After having a few launches under the Moto G series, the company that has been seeking to give itself a good comeback in the mid-range market, had come up with a new smartphone that certainly does a lot of talking. The Motorola One Power entered the Indian market with a pricing that was well expected.
Now, to begin with, what the phone offers is a 6.2-inch display on the front, Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 chipset, 4GB of RAM, 64GB internal storage, and everything that you would expect from a typical mid-range phone. It is a 16MP + 5MP combination on the back of the device, with a 12MP camera on the front, while the highlight of the phone is its 5000 mAh battery.
This is the first phone from the company to actually come with the notch on the display, whether you like it or not. But while doing that, Motorola also chose not to give the phone a Moto G or Moto X-like glass back and there is a full metal back not extending towards the side as there is a plastic frame, and the phone feels solid and sturdy. The weight and thickness are more than what one would be comfortable with, as it is 9mm in thickness and 205gm in weight, but that is well expected with the 5000 mAh battery that is packed in.
Let’s head into checking out what’s good and what’s not with the Motorola One Power. Just like every phone in the market, the One Power comes with its own set of advantages and a few issues as well.
Moto One Power Pros
The build quality
The phone is heftily built with a great build quality. The metal back gives the assurance of this being safe when the phone falls, while though you cannot be sure about the front of the phone. For such a large phone, the build quality is surely important and it is good that Motorola has done a good job there.
Excellent battery life
Stock Android under Android One Program would be one of the reasons why the phone has a longer standby and a good battery life, but the primary reason is its 5000 mAh battery that helps keep the phone usable for even two days at a stretch for a moderate user. The average screen-on time we got was over 7 hours, and for the heavy users too, the One Power doesn’t need the charge by the end of the day since there is a good percentage of battery left even after a considerable amount of gaming, YouTube, and social network app usage.
Add to that, the company has given Turbo Charger that is capable of charging the phone fully in about 2 hours and 30 minutes, which is a fast charging speed because the regular chargers would take about the same time to charge a device with about 3000 mAh battery, and it would be a pain to charge a larger battery with something like that.
Decent performer
The phone cannot be called the best of the performers out there when the competitors like Realme 2 Pro and Xiaomi Mi A2 have certainly better chipsets and deliver a better performance in not just the day-to-day usage but also while gaming or carrying out any power-intensive tasks. But for a regular user who would not worry about the heavy tasks and is fine with the medium-level graphics possible in games, this is not going to be a disappointment as the Snapdragon 636 chipset is a good one.
The stock Android is an addition to why the performance has been smooth enough and the phone doesn’t give up while playing games. There’s 4GB of RAM for multitasking and that keeps quite a good number of apps open in the background, and the RAM management is also quite well done in the One Power.
Cons of Moto One Power
Security – Not impressive
Let’s begin with what is not present. The Face Unlock solution that is commonly present these days in most of the phones is not a part of this phone and that is rather a disappointment because it would have added to the easy ways for users to unlock their phone while keeping it secured. On the other side, while there is a fingerprint sensor on the back with the Moto Dimple, it shows a little gap between the recognition of the fingerprint and the unlocking of the phone.
That certainly is not a good experience when the other phones have a swift recognition and unlocking, and there are additional ways of unlocking the phone with the security activated.
Camera performance in low light
It has been a problem with the Moto phones in recent times, and that continues with the Motorola One Power too. The camera set that is given here is powerful, and you have a 16-megapixel primary sensor with PDAF and a 5-megapixel secondary depth sensor, but the edge detection in portraits is not perfect and the edges are cut out in some pictures. In the bright light conditions, the HDR automatically functions and helps in better colors but in low light, the camera yet again struggles to focus, let alone take a good capture.
More camera samples: Click here.
There are several modes, options, toggles, and the user can take advantage of them to do the best of the capturing but you will have to bear with some occasional misses when you are capturing the portrait shots. For the regular captures, it is all well done without you having to think much about it. One of the additions done to the camera app is the Google Lens that identifies the objects the camera is pointing at, and it is certainly a nice addition if you know what Google Lens is and how you can take advantage of it.
Of course, in the low light, there is a Night mode that can be activated, but unlike the other phones in the market, the mode has to be manually switched to, and it doesn’t automatically go when there is no appreciable light around. Though there is no solution for stabilizing shaky videos, the provision of 4K video recording is appreciable, while with the 12MP front camera, you can capture 1080p videos.
Final Verdict – Is Motorola One Power worth it?
It certainly is, if you really ignore what the competition offers and are looking at a simpler device that offers an amazing battery life. The cameras don’t impress a lot but they don’t capture something you would instantly reject, so with the little compromises, the Motorola One Power does excel in the aspects that are important to the user. Having itself in the Android One program, the phone also promises itself with the years of major Android updates and security updates as well, and that is something many users look out for, while buying a new phone for the long-term usage.
While against the options like Moto G6, the One Power should surely be a clear choice, there is a stiff competition from the likes of Realme 2 Pro, Xiaomi Mi A2, Nokia 6.1 Plus, and some others that keep themselves full of goodness and a competitive pricing.
