Motorola bounds out the G8 with a harder, better, faster smartphone for the thrifty Motorola has confirmed its latest budget blower, the Moto G8, following last year's well-received G7 and it brings faster silicon, a larger screen, and ditches the dreaded notch for a more discrete hole-punch camera. As with previous G-series phones, the G8 ships with an almost completely bloatware-free version of Android, …
I've had a G8 Plus since last year and I'm very happy with it. No bloatware, excellent battery, ample fast enough for my none-gaming needs. Its a bit odd that the vanilla G8 is being released now, with both a bigger screen and yet lower resolution. Otherwise the vanilla options seems mostly the same as the Plus.
Phrasing?
Do a search for "Melrose","Unihertz" and "i9s" to find a few and then spin off from there.
There are still a few small phones. I haven't yet found one that ticks all my boxes (4g, NFC, fingerprint, 16:9 display, <100g) but I'm hopeful.
...given that Motorola makes some pretty decent phones under £150.
The G8 series is on the Motorola website:
G8 Power £220
G8 Plus £240
Based on the other two and the fact that the Plus models have previously tended to be the more expensive in the range, the plain G8 might slot in at £230. Or maybe not.
M.
The Moto G series seems to offer the best balance of features and value for money to me (how people can countenance spending >£1,000 on a phone is incomprehensible to me).
I am a convert to the range and have recommended it to various people, the only thing preventing me from getting a G8 being the fact that my G5 keeps on doing all the things that I expect it to. The only reason to upgrade might be that (after several years of very regular updates, for which I give Moto much credit) they seem to have stopped updating the firmware for the G5.
I bought a G7 Power last year and have been seriously impressed with it. I'm not at all ready to upgrade yet -- the G7 is working just fine, thanks! -- but if I were, the experience I've had with the G7 would absolutely steer me towards a G8.
The "bloatware-free" bit is really the kicker for me. I used to buy Samsung (after I stopped being able to rely on HTC, anyway) and ye gods but Samsung is awful about bloatware. The G7 didn't come with any, that I can think of -- I didn't even have to uninstall Facebook, as it wasn't there to begin with! (My Samsung had it as a system app that I couldn't remove.)
Definitely keeping my eye on these, and I'd love to see a full Reg review. Hopefully they send over a review kit. :)
Hmmmm
Moto G8 = HD+ (1560×720) - 269 ppi
Moto G7 = 1080 x 2270 pixels, 19:9 ratio (~405 ppi density)
Moto G4 = Full HD 1920x1080 pixels, 16:9 ratio (~401 ppi density)
Given the G8 is bigger as well, those pixels are really going to stand out.
I guess there must be a market for heavy long phones with poor resolution that are worse than the previous versions of over 4 years ago.
The G8 Power sells for £219, this G8 with those specs is going to need to sell well under £200 especially if you look at the rivals.
I don't ever want to spend $1000 on a tech bauble again. My wife bought a G7 Plus last year with the insurance check we received after her previous phone died. It does what she wants it to do and it seems to be a really nice device. I can't tell if it's supported by lineageos or not, but it doesn't seem like we need to take that step because the stock android install seems to be pretty much unfucked.
I'm still using a OnePlus One, but it can't last forever. If Motorola can keep this up, they're certainly on my list of replacements.
You're spot on. Wife's G7 power replaced her old G4, no more updates and a dying battery. For 139GBP it really is an excellent bit of kit.
My 3T is losing battery performance now and when I replace it a MOTO G series will defo be in the frame.The 7T at 550GBP looks a bit pricey by comparison. Despite the great OS support from OnePlus (I've gone all the way to Android 9) I still cringe at the 350 quid premium over a MOTO G.
I know the 7T has a better spec/memory/camera etc but in real life does it make that much difference?
My first G was under $200 (retail, unlocked, at Best Buy). My current G5+ was a bit more, but still _way_ less than any iPhone or "flagship" Android. I picked out other G models for my parents. I love the "vanilla" Android. Updates are prompt and never seem to cause problems.
I'm also a fan of the Moto X pure. I just replaced the battery in a 5 year old X-pure, and it's working great — though sadly it's no longer getting updates.
The Moto G phones seem to jump in and out of being good value for money. My 3rd Gen Moto G still works fine (Android 6, 1GB RAM) but with the Android updates to the built in apps it will soon run out of internal storage (8GB). I replaced it with a Huawei Honor 9 a couple of years ago as the current Moto G at the time was overpriced w.r.t. the Honor but when this starts to struggle the Moto G's will be in the hunt for my replacement, especially since the recent Huawei witch hunt has prevented them from using Google Play. That said, if the Huawei AppGallery carries on like it currently is, it may soon become a better option than Google Play.
I'm still disappointed the whole Moto mods business didn't take off. Can't think of a more innovative feature in phones since they started having an actual operating system, actually... There was also that Bullitt-built Land Rover phone with slide-on accessories as well.
This G8 is just another run-of-the-mill smartphone - HW specs spreadsheet with a price sticker.
I quite like the Moto phones too, I've got an Amazon exclusive G6 on the go at the moment and I am very pleased with it. Sure, it isn't as fast as the Samsung S8 it replaced (I see a bit of lag updating my huge list of podcasts on it, but that's about it) but it was a fraction of the cost and doesn't have a curved screen that I never really liked despite the reviewers all raving over it at the time.
This brings me on to the hole punch in the screen on this new phone. I can't stand notches or holes in the display - there was a time that if a display had a huge defective area that was always black out of the box you would have sent it back. OK, I've never taken a "selfie" so perhaps I'm not the target audience, but are people really so vain that they will tolerate a bad design for their own narcissism ? It's all to do with bigger screens on the same footprint but in my mind it's a solution to a problem that shouldn't have been engineered in in the first place. I don't buy it - literally.
When I finally decided to upgrade from my Moto E4 last summer, I went with a Moto G6 (Amazon exclusive without the Amazon cruft) because it didn't have the hideous notch the much-more-expensive G7 models did. The hole in the G8 looks like it could feasibly be small enough to not annoy me too much, IF it wasn't off in the corner, which does make it look a bit like a defect now that you mention it. I wouldn't pay anywhere near that much for one, though; my budget is closer to the $130 I spent for my E4 and G6.
The only phone I've heard of with DAB is the LG Stylus 2. As to user replaceable battery and decades of updates, can't say any phone does that any more (unless the user is confident with a spudger for the battery).
I guess you'll be phoneless (or running a very old phone) for a while
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