The Motorola brand has really not been worth overlooking lately. Its models are still relatively inconspicuous, but many times they offer a really great price-performance ratio. The G200 model is another of these great pieces.
Many manufacturers interpret the upper-middle class in their own way. Some are going above and beyond the more common models to catch up with premium rivals in at least one respect, but skimping on the rest. Others, however, go about it sensibly and steadily upgrade the equipment to be better than the cheaper models in most respects, but at the same time, they don’t push it to some extreme. Motorola in particular has been quite successful in this latter approach lately.
- Motorola G200: Design
- Motorola G200: Display
- Motorola G200: Equipment and performance
- Motorola G200 AnTuTu test
- Motorola G200: Memory and SD card support
- Motorola G200: Other connectivity
- Motorola G200: Almost pure Android 11
- Motorola G200: Battery and charging
- Motorola G200: Camera
- Conclusion: Should I buy a Motorola G200? Any alternatives?
Last year’s G100 is now being replaced by a “two-hundred” model, and its approach to price/performance ratio is essentially no different. Again, it manages to offer both practically top-notch features within the price range, as well as a number of other features that are also worthy of consideration. The G200’s compromises, while not unavoidable, are often forgivable. So, is the G200 the current king of the mobile phone category with a price of around £400?
Motorola G200: Design
In general, phones from Motorola won’t usually leave you in awe, and even though we subjectively liked the recent Edge 20 Pro predecessor, we still feel that in terms of design, Motorola holds back a little in the middle-class category. That’s why we’re glad to see that the G200 is actually able to quite impress with its design.
The clear hallmark is the slightly raised wave on the back, which also defines the space for the rear three-camera setup. It’s something unusual that we haven’t come across in a competitor before, and we have to admit that Motorola has managed to pull off this design element rather well. It also complements it with a matte back and a tasteful dark blue colour (there’s also green to choose from).
Anyway, the Motorola G200 is no slouch, and if you’re looking for a compact smartphone, you’ve come to the wrong place here. The phone’s dimensions are 168.1 x 75.5 x 8.9 mm, and its weight is just over 200 grams. Motorola also boasts of a body finish that’s supposed to repel water, but it actually isn’t waterproof. The water-repellent design has been certified to IP52, which, however, according to the manufacturer ‘creates a barrier to help protect against moderate exposure to water, such as accidental spills, splashes or light rain. Not designed to be submersed in water, or exposed to pressurized water, or other liquids.’
On the body of the phone, you’ll find a USB-C connector in addition to a fingerprint reader built-in in the side button. There is no 3.5mm jack connectivity, but you can connect wired headphones with a reducer to the USB-C.
The premium impression is a bit compromised by the materials used, the sides and back of the phone are plastic, but we still rate the phone as structurally and design-wise successful.
Motorola G200: Display
Motorola is quite fond of boasting about the fastest 144Hz displays currently available, and while they’re not the only one using them, it’s still one of the few such manufacturers that deployed them in their current phone devices. Yes, it’s true that the layman’s eye probably won’t be able to tell the difference between the more commonly used 120Hz, but it’s still an interesting advantage for gamers, for example, who are particularly attentive to similar features.
The rest of the display’s parameters are pretty standard. The screen spans a diagonal of 6.8 inches and has a resolution of 1,080 x 2,460 pixels. The resulting fineness comes out to a respectable 395 pixels per inch. The panel is IPS type and supports HDR10 technology. You will also find a cutout for the front-facing 16Mpix selfie camera near the top edge in the centre section.
The manufacturer doesn’t specify what type of tempered glass it uses to protect the display for this model.
Motorola G200: Equipment and performance
The Motorola G200 puts most of its competitors in the same range on the spot when it comes to performance. Although it hasn’t got Qualcomm’s best current processor (8 Gen1), it features the second to best: the Snapdragon 888+. It’s basically an overclocked version of last year’s top model. It doesn’t offer that much more performance (about five per cent), but that counts too. In any case, it’s hard to find a similarly powerful competitor in this price range.
Motorola G200 AnTuTu test
From the AnTuTu performance test, the phone takes away a beautiful 850 thousand points and the title of a powerful machine among the more affordable models. We dare say that in most games and demanding applications it will achieve very similar results to models with the most advanced chip, although of course, it will also depend on how manufacturers will tune and optimize it during the year.
Motorola G200 is available in the UK and perhaps in plenty of other European markets only in a single memory variant, so at least you won’t have to worry about comparing the advantages and disadvantages of each version.
Motorola G200: Memory and SD card support
You can only get it in a configuration with 8 GB of operating memory and 128 GB of user memory – just like its predecessor.
Unfortunately, there is one thing it lacks over its predecessor – the ability to add a microSD memory card. So be careful not to quickly use up the internal data space by installing bulky games or taking frequent photos and videos. However, 128GB is still quite a lot considering plenty of us are already using cloud platforms to at least backup gallery items.
Motorola G200: Other connectivity
Apart from the already mentioned USB-C, the Motorola G200 also supports 5G networks, NFC or Bluetooth 5.2.
Also, it’s not the first time wherein the device with similar hardware, we encounter a special element of the software equipment, which is the ability to connect the phone to a monitor or TV and use the mode as a desktop PC.
This is similar to what we know from, for example, better equipped Samsung phones with DeX mode.
Motorola G200: Almost pure Android 11
Apart from a few minor extras, the Motorola G200 will offer a virtually pure Android version 11 operating system, with “twelve” hopefully also being available soon. The aforementioned software extras are then the quite familiar motion gestures for activating features such as the camera (quick rotation of the phone) or the flashlight (double wave).
The user interface thus contains no application ballast/bloatware, except for a few extra specialities from Google, such as Google Fit, Home or the podcast search engine and, in addition to YouTube, the YouTube Music service. How you further equip the phone is therefore entirely up to you.
Motorola G200: Battery and charging
It seems that 5,000mAh capacity is already such a nice new standard and the Motorola G200 follows suit. Considering the fast refresh rate of the display, it’s appropriate, as this mode may be more demanding just for endurance. The phone manages to charge with up to 33W of power, which means you’ll have half the battery charged in about half an hour, and you’ll have to wait a little over an hour for a full charge.
How long your phone lasts depends a lot on your usage style. However, given that the powerful processor and fast display will appeal mainly to gamers, we’d guess that the usual one-day battery life will be realistic for them. If you conserve the phone a bit, then you can easily reach two to three days of operation on a single charge.
Motorola G200: Camera
In this respect, the Motorola G200 is, it can be said, sufficient. It is not a photographic miracle, but the phone will not shame you when you post photos on social networks. The main role is played by a 108Mpix sensor with f/1.9 aperture and unfortunately, it lacks optical stabilization. Then there is a wide-angle sensor with a resolution of 13Mpix and a 119-degree angle of view, and finally just an auxiliary (and somewhat useless) 2Mpix macro camera.
The 108Mpix camera looks great, especially on paper, but in real life it’s an advantage especially when you’re shooting using a 12Mpix fusion of adjacent pixels, giving you a better chance of capturing a good photo even in low light conditions. However, for real darkness, you’d better turn on the night mode, but even with it, it won’t be a photographic terror compared to more expensive models.
The Motorola G200 manages to capture good images, especially in good light (after all, like perhaps every other camera in a mobile phone), and in addition, it can handle colours quite decently and does not lag behind in sharpness. It could certainly use the optical stabilization mentioned above so that you can shoot “handheld” a bit more confidently, but it’s simply an aspect of the equipment on which something had to be saved.
In any case, the wide-angle sensor seems to us rather like a by-the-numbers, its quality is at the level of cheaper models, and although it also does quite well in good light, once it gets a little dark, it’s the same flop as most competitors.
Conclusion: Should I buy a Motorola G200? Any alternatives?
Considering the current price of £400, the Motorola G200 is a rather tempting model. It does a lot of things right: it has excellent performance, a fine display (although an AMOLED panel would suit it better), good battery life and finally a nice design. The camera can’t be described as a weakness of the phone either, so the only disappointing thing about its equipment might be the memory limitation in the form of a single 8GB RAM/128GB version and even more so without microSD card support. But hey, there are other, much more expensive smartphones, that don’t and will never support microSD..
If you like the concept of such a phone from Motorola and would like to save a little more, then the G200 has a relatively strong ally called Edge 20, costing around £100 less.
However, if you’re all about performance, then the competitor is last year’s Realme GT smartphone, which has a Snapdragon 888 chip, the same memory variant and a nice 120Hz AMOLED display. It has a smaller 4,500mAh battery and the camera is subjectively worse, but you can find it for up to £130 cheaper than the Motorola G200, if interested.
On the other hand, you may also look for a more expensive (£553 on Amazon) Xiaomi 11T Pro, which, in addition to the Snapdragon 888 chip, also offers a blazing fast 120W charging, but in the rest of the specifications is otherwise quite similar to today’s rated Motorola.
