Motorola continues to enter the entry-level 5G market, especially in Europe, with several G-series phones that aim to offer great value at various price points. This time, the subject of our review is the Moto G62 – the successor to the Moto G60 and G60S, and the runner-up in this year’s G series. It is important to note that a different Moto G62 has just hit the Indian market, with a more powerful Snapdragon 695 chipset but otherwise identical hardware. The subject of our review is the global version with the Snapdragon 480 SoC.  The camera setup and large 5,000mAh battery are shared among half a dozen Moto G phones, from the low-end G32  to the high-end G82. That leaves the screen as the other major difference next to the chipset. And the Moto G62 gets a 6.5-inch IPS LCD panel with a smooth 120Hz refresh rate.  The main camera in the Motorola GX2 series includes a 50-megapixel 1/2.76″ f/1.8 main camera, supported by an 8-megapixel ultra-wide and a 2-megapixel macro shooter. We’re interested to see how the affordable 50MP sensor fares against rivals that use larger 64 MP and 48 MP sensors.

Design

The Moto G62 has a lightweight body made entirely of plastic. The screen has a protective glass of unconfirmed origin. Thanks to the plastic body, Motorola was able to keep the weight down, and the G62 tips the scales at 185 grams. The Moto G62 is not much different from its current and previous Moto G siblings. The back has curved edges for a more comfortable grip, while the camera island is oval and has three vertically stacked cameras. The camera island is almost flush with the rest of the back panel, which helps with the look and prevents it from wobbling when the phone is placed on a table. The Moto G62 has a set of stereo speakers with the earpiece acting as one channel. In the lower part, there is a USB-C connector and an audio jack. The left side is reserved for the hybrid SIM card slot, which can accommodate either a SIM-microSD card combination or two SIM cards. The front of the device works as usual, with a hole placed in the middle for the selfie camera, which may seem a little big at first, but after a while, it won’t bother you. All the frames are probably on the thicker side with the lower frame. This is par for the course in this price range.

Display

The Moto G62 has a 6.5-inch 1080 x 2400px IPS LCD panel that supports a 120Hz refresh rate. That should give it an edge over the Moto G52’s 90Hz OLED panel but raises concerns about a drop in image quality. The panel is not HDR certified and we don’t expect it to be. Unfortunately, the results of our tests do not give a good indication. Its brightness reached 454 nits in manual mode and only increased to 553 nits in automatic mode. This would have been a fairly acceptable maximum brightness for an OLED, but the more reflective nature of LCD panels causes its colours to wash out in direct sunlight. The G62’s dashboard is still fully usable but doesn’t look great. How the Moto G62 handles the screen’s high refresh rate is pretty simple, and it hasn’t changed since we first tested a  smartphone with Motorola’s HRR panel. The system seems to prioritize the 120Hz refresh rate in almost every app or system menu we test, except video players like Netflix and YouTube. The OS also drops the refresh rate to 60Hz when you stop interacting with the screen.

Software and performance

Motorola phones have always been pure Android charm. People who don’t like the extreme overhaul of  Android OS that most manufacturers are adopting tend to have good things to say about the Motos UI. The lighter approach has its advantages, perhaps most notably performance. Although it comes with  Snapdragon 480, the device performs well without any hiccups or slowdowns. The phone ships with Android 12, the latest available, as Android 13 is still in beta. The user interface and appearance are close to the Android version. It includes new pill-shaped quick switches in the notification area. And again, it doesn’t include an automatic brightness switch, and you’ll have to delve into the settings menu to enable or disable the feature.

No change to the recent apps menu, which shows apps in carousel form, and no change to the app drawer. However, the iconography of the general Settings menu has been redesigned, so it may take some getting used to. A relatively new feature is the overcharge protection switch in the Battery menu. It stops charging when it detects that the phone hasn’t been disconnected for three days in a row and keeps the battery charged at a much healthier 80 per cent.  Based on Qualcomm’s numbers, you’d think that compared to the Moto G60, the G62 would offer a significantly smaller SoC – Snapdragon 480 vs Snapdragon 732G. However, both chips have very similar octa-core processors, with two  Kryo 460 Gold Cortex-A76-derived cores clocked at 2.2GHz (against the SD732G’s 2.3GHz), while six more energy-efficient Kryo 460 Silver cores (Cortex-A55 derivatives ). ) ) ticks at 1.8 GHz (equivalent to SD732G). The Moto G62’s Adreno 619 GPU should also be pretty close to the G60’s Adreno 618. The two chipsets are even built on the same 8nm process. The Indian version of the Motorola G62 runs on the more powerful Snapdragon 695, so we included a phone with this chipset to see the difference between the Snapdragon 480 and the Snapdragon 695. It also gets more RAM – either 6GB or 8GB.

Camera

The Moto G62’s camera setup is shared with about a dozen other Moto G phones from the past two years. It revolves around a 50-megapixel primary camera with f/1.8 aperture and a rather small 1/2.76-inch sensor with 0.64µm pixels. There’s also an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera with an f/2.2 lens and a small 1/4.0″ sensor with 1.12 µm pixels. The announced field of view is 118 degrees.

The third rear camera is a 2-megapixel f/2.4 macro unit with predictably poor image quality. And up front, we have a 16MP f/2.2 selfie shooter with 1.0µm pixels, which is again very popular with the Moto G series. The phone uses version 6 of the Motorola Moto Camera app, which is distributed and updated through Google Play. Compared to the previous Moto devices we reviewed, there have been no major changes to the user interface. All available modes can be found in the so-called “hamburger menu” and the last used mode is saved in the main mode carousel. Advanced settings for each photo or video mode can be accessed by swiping up from the shutter button. We’re happy to announce that Motorola has finally fixed the interpolation behavior and now the main and ultra-wide cameras shoot at their resolution. No unnecessary extras this time. We also like the dedicated switch for the macro camera. Finally, it gets a place in the viewfinder in the default photo mode.

Price

Motorola G62 5G price in India starts at ₹ 15,499. It comes in two variants: 6GB RAM with 128GB storage and 8GB RAM with 128GB storage. The 6GB RAM variant is available in Frosted Blue and Midnight Grey, while the 8GB RAM variant is only available in Midnight Grey.  Moto G62 5G is a mid-range smartphone launched in February 2023 in India. It has a 6.6-inch FHD IPS LCD screen, Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 5G processor,  50MP main camera,  8MP ultra-wide camera and 2MP macro. camera and a 16-megapixel front camera. It also has a 5000mAh battery with 20W fast charging support.