Moto G51 Quick Review: First Impression | Smartprix

A few days since it released the Moto G31, Motorola has launched the Moto G51 in India. This bigger sibling is the first smartphone in the world with a Snapdragon 480+ chipset. Not only that, but it also comes with a 120Hz FHD+ display, a 50MP triple camera setup, and 5G support. All these and the phone costs ₹14,999. So, the question popping in your mind must be whether there’s enough value for that price here.

Well, it’s too early to tell since I have had the phone in my hands for a few hours only. Rather for now, from what I’ve experienced, here’s is my initial impression of the device.

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Unboxing | Price & Specs | Design | Audiovisual | Connectivity | Performance | Battery | Camera | Quick Review | FAQ

Moto G51 Unboxing

Moto G51 comes in a typical Motorola packaging. There’s nothing new here on that front. You get these things along with the handset:

• Charger
• USB-C Cable
• SIM Card Tool
• Paperwork

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Dimensions and Weight: 170 x 77 x 9mm; About 208g
Screen: 6.8-inch (2400 x 1080 pixels) Full HD+ LCD 20:9 aspect ratio display, 120Hz refresh rate, 240Hz touch sampling rate
CPU: Snapdragon 480+
GPU: Adreno 619 GPU
RAM: 4GB LPDDR4x
Storage: 64GB uMCP (expandable up to 512GB)
Rear cameras: 50MP Main Camera + 8MP ultrawide lens + 2MP Macro lens; 1080P 30FPS
Front camera: 13MP; 1080P 30FPS
Battery: 5000mAh with 20W fast charging
OS: Android 11 with My UX
Colors: Indigo Blue and Bright Silver
Misc: 5G, Dual Nano Card Slot, Dual-band WiFi ac, Bluetooth 5.1, GPS, 3.5mm headset jack, USB-C 2.0 port, Dual Mic, NFC, Single downward-firing speaker, side-mounted fingerprint reader
Moto G51 India Price: Rs. 14,999

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And here we begin a quick review of the phone. Starting with —

Moto G51 feels a lot like the Moto G60 I had reviewed earlier this year. It is a long and broad slab with squarish sides and a slight curve by the back. At 170.5mm height, 9.1mm thickness, and 208 grams weight, it’s a brawny fella. What this means is that it won’t be the easiest one to carry around. Especially if you have small hands or pockets.

Now, this size would prove a deterrent in using that Google Assistant button. Even to access the volume rocker, you’d have to stretch your fingers or slide down your palm. You might not care about the Google invoker but volume buttons are something you’d use regularly. So, I wish the handset was a bit handier.

The good thing is that the fingerprint scanner which is part of the power button is accessible as well as accurate in its job. It would be the go-to biometric option in dark environments wherein facial recognition struggles.

The rest of the peripheral stuff such as the 3.5mm jack, USB-C port, dual mics, solo speaker, and hybrid SIM slot is par for the course.

Rotate to the rear and there you have a triple camera stack housed in a rather flat oblong. Beneath it sits a Moto logo.

The phone is made out of plastic and looks simple with a subtle sheen in the Indigo Blue color. Perhaps its boxy physique is its ID ‘cause there aren’t any other idiosyncrasies setting it apart from the dime-a-dozen devices out there. That’s one way of looking at it or you say it doesn’t matter as you’d slap on a case anyway. Moto bundles a transparent TPU silicone cover in the box. Although the device manages to resist smudges, a case should act as an extra layer of resistance against both dirt and damage. Speaking of damage, it is IP52 rated against water but I suggest you don’t risk it.

And with that, let’s move to the display on the front.

The display stretches 6.8-inches with a punch-hole cutout and thick bezel only at the bottom. It is fairly bright outdoors. And despite being LCD, it is good in color reproduction and contrast. Yeah, blacks aren’t perfect but passable. Things appear well defined on this full HD panel.

There is up to 120Hz high-speed refresh rate and a 240Hz touch sampling rate. This means everything from regular scrolling to game animations should respond smoother than a standard screen. Within the settings, you can downgrade to 60Hz for lesser power consumption. Here, you also get options like Adaptive brightness toggle, color profiles (Natural, Saturated, and temperature tuner), system-UI theming options, Dark Theme, Night Light, Attentive Display, split-screen, screen recorder, etc.

As for the audio, the G51 comes with a downward-firing single speaker and a headphone jack. The sound output from the speaker should be enough for listening in a small room but nothing beyond that. You can choose various sound profiles within Dolby Atmos settings.

Moving to the wireless audio and stuff now.

The call experience is alright from the two-mic and earpiece setup. Moto G51 sports dual SIMs although it is a hybrid slot. On the plus side, there is support for 4G VoLTE as well as 5G. It comes with compatibility for 12 global Sub-6GHz 5G bands and the list includes n1/n3/n5/n7/n8/n20/n28/n38/n40/n41/n77/n78.

The company has also equipped the device with 3CA carrier aggregation, 4×4 MIMO, Bluetooth 5.1, VoWiFi, dual-band WiFi ac, NFC, GPS, and a USB-C 2.0 port.

And next, let’s check out its core internals.

Moto G51 is the world’s first Snapdragon 480+ phone. Now, don’t go by its name as it is a spiritual successor to something like Snapdragon 720G instead of SD480. Blame Qualcomm for its naming convention.

Anyhoo, SD480+ is an 8nm chip with 2 Cortex-A76 cores clocked at 2.2GHz and 6 Cortex-A55 cores at 1.8 GHz clock speed. This is paired up with Adreno 619 GPU, a Snapdragon X51 5G modem, 4GB of LPDDR4x RAM, and 64GB of uMCP storage. There is an option to expand it further up to 512GB using a microSD card.

The software is the good-old stock Android 11 with My UX skin. And as you know, this preserves the vanilla minimalism with some meaningful features like the Google discover page, three-finger screenshot, karate chop motion for fast torch access, a quick twist of the phone to open the camera, peek display for a glance at notifications, and important information like date, time, battery percentage, etc. One of the new things I found was Power Touch which brings a side panel upon pressing of power button twice in quick succession. Although, I couldn’t make it work. Will try it again.

Finally, on the photography side of things, you are getting a 50MP triple camera setup. Moto G51’s primary is a 50MP sensor that outs downsampled results. In the camera app, you get an Ultra-res 50MP camera mode. BTW, this app takes a second in loading to the viewfinder. The shutter speed is fast though.