Moto G82 5G is Motorola’s most premium offering in the G-series. The new mid-range smartphone comes with some value-for-money hardware. It also offers a few segment-first features like a 10-bit pOLED display and a 50MP main camera with optical image stabilisation support. With a starting price of Rs 21,499, the Moto G82 5G takes on the likes of the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G, OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite 5G, etc.

Motorola sent us the 6GB RAM variant of the Moto G82 5G for review. After using the device for about a week’s time, I have many good things to say about the Moto G82 5G. However, the phone has a few shortcomings which may push it further away from being the best smartphone under Rs 25,000 in India. With all that in place, should you consider buying the device? Here is our Moto G82 5G review to help you decide.

Moto G82 5G aims to be an all-rounder with an emphasis on providing an enhanced multimedia experience. So, let’s dive straight into our Moto G82 5G review, starting with the overall design and display experience.

Moto G82 5G is among the most lightweight and thinnest smartphones out there. The phone measures about 7.99mm in terms of thickness and weighs about 173 grams. The light weight is achieved due to a polycarbonate back, which Motorola calls a PMMA-acrylic glass finish. Despite featuring a polycarbonate body, the Moto G82 5G doesn’t feel any cheap. In fact, some folks who saw the device in person in its Meteorite Grey shade really liked the overall design.

The curved edges help offer a better in-hand feel. That being said, the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G, which is among the best smartphones under Rs 25,000, offers a glass sandwich design and a more premium in-hand feel. Also, I am not a fan of the fingerprint-friendly glossy finish on the G82 5G. If you belong to the same clan, opt for the white colour option to hide the smudges.

Coming to one of the USPs of the Moto G82 5G, the display. The Moto G82 has a fairly tall 6.6-inch display. The overall size, coupled with thin bezels around the screen, makes the device a good option for consuming video content. It also uses a pOLED panel to offer rich, vibrant colours. Adding a cherry on the cake is support for a billion colours, thanks to the 10-bit panel. Combined, these features offer an enhanced multimedia experience. Also, there is support for a 120Hz refresh rate and 360Hz touch sampling rate.

While offering support for a billion colours at such a price is great, the lack of HDR10 certification feels like a bummer. Technically, the HDR 10 certification is missing due to Snapdragon 695 SoC’s limitations, which is the chipset that powers the Moto G82 SoC.

The display has a claimed brightness of over 700 nits. In my experience with the phone, the screen does a fairly decent job when under direct sunlight. You might need to crank up the brightness levels to the max when outdoors.

Complimenting the display is the dual speaker setup, which also supports Dolby Atmos. Both speakers offer equally loud and clear sound. However, at full volume, you will feel the rear panel vibrating a bit, which can get annoying if you are binge-watching content while holding the phone.

The Moto G52 is also IP52-rated, meaning that it can handle some water splashes here and there. The phone also has a side-mounted fingerprint scanner, which isn’t among the best out there. Because of the phone’s fingerprint-friendly back, I preferred using it with the case provided in the box. There were times that may be due to the design of the case or perhaps some fault in my unit, the fingerprint scanner failed to detect and unlock the device. This wasn’t the case always though, but I did experience issues frequently.

The Moto G82 5G features a Snapdragon 695 SoC, which is surely a segment-favourite. We have already seen the same chipset powering the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G, OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite 5G and a couple of other smartphones. The 6nm chipset offers a good balance of performance and efficiency. While day to day tasks can be performed without breaking a sweat, the Moto G82 5G can also be used for casual gaming. We played BGMI on the device. Like other smartphones with the same chipset, the Moto G82 5G’s BGMI settings are limited to Ultra frame rate with Smooth graphics. Switch to HD graphics and the frame rate drops to “High”. While casual gamers can do with these settings, those in competitive gaming need to look elsewhere.

The phone handles Asphalt 9 quite well. It did not feel much warm even after about 45 minutes of combined gameplay. However, as I said earlier, the centre portion of the rear panel vibrates a lot at full (or near full volume), which can get a bit annoying at times.

The choice of chipset helps the Moto G82 5G offer enough juice to last more than a day. It packs a 5000 mAh battery, which lasts for a day and a few hours the next day. The average screen-on time was about eight hours based on our use case of gaming, consuming video content, scrolling through social media, etc.

The phone supports only 33W fast charging, which takes more than an hour to charge the 5000 mAh battery completely. The competition, in comparison, offers up to 67W fast charging.

The software experience is where Motorola wins big. The phone runs Android 12 out of the box. Like many other Motorola phones out there, the Moto G82 5G offers a bloatware-free UI. On top of that, the MyUX skin has a bunch of features and options to customise the software as per your preferences. Be it changing the icon colour that matches the theme or the wallpaper’s colour palette, or adjusting the font size. The Moto G82 5G also supports multiple gestures that can trigger certain tasks.

For instance, twist the wrist while holding the phone and it quickly opens the camera. I also liked the simple, yet useful gesture where you lift the phone and look at the screen to unlock it. Of course, the feature uses AI face unlock but saves you an additional tap on the display. You can also double-tap on the power button to activate quick shortcuts. For some odd reason, this particular gesture did not work multiple times, despite disabling and enabling it in the settings. There are a bunch of other gestures that can be enabled in the Moto app.

Motorola has also promised to roll out the Android 13 update for the Moto G82 5G once available. In addition to this, the phone will get three years' worth of security updates.

Moto G82 5G is among the best smartphones in its price range when it comes to camera performance. The phone has a 50MP triple-camera setup on the back. The main camera has support for optical image stabilisation (OIS). When it comes to daylight performance, the main camera is quite impressive. Overall, the images are sharp and offer good details. The dynamic range is also quite decent.

In lowlight, the night mode helps offer better exposure, but you will see some noise in the darker areas. The images shot in low light are also slightly soft. The same is the case with the 8MP ultrawide camera. There is a slight colour shift when compared to the main camera but you get a wider field of view with a decent amount of details. The dynamic range of the ultrawide camera is below average.

The 16MP front camera does a decent job too. You get close to real skin tone, but selfies are generally soft. Portrait mode does a really good job when it comes to edge detection. Below are some of the camera samples that we shot for our Moto G82 5G review.

The Moto G82 5G is a solid offering for Rs 21,499. With the Rs 1,500 SBI card offer, the deal gets even sweeter at Rs 19,999. The Moto G82 5G checks almost all boxes when it comes to offering a reliable camera performance. While there is room for improvement when it comes to lowlight performance, the camera does a fairly good job for the price.

Those who consume a lot of content will like the display and the speakers of the Moto G82 5G. Couple that with a long battery life, the phone is an obvious recommendation for those who have an on-the-go lifestyle.

The software experience is also great. Props to Motorola for ensuring three years of security support and also promising to roll out the Android 13 update once available.

The Snapdragon 695 SoC offers a good balance of performance and efficiency. However, its shortcomings, like no support for HDR10 and 4K video recording, pull the phone back from achieving the title of the best smartphone under Rs 25,000. While the design looks neat, it is now becoming redundant and Motorola really needs to hit the refresh button here. Lastly, small things like the Moto gestures and the IP52 rating help the phone score some additional points.

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