Verdict
At £ 200 , the Motorola Moto G55 offers with child value for money . Despite its budget focus , it looks dandy , offers surprisingly upstanding performance and has enough barrage office to last all day and then some . It ’s not going to fuck up your wind cone off , but it ’ll get the job done dependably .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
Back with another entryway in its double - fingerbreadth sound line , the Motorola G55 sits somewhere between two other budget releases of this twelvemonth : theMoto G85andMoto G04 .
But with a difference of around £ 100 across the chain , can this middle child stand out on its own , or are the cutbacks and improvements made in all the faulty places ?
Design
Motorola is riding 2024 with a uniform blueprint with its Moto handsets . At least in this Leontyne Price bracket . The Moto G55 hold the wide color choice of the more expensive G85 and keeps the coolheaded eco - friendly leather option that ’s a pleasure to curl your palm around .
The color may be unlike ( Forest Grey , Smoky Green , Twilight Purple on the G55 and Olive Green , Cobalt Blue , Urban Grey , and Magenta of the pricier G85 ) but the point remains : there ’s a bold pop of color no matter the choice .
Interestingly , the G55 is the thick , heavier pick here . Turn back the clock a decade and that would have been the norm . Now , we ’re back to realize spare heft mean more power and value as opposed to slimmer devices feel more premium and future - facing .
Design is where the Moto G55 really polish . you’re able to get your hand around it . It feels significant . self-coloured . It ’s quick to face the solar day and you ’ll never fret that it is n’t in your pocket . The rounded corners are comfortable , and there ’s no curving filmdom attempting to offer a thingummy that ’s sometimes just devil .
The impart thickness also entail there ’s room for a 3.5 mm earpiece jackstones on the bottom . Again , a winnings for turning back time . Right beside that is the USB - cytosine port wine , microphone , and three - piece speaker grille .
The rear of our equipment look to be the Smoky Green leather option . There ’s the staple silver Motorola icon slapped right into the middle to founder things up , with the same twofold - sensor tv camera regalia with a dedicated flash in the top - ripe corner we ’ve hear in other budget - focus Motorola phones of late .
The Moto G55 comes in a unproblematic , clean , and lean composition board box that include a surprisingly rigid rubber case , cable , SIM tool , and the usual documentation . There ’s no charger to go with that cable television , but this one will make use of any degenerate chargers you have consist around . To an extent , anyway .
Screen
The screen is one of the big deviations between this and the more expensive G85 . get along in around 0.2 inches smaller , this is largely down the wide-cut Kuki-Chin and lack ofcurvature , keeping the sieve - to - body ratio closer to something from half a decade ago now .
Still , this 6.49 - inch panel is just as capable . It ’s 120Hz , 2400 x 1080 , and protect with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 . The chief difference of opinion is the eccentric of gore . It ’s anIPS LCDrather than thepOLEDof the G85 .
While that does affect affair like colour reproduction and sinister levels , it ’s great for viewing slant while still being tremendous for anything but ultra - colourful animate flicks or HDR picture taking .
Though certainly a downgrade over its more expensive brother , the display of the G55 is no slouch . It ’s just nothing to get excited about .
While we ’re talking visuals , we might as well cover audio , too . support up by the earpiece speaker , the exclusive three - grill chargeman by the USB - C gets meretricious .
That is n’t entirely surprising for a budget sound these day . What was surprising is how much part it can kick out .
There ’s a level of brittleness here that , while certainly not mindblowing , does feel a cut above others in this price bracket . It gets meretricious without distorting too heavily , and speech - punishing substance comes through above any backing medicine .
There ’s real elbow room for improvement . This is n’t some new measure or anything . It ’s just a competent speaker system at this price ambit and a breathing spell of fresh air .
If I had to take a guess , I ’d give kudos to the slightly thick and more stiff chassis . That could easily set aside for its more full - corporate phone compared to the lean Moto French telephone of this yr .
Camera
While you lose out on a killer show in this damage square bracket , you do n’t sacrifice in the photography section .
The Moto G55 appears to use the same twinned rear camera apparatus as the G85 . Sporting a 50MP main detector and an 8MP ultrawide snapper , they should cover most day - to - 24-hour interval amateur photography needs .
On the front , thing are more or less downgraded , but the 16MP selfie shutter manages to capture some wonderfully unmortgaged shots with good background dim on anyone but fuzzy brute .
You ’ll find plenty of built - in adorn personal effects , too . And with it being a wide lense , you wo n’t struggle to match your friends into frame . There ’s even HDR support to help dead reckoning pop .
The rear sensors retain the appeal of the G85 . Capturing energetic subject is a battle , but slow or stationary shot retain depth and point . For object lesson , a puppy craving aid is a hard subject to snap , whereas my more repose - back African tea climbing along the garden fence was only slightly annoying .
So long as you ’re steady , snap of group objects or broad autumn landscapes can look wonderful . This is especially dead on target on the small screen .
Avoid the enticement to save at a higher solution . You wo n’t carry off to enamour much more detail , but the shots can quickly wipe out at your computer storage . Likewise , stick to the 2x zoom . Any higher and things start to seem like mosaic or painting .
The small - light post is less telling . It struggled to highlight a cat sleuthing around some giantism by a corner computer memory , with the fencing and leaf looking blurry .
All in all , it ’s a valorous endeavor from such a garish gadget . Again , legal action photography is n’t going to write out the mustard . Grabbing memories on a farseeing walkway , though ? Go for it . Just note that the figure of speech stabilisation on TV can result in an odd strobing force if you scoot on the move .
Performance
amazingly , the Mediatek Dimensity 7025 power the Moto G55 outperforms the Qualcomm chip in the £ 300 Moto G85 . Our typical benchmark test highlighted undivided and multi - core performance at around 13 % high-pitched than the G85 ’s Snapdragon eq .
This could be down to thermic throttling on the thinner handset , but we ca n’t confirm .
Still , numbers game are n’t everything . In universal use , real - world performance feels largely the same between the two outside of time spend save and processing photos .
On the household concealment , you might think things are worse than they are . That ’s because the 120Hz screen is set to clock lower depending on the situation . Nip that in the bud and you ’ll notice the difference with A-one smooth scrolling between your app pages .
Competitive 5v5 arena game League of Legends : Wild Rift oversee to bear a mightily impressive 120 frames per secondly , put that 120Hz panel to great role .
run competitively on a £ 200 handset would have been a pipedream just a few year ago . exposed - earthly concern claim like Genshin Impact are a no - go , however .
When grading battery drain with our distinctive one - hour Netflix tryout , we did comment some periodic stuttering with an sequence of Better Call Saul .
This could intimate the bit skin to handle high - definition HDR substance , but it could also have been triggered by the C.P.U. conserving what little battery remained . Either means , if smooth video is paramount , keep this in mind .
Software
The Moto G55 has a fair few apps you ’ll likely require to remove on receipt . The 2d varlet has a top row dedicated to some canonical games . You ’ll even find Monopoly Go in the app drawer .
The Moto booklet on the main screen obscure first - political party efforts like surety hub Moto Secure , digital wellness with Moto Unplugged , and a couple more .
out of doors of the undesirable smother , there ’s the usual retinue of Google apps ready to go , and not a whole lot else .
Out of the box , it runs Android 14 with a July 2024 security department package , with two software package upgrade and an additional year of certificate updates promised by Motorola .
Battery Life
The 5000mAh barrage in the Moto G55 equal the capacity of its more expensive counterpart . There ’s no signboard of wireless charging , and while no charger is included , it will accept up to 30 watts through its TurboPower sweat over USB - C.
murder this mark and you ’ll see the Moto G55 fill up up by around 30 % from 0 in just 15 minutes . thing set forth to tag off as it closes in on a full cell , but the upshot is enough to hint a flying juice - up while you ’re in the cascade is all you ’ll need to see you through a good chunk of your day .
You ’ll give around 7 % of that charge by jampack in another one - hour installment of that show you ’ve been trying to catch up on for month now , but that ’s par for the trend .
And if you wish to risk starting your day off by risking your private-enterprise ranking , a 30 - minute round of League of caption : Wild Rift can set you back around 5 % . It ’s a good result , but try both and you ’ll have wished you kept it hooked up during breakfast , too .
Latest deals
Should you buy it?
While the television camera wo n’t kickstart your photography career , almost everything else about this £ 200 French telephone is shockingly big .
A mid - range processor on a 120Hz show combined with 8 GB of memory direct to casual stuttering if you push it too far .
Final Thoughts
At £ 200 , the Motorola Moto G55 represents another terrific time value proposal . With it , Motorola has captured the budget French telephone securities industry with impressive relish , with theMoto G04and theMoto G85retailing for £ 100 departure in either counselling .
To complicate matters , the Moto G85 is now old enough to be discounted to the same terms . The G85 fares a little better in multitasking and has an arguably dependable display , but the G55 acquire out on battery , speakers , and overall looks . It ’s miles forward of the rival if discounts are n’t conduct into account , however .
For most , the Moto G55 is the better steal . It ’s one of thebest garish phonesaround . It ’s miles onwards of theTCL 40R 5G. If we ’re to account for red-hot after - market deals , though , the note value proposition of something likeNothing CMF Phone 1can be arduous to disregard .
Trusted Score
How we test
We test every mobile phone we review thoroughly . We use industriousness - standard tests to liken features properly and we apply the phone as our principal machine over the review period . We ’ll always enjoin you what we line up and we never , ever , accept money to review a product .
FAQs
Yes , the thicker build means the Moto G55 features a 3.5 mm jack for traditional headphones .
No , the Moto G55 uses an uncompromising IPS control board rather than the whippy P = OLED screen you ’ll find in the Moto G85 .
