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Motorola Mobility moto g31 Smartphone (6.4" FHD+ Display, 50MP Camera, 4/128GB, 5000mAh, Android 11), Mineral Grey [Amazon Exclusive]

£75.535£151.07Clearance
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Motorola has slightly trimmed down the camera system compared with the Moto G30: The main camera only has a resolution of 50 megapixels, so it takes 12-megapixel photos with pixel-binning for higher brightness by default. In addition, the depth-of-field auxiliary lens has been dropped, but this is probably a tolerable loss that will hardly be noticeable in terms of image quality. We should also point out that the Moto G31, like many other Motorola handsets, comes with a basic, clear plastic case. It's pretty standard as cases go, but it's nice to have it included – it offers a decent level of protection for your new handset at no extra cost. There's also a single loudspeaker down at the bottom of the handset, which produces a level and quality of sound that's satisfactory but no more than that. The Moto G31 comes with Android 11 as standard and is fairly bloat free. The only additions here are Motorola's Moto Actions - which are often-useful gesture controls, and a few other minor tweaks, but the additions are easy enough to ignore and don't take up much space.

While colours are vibrant and sharpness is aplenty, it could’ve been slightly brighter as sunlight legibility wasn't the best. Overall, we were very impressed with the display on the Moto G31, especially considering the low price you have to pay to get hold of the phone. It's definitely one of the better screens down at the budget end of the market, and so if video watching and photo viewing are your priorities, then this might have you leaning towards this particular handset. Everything we viewed on the screen looked sharp and vibrant.You don't get the very latest Android 12 with this handset, but the one before it, Android 11 – and there's no indication from Motorola as to when an upgrade might appear. Thankfully there's very little in the way of bloatware and other pre-installed apps (Motorola is usually pretty good in this regard), so when you start up the phone for the first time you're not overwhelmed with a pile of apps you don't need.

We noticed that the device did get slightly warm in the underbelly while playing games though it must be said that only extensive use would tell us if this was just a blip or is part of its performance. Performance is similarly sluggish. The Moto G31 is powered by a MediaTek Helio G85 chipset with 4GB of RAM, and while it's not the slowest of phones out there it's still woeful if you expect too much of it. As you can see, graphical performance is a bit hit and miss, too. With a standardised 1080p resolution offscreen, the Moto G31 is marginally better than the Moto G30, but there’s again very little in it, and it’s still leagues behind the Nokia G50, Realme 7 and Poco X3 NFC.

The Motorola Moto G73 5G, Moto G53 5G, Moto G23 and Moto G13 arrive, alongside the ultra-budget Moto E13

This isn't really a phone for multitasking, but it can do it in a bind. Similarly, heavy-duty gaming can take a while to get going, and the phone can get quite hot when doing so, but it works. The upgrade proves effective here, delivering multi-core scores that pull 5.6% ahead of the Moto G50 and outstripping the Nokia G50 by more than 10%. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 11’s Snapdragon 680 processor is the closest challenger, coming in just 1% slower than the Moto G62 5G. The phone's 6.4-inch AMOLED display looks bright and vibrant most of the time, even if it misses out on having a refresh rate any higher than 60Hz. The rest of the build is fairly standard, with volume, power, and a fingerprint reader all on the right edge of the phone.

It’s not all bad, though. Battery life is truly astonishing, which makes us think that the MediaTek processor must be remarkably more energy-efficient. The most demanding games is the only area where the handset starts to struggle, though we were able to run the fairly intense Asphalt 9 racing game without any real problems. Geekbench scores of 346 (single-core), 1283 (multi-core) and 1174 (OpenCL) confirm that the phone is down at the lower end of the performance spectrum, and you'll have to do without 5G as well – perhaps not a disaster, considering that 4G is still rather speedy. The Moto G31 has a battery of 5,000mAh, which means it lasts a good couple of days without too much trouble, unless you're using it a lot. The Moto G31 has a triple-camera module with the primary sensor being a 50MP snapper coupled with an 8MP ultra-wide-angle shooter which also works as a depth sensor and a 2MP sensor for macro photography. Though on paper you’d find that Moto has slightly downgraded the camera sensors when compared to the predecessor, however, we are still evaluating the camera performance and will be in a better position to tell you more in some time. The Moto G31 managed nearly a full day of looped video in our standardised test, and while none of the handsets we’re comparing it to is exactly weak on the stamina front, it’s a clear win for the Moto if battery is most important for you. Motorola Moto G31 review: CameraIt's possible to buy the Moto G31 in either 64GB or 128GB varieties, with the latter costing a modest amount more. Battery life The panel isn't the whitest or very brightest ever - side-by-side with our Moto G200 it's clear the flagship wins in both regards, delivering a 'cleaner' image - but in isolation you'd never know and there's still ample brightness from the G31 to cut through varying lighting conditions too. Motorola’s new smartphones cover a relatively wide price range, and in some cases, they rub uncomfortably close to one another. Let’s have a look at what each of these new phones is offering. Motorola Moto G73 5G The phone impresses in terms of battery life, meanwhile. We streamed a video for an hour, with the volume set low and the display at maximum brightness, and the battery level dropped from 100 percent to just 94 percent – that suggests you'll get 16-17 hours in total, which is way above average. In general use the handset held its charge well too, and we think the 5,000mAh battery will get you up to two days of use if you're careful with it. The (wired-only) charging is disappointingly slow though, at only 10W.

The Moto G31 uses the MediaTek Helio G85 chipset, which is fine. Just plain old fine. It's supported by 4GB of RAM so it's far from a speedy phone, but it's also not the slowest either. The camera app though has a plethora of options available like dual capture, night vision, portrait, live filter, cinemagraph, cutout, pro, panorama, and spotlight. There is even slow-motion and time-lapse mode for videos. Early verdict But this doesn’t tell the full story. There’s a slight but noticeable delay between pressing the shutter and the camera snapping, which can prove frustrating with timings, and this also makes it pretty easy to get blurry images, too. At first glance, the red bars may look like the Nokia G50 and Moto G50 outstrip the Moto G62, but their lower resolutions just require less power, allowing for a better frame rate in the on-screen compute tests. Look to the off-screen orange bars and you’ll see things even out – an unsurprising result, as all three use the Adreno 619 GPU. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 runs on the slightly inferior Adreno 610, which accounts somewhat for it trailing 86% behind the others. The textured plastic body means no risk of fingerprints either, so it looks good no matter how long you've been using it for. A punch-hole at the top of the screen offers up the selfie camera lens, but it truly takes up the bare minimum of space - it's literally just the lens.

Budget Phones UK

Although it comes with an optional transparent plastic case for added grip, it’s not really necessary, as Motorola has replaced the smooth plastic finish with one that’s finely textured, with curved thin lines cascading out from around the camera section. It’s not the kind of thing you notice unless you’re looking closely, but it’s a nice touch and extra grip is always welcome. That said, it has its share of limitations like the 60Hz refresh rate which for a few could be a downside while the rest might consider it a reason why the phone offers slightly longer battery life. The triple rear camera consists of a 50 MP main camera with f/1.8 aperture, an 8 MP ultra-wide f/2.2, and a 2 MP f/2.4 macro lens. Up front you get a 13 MP selfie camera with f/2.2 aperture. Reviewers have called the macro lens "useless". The wide-angle works in a pinch for group selfies. The main camera takes decent shots under good lighting conditions. It doesn't have optical image stabilisation, but it is equipped with phase detection autofocus. It offers a Night Mode as well, but this is far from spectacular. Budget Phones UK

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