any call drops and the earpiece volume was loud. It doesn’t have NFC support, which you can’t expect in a phone in the price range.
The moto g14’s body SAR is 1.27W/Kg, and the head SAR is at 1.00W/Kg, well under the limit in India which is 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g).
Performance
Coming to the performance, this is powered by an Octa-Core UniSoC T616 12nm processor. It has 2 x A75 cores clocked at up to 2.0GHz and 6x A55 core at up to 1.8GHz. It has Mali-G57 MP1 GPU with support for Open GL ES 3.2 and Open CL 2.0 graphics.
The performance is decent. Since the phone only has 4GB of RAM, it begins to slow down when you open multiple apps in the background. Even though the CPU is slightly faster than the MediaTek Helio G85 present in the moto g13, the Mali-G57 MP1 GPU is not as fast as the Mali-G52 MP2 GPU, mainly due to more core count.
You can play casual games, but this is not a phone for graphic-intensive games. It gets a bit warm when gaming on 4G.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 5000mAh (typical) built-in battery, same as the moto g13. It lasts for a whole day even with heavy use with 4G enabled and multimedia use, and more than that with average use.
The phone has support for 20W fast charging, and it took about 1 hour and 45 minutes to charge from 0 to 100%, and 0 to 50% takes about 50 minutes using the bundled charger. Charging time is way better than the moto g13, which takes 3 hours to charge.
Conclusion
At a price tag of Rs. 9,999, the moto g14 almost ticks all the boxes when it comes to a budget phone. It has a large Full HD+ screen, capable processor to handle most tasks, good camera in daylight, stereo speakers, and a long-lasting battery. Wish the company had also offered a 6GB RAM version for those who needs it.
Alternatives
If you spend Rs. 1000 more, there is POCO M6 Pro 5G with 5G support, a larger 90Hz screen, faster and more power-efficient SoC and IP53 ratings, but it only has 64GB storage and lacks stereo speakers.
Availability
The moto g14 is now available to pre-order from Flipkart and will be available starting from August 8th.
Pros
- Good display
- Clean UI without Bloatware or Ads
- Good camera in daylight
- Stereo speakers, Dolby Atmos
- Good battery life
Cons
- Average gaming performance
- No 6GB RAM option