Review verdict: The moto G50 5G is one of the most affordable 5G phones in the Philippines, but that moniker comes with serious trade-offs. Atrocious selfie shutter lag, so-so camera performance, and a dated design blunt the phone’s aggressive price point.

Pros:

• Incredibly affordable for a 5G phone
• Excellent battery life

Cons:

• Dim screen
• So-so camera performance
• Atrocious selfie shutter lag

Motorola moto G50 5G Specs:

• MediaTek Dimensitiy 700 processor
• 4GB RAM
• 128GB storage, expandable via MicroSD
• 6.5-inch HD+ IPS Display, 90hz refresh rate
• 48-megapixel f/1.7 main camera with PDAF, 5-megapixel f/2.4 macro camera, 2-megapixel f/2.4 depth sensor
• 13-megapixel f/2.2 selfie camera
• 4G, LTE, 5G
• WiFi, Bluetooth, rear-mounted fingerprint scanner
• 5000mAh battery
• 15w charging
• Android 11

Motorola’s most affordable 5G smartphone looks to be a winner on paper: it has an incredibly affordable price tag, large battery, and a decent processor. Unfortunately, software bugs and a dated design make it less desirable than the offerings of its competitors in the same price range.

Design

We’re a little confused why the moto G50 5G looks the way it does in the Philippines. That isn’t saying that the phone looks bad – it doesn’t – it’s more because of the fact it looks rather dated especially compared to phones in the same price range.

The design is unexciting and reminiscent of phones released last year, which is a little disappointing, considering that the moto G50 (which also has 5G capabilities despite not being 5G-branded) looks a lot better in comparison.

The back is made out of plastic, and there’s a square camera module tucked in the upper left side of the rear. The back of the phone is mostly flat save for the rounded edges and curves.

There are three buttons on the right side of the phone – a power button that pulls double duty as a fingerprint scanner, a volume rocker, and a dedicated button for Google Assistant.

The bottom of the phone holds the speaker grille, microphone a 3.5mm jack, and the USB Type-C charging port.

While the phone’s design is a little dated, the device feels solid in the hands. There isn’t any obvious flex or creaks when you handle it, and overall the device feels well put together.

Display

The moto G50 5G uses a 6.5-inch, IPS HD+ resolution (720 x 1600) display that has a 90Hz refresh rate, with a water-drop notch at the top. Notch houses a 13-megapixel, f/2.0 wide-angle selfie camera.

As far as display quality goes, it’s so-so. While color reproduction was ok, the display’s overall brightness isn’t as good as we hoped. Even on the brightest setting the display looked a little washed out and hard to read outdoors, which may be an issue when you’re out and about.

Cameras

The moto G50 5G sports four cameras total: one in the front and three on the rear. The rear camera module is highlighted by a 48-megapixel sensor with an f/1.7 aperture lens, along with a 2-megapixel macro camera that has an f/2.4 aperture, along with a 2-megapixel depth camera with an f/2.4 aperture lens.

The rear cameras are decent for what they are, able to produce photos that are good enough to use for Instagram and Facebook. Shots tend to suffer when the light gets low as evidenced by some of our low-light footage, but that’s to be expected from a budget phone.

Moving on to the selfie snapper. The phone uses a 13-megapixel selfie camera that has an f/2.0 aperture lens. Snaps with the selfie camera turned out fine considering the megapixel count, but we experienced truly horrendous shutter lag of around 2-3 seconds after pressing the shutter before a snap was taken. Hopefully, this is a software issue that can be solved through a firmware update.

Performance, software, battery life

The moto G50 5G is powered by Mediatek’s 7nm Dimensity 700 chipset, which runs in an octa-core configuration with 2×2.2 GHz Cortex-A76 & 6×2.0 GHz Cortex-A55. It’s paired with a Mali-G57 MC2 GPU, and as its name says, it has 5G capabilities.

The phone’s Dimensity 700 chipset performs as it should, stacking up quite well VS Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 480 chipset (which coincidentally, is what powers the moto G50 offered in other countries). The phone offered in the Philippines has 4GB of RAM and 128GB of expandable storage.

Performance in games is good, as long as you keep the settings down to realistic levels. You won’t be playing Genshin Impact on the highest settings, but as long as you keep your graphical settings on low you’ll do fine for the most part.

As for software, the moto G50 5G runs on mostly stock Android 11, with a few improvements thrown in by the company to make it stand out a little bit. There’s almost zero bloatware here, and the phone for the most part feels rather snappy to use when navigating through the interface.

One bright spot for the moto G50 5G is its large 5000mAh battery, which gives the phone incredibly long legs. Our YouTube battery rundown test recorded a time of 17 hours and 11 minutes. The only downside here is that the phone tops out at 15W when charging, which means you’ll be waiting quite a while before the battery is completely topped off.

Wrap-up and verdict

Our review of the Motorola moto G50 5G shows that it could have been a top contender for a budget 5G smartphone in the Philippines if it wasn’t for the dim display and the bad selfie lag we experienced during its time with us.

There are some bright spots – its Php 10,495 price tag is pretty competitive, and its long battery life is useful especially for people who can’t be arsed to charge their phone daily.

Motorola moto G50 5G Review Philippines

The Motorola moto G50 5G is priced in the Philippines at Php 10,495. It’ll come with free Lenovo HD100 headphones with every purchase.