Moto G4 review

Motorola has worked wonders with the Moto G4 to make it a surprisingly powerful piece of kit. While last year's Moto G came in 1GB and 2GB versions, here you get 2GB, no matter which storage option you go for.

The processor is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 617. It's an octa-core processor working side by side with an Adreno 405 GPU, and these, together with the 2GB of RAM, make the G4 one of the most powerful low-priced phones I've ever used.

Performance-wise, the Moto G4 blows the 1GB G (2015) out of the water. That phone scored 1590 on Geekbench benchmarking software, and the G4 almost doubles that number at 3104.

Even the 2GB version of the third-gen Moto G only came out with a score of 1662, while the OnePlus X – a phone that prides itself on its power – only managed 2408. So this is a significant improvement for the Moto range.

When it came to gaming I found the Moto G4 was more than up to the task. Real Racing 3 on the Moto G4 was a pleasure, and I was surprised by how well the game ran – I never had a problem with the phone stuttering.

Multi-tasking also works particularly well. If you're on a budget but want a powerhouse of a phone, you can rest assured that the Moto G4 will be able to handle pretty much whatever you throw at it.

It's worth noting that the Moto G4 doesn't include an NFC sensor. I think that's a big miss, especially as Android Pay is now up and running in the UK as well as the US.

If you want to be able to make mobile payments with your phone, the Moto G isn't going to be for you.

Software

Motorola is one of the very few Android phone manufacturers that isn't pushing much of its own software on top of the Google look, and that's something a lot of Android fans, myself included, will appreciate.

Android's stock software now looks fantastic compared with the early days. The phone launched with Android 6 Marshmallow and all its Material Design glory, but has since been upgraded to Android Nougat.

If Motorola included its own skin it might have been able to add the odd extra feature to the Moto G4, but opting for the stock software ensures the phone feels clean and easy to customize.

All the standard Android apps are here, and it means you're not doubling up on things like media players and email apps; Sony phones for example, have an album app as well as Google Photos, but on the Moto G4 you've just got Google Photos, or whatever you decide to download.

There is one Motorola app included on the Moto G4, and it's simply called Moto. It's designed to introduce you to the new features on Motorola phones, and give you a few little shortcuts.

For example, if you perform a 'karate chop' motion with the phone in your hand it'll turn on the torch – although this does mean that you sometimes activate the torch by mistake, and if I was using this phone for any longer I probably would've turned that feature off.

Motorola has brought Android Nougat to the Moto G4. The update offers a few improvements over Marshmallow, though they are mostly under the hood tweaks rather than visual overhauls.

First off, it will support split-screen multitasking - a feature that will make doing even more not just possible, but surprisingly easy to do.

Next, enhanced Doze mode will give the phone better battery saving powers during the day, not just at night like Marshmallow's version of the feature.