Verdict
At just £ 150 , the Moto G35 5 GiB is another glowing example of Motorola ’s ability to coerce previously top - tier up lineament into a phone half the toll of some family fans .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
Back with another highly affordable smartphone , the Motorola G35 5 G is a deal vista at a bargain cost .
With the lines betweenbudgetandmid - rangehandsets continuing to dim , is the Motorola Moto G35 5 G another quality example of how little today ’s top - end phones truly offer for the price ?
Design
The Motorola Moto G35 5 G follows a very conversant design to the fellowship ’s last few deal endeavours , theMoto G55 5GandMoto G85 5G.
Being further down the cost bracket , the smart dark-skinned colour still habituate a glitzy rear chassis that ’s merely colourful plastic doused with okay stone - like sparkles . Opt for a pop of gloss and you ’ll nab the vegan leather texture seen on more bounty Moto earpiece .
It ’s a great handset to hold tight . Being a shade taller rather than wider like many XL phones of today , it ’s easy to roll your palm around , and easier still to reach your thumb to icons on the far side . However , you ’ll still have to slide it down to go for the top .
The bottom showcases a three - grill speaker on the right , a centeredUSB - Cport , a tiny microphone , and a 3.5 mm diddly-squat on the far odd . With another microphone on the top , the only other thing of note would be the major power release and duplicate bulk key on the right and the SIM / MicroSD tray on the right .
Then there ’s the lightly raise camera bump living accommodations matching sensing element and a verticle flash . Again , it ’s nothing out of the ordinary , but it ’s tonic to see minor lift on smartphone tv camera array for a change .
Like the residual of this class ’s Moto railway line - up , the G35 5 G comes in a lean , light dark-brown composition board boxful ready to be tossed in the bin . You get a synthetic rubber case , a little charging cable , and a SIM tray tool . To little surprisal , there ’s no battery charger included .
Screen
Packing a 6.72 - in display with an impressive Full HD resolution of 2400 x 1080 , the Motorola Moto G35 5 G is very well put in this price chain of mountains .
There ’s a very slight chin at the bottom . This is n’t the pOLED curl display of the high budget Moto handsets , but it ’s far from a slouch .
It ’s a gravid display for the price . Its strategically vibrant default lock screenland immediately grab my tending . people of color are bluff , hopeful , and a pleasure to look at , with great range across undimmed , moody , and downright dark scenes .
It ’s a neat little capacity - consumption twist , able to get brilliant enough to supportHDR , meaning video pops in reasonable lighting circumstance .
Best of all — at least for a snoot like me — it’s120Hz . Though it will make the stamp battery , a smooth screen ( twice the speed of even theiPhone 16 ) means school text fuzz when scroll social media , a newsworthiness article , or panning through a book is more or less gone .
It ’s one of those must - have features you never knew you take . And to have that on a £ 150 handset is sublime .
Unless you ’re doing nothing but reading , the screen is n’t the whole story when it comes to eat up content . With just a three - grill speaker at the bottom , it ’s up to the earpiece to bolster the headphone ’s sound capabilities . And it ’s alright .
We never expect much from the speakers in budget phones : the strait gets coarse as you crank up up the loudness .
And the Moto G35 5 G is no exception . Able to get a taking into custody louder than myiPhone 13 Pro Maxat around 78dB , clarity certainly dips at the peak .
It ’s nothing major , and you wo n’t struggle to enjoy outspoken performances in a podcast or Netflix show at reasonable volume . There ’s just an unsurprising lack of affectionateness and piddling on the low last .
Camera
Packing a 50MP independent snapper and an 8MP ultrawide , the camera system is a problematical sell .
It has potential difference . Slow memory board is likely the major perpetrator , but the CPU also shows its weakness here . Longer swear out multiplication can make getting fast , subsequent shots a challenge .
Even in average indoor lighting , shots of my dog keeping fond in the winter come up out ironically cold , slightly oversharpened in areas , and noticeably soft in others .
They ’re far from unuseable shots . Like the eternal sleep of what ’s on offer , they ’re still good for the price . But anyone expecting a cracking point - and - shoot experience will be disappointed .
Any motion will result in enceinte blur on the main gun . Shots of stationary objects or landscape will work on , but you ’ll want to adapt the colours .
You ’ll also drop off a good degree of lineament swapping over to the 8MP ultrawide for vista . And while the 2x zoom delivers fluid results , do n’t have a bun in the oven to be pinch - zooming into further remote detail .
The main snapper can cope HDR 4k30fps video . Stability leave something to be desired , but static recording , say of outside legal action , moments , or video margin call , can look great .
And like the Moto G55 , the selfie camera is astonishingly strong . At 16MP , twice that of the rear ultrawide , it ’s clear Motorola accounted for the change drift of smartphone usage .
So long as there ’s half - decent lighting to back up your composition , you could get unspoilt snaps of you and your friends , video call with keen clarity , and record enough TV .
Performance
Now , powering that sort of natty screen claim a half - adequate chip . It ’s strong to measure whether the Moto G35 5 gee manages it dependably with its 8 - burden Unisoc T760 crisp , but it sure enough feel legato to the touch once thing get die .
slither along the Google Discover feed is like touching silk . wiretap into an clause and , amazingly , the performance is keep even as image , ads , and pop - ups loading in .
Honestly , the dispute between it and my iPhone 13 Pro Max in substantial - human beings use is paltry . This is a £ 150 phone keeping up against one worth 10x that three years ago .
But graze the web is n’t the most taxing challenge for any flake : despite how they can have inexpensive laptop and tablet buckle under the weight unit of auto - loading videos and other annoying .
adjudicate much else and you ’ll notice where Motorola manage to cut price . This is typically in places like storage .
While the 128/256 GB option will be more than enough for everyone but the most devouring of induction - happy photographic camera snappers , it ’s slower UFS 2.2 reposition .
Installing and load apps take a trivial longer , reboots take a red-hot second and a couple more to settle , and taking dissolute camera snaps can be a conflict as they attempt to save .
It ’s no reason to scoff at its price , but it ’s worth maintain in mind . The phone flies in most everyday scenario . It ’s just those fringe import where you ’ll be reminded that it cost a bantam fraction of those advertised as the next big thing .
4 GB of RAM does n’t help in situations like this . So long as you ’re not look to hoodwink too many tasks at once , though , it keeps up .
You only need to run a couple of benchmarks to see where the SoC lack computational oomph . Single core performance was rated at 743 with the eight substance cope 2156 .
grading 11fps on the GFXBench Aztec test and 15fps on the Car Chase sequence , it ca n’t hit the 30fps dulcet smirch a typical video plot needs to polish off to be considered “ playable . ” It ’s also a far sight by from maxing out that 120Hz panel .
Interestingly , it ’s just a tomentum below the Moto G55 which , in turning , was n’t far off theMoto G85 . The former come in at the same monetary value during Black Friday discount only further highlights its value proposition .
However , in real - humankind gaming performance with 5v5 private-enterprise sphere game League of Legends : Wild Rift , 120fps was just a hair out on max options .
Performance during multi - character fights settled closer to 90 on high background after a couple of minutes , suggest an strong-growing caloric visibility was in effect to keep the telephone from heating up .
ping things down to Low , which aboveboard looks the same on a screen of this size of it , made hitting a smooth 90fps far more manageable .
dip to the scurvy 80s were still relatively vulgar , but competitive gambling is potential on this bargain phone . For the undivided - player type , 3D capable - world titles like Genshin Impact will struggle , but older or simple game like Grand Theft Auto and Dead Cells mould just ok . For the kids , Roblox and Stumble Guys are good to go .
Software
The Moto G35 5 G go Android 14 out of the box with elbow room to elevate to Android 15 update . It ’s also slated to get regular security updates until August 2027 .
On startup , this interlingual rendition of Android 14 look quite tame . And it is .
The first home page has all your distinctive Google apps nestled in booklet at the bottom . tumid white backgrounds beneath each app ’s colourful icon serve to highlight the screen ’s force out of the gate .
It ’s only when you purloin that you see some of the software system bloat that is n’t untypical for a phone of this cost . A lone game sits in the top - left corner .
pluck up the app tray and you ’ll find just a duo more games that are well removed . Outside of Tiktok , Fitbit , Booking , and Opera , the only potentially unneeded apps are from Motorola itself .
Battery
Another country where you may finger the con of this abbreviate - cost headphone is the battery . But not in capacitance or scarper metre . At 5000mAh and draining a clean distinctive 10 % after an hour of Netflix and around 5 % with a gimcrack 2D game like Dead Cells , it ’s unsurprisingly intermediate in that respect .
Where things take a piddling tour is with charging . There ’s no convenient wireless charging on fling , nor does it ship with a plug . And even if you have a fancy fast transcriber at home , the Moto G35 5 GiB wo n’t make much habit of it .
That ’s because this one caps out at 18W charging . Filling up a battery of its size of it occupy prison term . stop up it in during your morning exhibitioner to derive around 22 % . stretch out that out through a 30 - hour breakfast routine to get closer to 37%—typically where ultra - dissolute chargers would cap out other phones these day .
To completely refuel this from empty , you ’re appear at a good hr and a half while it ’s out of action mechanism . habituate it during and it could slow down to two hour at a minimum . It ’s the one moment this phone feel like it was made in the 2010s ; which is still in high spirits praise given everything it does right .
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Should you buy it?
The Moto G35 ’s CPU pee swell use of its above - intermediate showing . It ’s a comfortable smartphone for shop , interpretation , follow , and even clean , militant , or retro gaming .
Slow storage and a not - so - strong rear tv camera setup means the Moto G35 5 GB is n’t well equipped to snap cherished moments of hyperactive families . TV is fine , but shots take time .
Final Thoughts
close in on under £ 100 during recent sales , the Motorola Moto G35 5 G is a stack of speech sound for the price . The rearward cameras are n’t the safe , and the audio frequency could do with a small more life , but everything else is square .
The still , promising , and vibrant display is peachy for watching television and scrolling the web . Surprisingly , the budget chipset can twin well to bid a competitive advantage in the most common on-line multiplayer titles , too .
So unless you ’re in do-or-die penury of a machine to capture memories on a holiday , chance are the Moto G35 5 G is all you take . Otherwise , it might be impertinent to look at thebest budget handsets . Both the G55 and G85 sport slightly better cameras . There ’s always theNothing CMF Phone 1 , too .
Trusted Score
How we test
We prove every mobile headphone we review thoroughly . We use industry - standard tests to equate feature article properly and we use the phone as our principal twist over the review period . We ’ll always tell you what we find out and we never , ever , accept money to review a product .
FAQs
Yes , there ’s a flexible prophylactic case in the box .
There ’s a 3.5 mm headphone labourer on the bottom of the gadget .
No , this telephone set only supports pumped charging .