Just a few weeks after the launch of the Moto G85, Motorola has launched another smartphone in the series, but at a more affordable price. The new Moto G45 5G is an entry-level smartphone that comes with some great features, including a 6.5-inch flat display, a 5,000mAh battery, and a 50MP rear camera. The smartphone has a signature vegan leather back and continues the G-series design language. I have been testing the Moto G45 5G for a week and it has exceeded my expectations despite some minor flaws. Let’s find out how the Moto G45 actually performs in this review by India Today Tech.
Sophisticated design made with vegan leather
Like many other OEMs in the market, Motorola also focuses on offering sleek designs. It is impressive that the company has managed to pull off that form factor even in a sub-Rs 10,000 phone. Despite having a large 5,000mAh battery, the smartphone is lightweight and easy to carry. It weighs 183g and is 8.03mm thick.
Like the more expensive Motorola phones launched this year, the Moto G45 continues to sport a premium vegan leather back panel. However, despite giving the phone a premium feel, if you look a little closer you can see that Motorola has compromised on quality somewhere to bring a vegan leather finish to a sub-Rs 10,000 phone. The edges of the vegan leather don’t sit nicely flush with the plastic frame of the device. As I’ve only been using the phone for a week, I can’t say for sure, but it seems like the leather back around the edges may peel off after extended use. But there’s an upside to that – the Moto G45 is more resistant to dust and dirt.
I recently reviewed the Moto G85 and to be honest it feels a little more premium and costs almost Rs 8,000 more, but it gets dirty easily. So there are always good and bad things.
The rear panel is very clean with just the company logo in the middle. The dual camera setup is housed in a slightly elevated island and also has a small flashlight right next to the camera sensors.
The smartphone has a side fingerprint sensor on one edge that also doubles as a power button. I’m not a fan of side fingerprint sensors, but it does speed up the screen unlocking process. Overall, the design of the Moto G45 5G is nifty.
Incredibly bright display
The Moto G45 5G features a 6.5-inch HD+ display with a 120Hz refresh rate. It delivers smooth, seamless transitions and is bright enough to show vibrant colors even in direct sunlight. The device is IP52-rated for protection against dust and splashes of water.
The display is great, but the Moto G45 5G has thick bezels, especially at the bottom edge. That’s pretty much expected for a phone in this price range, but it would have been nice if they were a little thinner. The display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3.
The overall experience of watching content, playing games, scrolling through Instagram, reading articles on the Moto G45 5G was good. In fact, it exceeded my expectations.
Performance meets standards
The Moto G45 5G meets or even exceeds my expectations for a smartphone under Rs 10,000. What were my expectations? To be able to use social media apps like WhatsApp and Instagram, watch YouTube videos, watch movies and shows on OTT apps, and of course make and receive calls. The Moto G45 did all this well and without any lags or issues.
I also like how clean the UI on the Moto G45 is. Most of the competitors from Poco, Xiaomi, Realme etc come with a ton of bloatware. The Moto G45 5G comes with only Google services pre-installed.
The Moto G45 5G is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 6s Gen 3 and is available in 4GB and 8GB RAM variants. I tested the 8GB model, which is priced at Rs 12,999. The device only offers the 128GB storage option. The Moto G45 runs Android 14.
To further test the performance of the Moto G45, we also ran a few benchmark tests. On Geekbench, the device achieved a single-core score of 904 and a multi-core score of 2118. In the 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme stress test, which is an extreme gaming test, the Moto G85 achieved a stability score of 99.2% and a maximum loop score of 378. This is a much higher score than the Redmi 13 5G, which was launched last month at a starting price of Rs 13,999.
But as I said at the beginning of this review, the Moto G45 is not without its flaws. Multitasking is not this phone’s forte. Most users of this budget phone will not multitask on it, but it’s my job to test this phone thoroughly, and I found that switching between multiple apps at the same time caused the device to hang for a few seconds. That said, this issue may be fixed with an OTA update.
But overall performance is good, and I barely experienced any issues with heat even while charging.
Powerful battery
The Moto G45 5G is equipped with a 5,000mAh battery with 18W charging support. The device easily lasted more than a day even though I use the phone a lot and use it as my primary device. To really test the battery performance of this phone, I watched a 30-minute stand-up comedy show on the phone while simultaneously switching to Instagram and Whatsapp. I did this for about 40 minutes and the battery only drained 5% during that time.
I also used the device to watch online content for over an hour and a half and saw minimal battery drain – the maximum drain I observed was 20-25 percent when using the phone continuously for two hours.
Battery life is great, but charging speeds aren’t the fastest. It took just over 30 minutes to charge the Moto G45 5G from 10% to 48%. If the battery is at 0%, it charges quickly when plugged into the charger, but it takes over 1.5 hours to fully charge the device.
But here’s a word of warning: For convenience, you might want a faster charging speed. However, if you buy a phone with a long battery life, I don’t think compromising on charging speed is that bad. In fact, it’s not a bad thing at all. A slower charging speed means that the battery will be in good health for a long time. So, if you want to use the phone for a few years after purchasing it, buying a device with a long battery life and not offering insane charging speeds of 40-50W is fine.
The rear camera takes great photos
The Moto G45 performs best when using the rear camera. It has a dual 50MP camera. For selfies and video calling, the 16MP front camera is used. It captures crisp and clear images, the only condition being that the subject doesn’t move around much.
The smartphone’s shutter speed was one of the major challenges I faced while testing the camera – it took a while to process the image, and unless I and my subject were very still, it would lag behind the actual shot I wanted to take in the first place.
In portrait mode, edge detection is good. It’s not perfect, but the blurring is pretty good. However, when comparing portrait mode on the rear camera with the front camera, the rear camera gives better results. The front camera has a bit more difficulty with edge detection, especially when lighting conditions are not ideal.
Overall, the camera on the Moto G45 5G performs well. Below are some photos we took with the Moto G45 5G.
Moto G45 5G: Is it worth buying?
You can effectively buy the Moto G45 5G starting at Rs 9,999. And that’s with bank discounts. Without discounts, the phone can be purchased for Rs 10,999. Worth or not, the Moto G45, taking its parts together, comes together as a solid device at this price point. It looks great, the display is excellent, performance is almost lag-free, and the battery lasts for over a day.
