Moto G7 review

Software

• Comes running Android 9 Pie software
• Some features are easy to get to through Moto Actions
• Only one storage version with 64GB of storage

Straight out of the box you’ll find the phone is running Android 9 Pie software, and it runs well on this handset. Motorola doesn’t do much to its software before uploading to the phone, so if you've previously used an Android handset you'll likely be able to settle in easily here.

You’ll have access to all of Google’s services right away, and in terms of bloatware there are a couple of Motorola apps but it won’t overtake your experience of the phone.

The company has also included its Moto Actions feature that allows you to quickly get to certain useful features on the phone. For example, if you karate chop the phone you can turn on the flashlight quickly.

This can be useful when you’re searching for your keys in your bag at night and you don't want to have to fiddle with your phone to be able to get to your flashlight. 

You probably won’t remember to use these features straight away when you start using the phone, but it’s easy enough to adopt over time.

In terms of storage, you’ll get 64GB on the Moto G7. Unlike previous Moto G handsets, this doesn’t come in a 32GB variant so you’ll immediately get double the storage of the last version.

If you need any extra space you can add in a microSD card up to 512GB in size to the phone to expand it. We found the phone immediately had over 52GB of storage even after the software was downloaded, so there should be plenty of space for most users.

If you’re using the phone in the UK and Europe, you’ll get NFC on the Moto G7. Those in the US don’t get this feature, which means you won’t be able to use it for contactless payments. 

That’s a real shame for anyone who wants to embrace Google Pay functionality, and it’s not very clear yet why only certain versions of the phone come with the tech.

If you don't want to use the fingerprint scanner, Motorola has also include Face Unlock too. That means you can just wake the device, raise it to your face and it'll unlock.

We found this to work relatively well, but it's not as fast as we've found it on top-end devices from the likes of OnePlus or Apple.

Music, movies and gaming 

• Features a 3.5mm headphone jack, also Bluetooth
• Solid gaming performance considering price

Watching video on the Moto G7 is a joy as it has such a wide screen when in landscape mode. We didn’t find all apps were optimized for the 19:9 aspect ratio, but with such a big display it gives a great viewing experience.

The resolution isn't the best, but it's good enough at Full HD+ considering the price of this handset.

You can connect headphones in through the 3.5mm headphone jack at the bottom of the phone, or you can use Bluetooth headphones instead. We found the connection to be stable while using Bluetooth too.

If you’re listening to music or audio from video through the main speaker it’s worth noting there’s only one on this phone that sits at the bottom of the handset.

That means if you’re holding it in a particular way you’re likely to block the audio from coming out of the phone. That can be particularly annoying when you’re trying to play games on the handset.

We found ourselves often doing this, but if you do it for a while it’s likely you’ll work out how to hold the phone and still be able to hear the sound. 'Good' is the best audio quality you’re going to get here though - it doesn’t offer an amazing experience through the main speaker, but it’s satisfactory.

Playing games on the Moto G7 isn’t going to give you the best experience you’ve ever found on a mobile device, but it does supply a good enough experience that we were quite surprised considering the price of this phone.

It isn’t stunning graphically or super fast at loading games, but it’s able to play games with ease. Even PUBG and Fortnite work on the phone, although you won’t get to play them in their optimum state here.

There aren’t many standout benefits for the Moto G7 when playing games or watching video, but everything here works well with the standard Google apps offering a solid experience and you can download anything else you want from Google Play.

Performance

• Features Qualcomm Snapdragon 632 chipset with 4GB of RAM
• Performs particularly well considering its price

Another big improvement here for the Moto G7 is Motorola has packed in a next-gen processor to up the power. 

It features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 632 chipset, and while that won’t compete with flagship phones we’ve found this to be powerful enough to do pretty much anything you need it to. That's paired with 4GB of RAM, which is the only version of this phone.

You may have to wait a touch longer than on flagship phones, but the Moto G7 is capable of running all the apps and games we wanted it to.

Testing in Geekbench 4, we found the phone had an average multi-core score of 4,661, which is a great result. To put that in perspective, the Moto G6 scored 3,807 while the phone before that – the Moto G5S – scored 2,294.

If you want something slightly more powerful, the Moto G7 Plus scored 4,877 in the same test while the G7 Power scored slightly less at 4,440

In day to day use, we found the Moto G7 to work surprisingly well. It's unlikely to blow you away with how quickly it can load up apps and other services, but everything we tried to do with the phone worked efficiently.