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Motorola Moto G5s Plus Review: Plans | Pricing | Specs

Name: Motorola Moto G5s Plus
Brand: Motorola

Alex Kidman

Last updated: 7 September 2019

Motorola's Moto G5s Plus hits the sweet spot between price, style and features, making it an excellent phone for cash-strapped buyers.

5.5 inches

Display size

1080 x 1920px

32GB

Internal storage

13MP + 13MP

Rear camera

3,000 mAh

Battery size

Finder rated as Average vs similar phones

Details

Device features

Rear camera megapixels	13MP + 13MP
Rear camera aperture size	f/2.0 + f/2.0
Video recording	4K
Front camera megapixels	8MP
Front camera aperture size	f/2.0

Processor	Snapdragon 625
RAM	3
Operating system	Android 7
Internal storage	32GB
External storage support	Up to 128GB
Battery capacity	3,000mAh

Launch price (RRP)	$369
Launch date	2017-08

Alex Kidman is the tech and telco editor at Finder. He's been a technology writer with experience spanning more than 20 years, writing and editing at Gizmodo, CNET, PC Magazine, Kotaku and many more. Alex has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of New England and a serious passion for retro gaming.

The good

All-day battery life
Great design for a budget phone
Good battery life
Dual lens camera
Quick fingerprint sensor

The bad

Middling app performance
Focus effects only on dual lens
Camera can be slow

With a solid metal body design, clean Android interface and robust battery performance, the Motorola G5s Plus poses a significant challenge to every other mid-range handset.

Motorola launched a lot of phones in 2017. It doesn't feel like it was all that long ago that the Lenovo subsidiary was launching the Motorola Moto G5 and Moto G5 Plus, and already they've been superseded by new models.

As the name suggests, the Motorola G5s Plus is an upgrade from the existing G5 Plus that's been on sale in Australia for a few months now. However, unlike some point upgrades, Motorola's actually done quite a bit of work to differentiate the G5s Plus from its predecessor.

Design

Metal body design
5.5-inch display

The difference is immediately apparent when you take the Motorola Moto G5s Plus out of the box. Motorola has shifted from plastic bodies on its budget G line phones to full metal, and while that's no style revelation in the premium space, it's quite rare for lower-cost phones.
You could very easily fool folks into thinking that the Moto G5s Plus is a more expensive handset than it actually is simply from the build quality alone, which is superb. I don't generally like gold handsets (call it a quirk if you must) but the Moto G5s Plus's take on gold is one that's undeniably eye-catching.
The standard Motorola rounded edges style is very much present here, so you can tell it's part of the same design family as the Moto E4 or Moto X4 phones. It's just that with the Moto G5s Plus it's scaled up somewhat.
That's because the Motorola Moto G5s Plus differentiates itself from its predecessor with a jump in screen size. Where the G5 Plus had a 5.2-inch display, the G5s Plus features a 5.5-inch full HD display. There's no water resistance at play, although, like predecessors, it features a water-repellant coating that should handle a little light rain.
The Motorola Moto G5s Plus measures in at 153.5 x 76.2 x 8mm with a carrying weight of 168 grams. While top and bottom bezels are very much in effect, the minimal side bezels mean that it's a pleasant phone to hold and use for most tasks.
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Camera

Dual lenses on a mid-price handset
Good but not great quality

Dual lens cameras used to be the sole province of premium handsets, but we're seeing more and more devices in the budget and mid-range space incorporate multiple lenses. In the case of the Motorola Moto G5s Plus, it features dual 13MP rear sensors, along with a front-facing 8MP selfie camera.
Motorola's approach to that dual camera is one that we're fast becoming familiar with in the budget phone space because it's broadly very similar to that found on the four-camera-toting Huawei Nova 2i, in that you don't actually access each lens separately. Instead, they're combined for portrait-style focus effects, with a slider to modify focus intensity. It's a nice enough tool to have for highlighting specific parts of your photo, but it's also a definite feature gap away from dual lens cameras that offer different angle or colour effects.
The Motorola Moto G5s Plus's camera performance was generally good, but never exactly great. The largest problem I had with it while testing was a simple speed issue. It's not terribly fast to focus, nor is it particularly swift to process photos once taken. Again, that's somewhat to be expected on a phone at this kind of price point, and I've certainly tested worse cameras. Don't expect anything super-sharp or super-fast and you'll do fine. Here are some sample shots from the Motorola Moto G5s Plus:
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Performance

Snapdragon 625 gives decent mid-range power
Variable RAM could make a big performance difference

How do you produce a phone at a mid-range price with a larger display and more cameras than the previous model? If you're Motorola, you do that by throwing in the same essential beating heart as the last model in the form of the somewhat ageing Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor. Motorola pairs this with either 3GB or 4GB of RAM, depending on where you source it from.

The results in a benchmark sense are relatively predictable. Here's how the Motorola Moto G5s Plus compares against similarly priced competitors using Geekbench 4's CPU test:

Handset	Geekbench 4 CPU Single Core (higher is better)	Geekbench 4 CPU Multi Core (higher is better)
OnePlus 5	1976	6506
Oppo R11	1616	5895
Motorola G5s Plus	843	4288
Moto G5 Plus	842	4180
Motorola X4	865	4087
Samsung Galaxy A7	771	3998
Huawei Nova 2i	918	3331
Nokia 5	662	2833
Nokia 6	664	2832
Oppo A57	662	2810
LG Q6	536	2005

Here's how it compares using 3DMark's Ice Storm Unlimited test:

Handset	3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited Result
OnePlus 5	39497
Oppo R11	24525
Motorola X4	16763
Moto G5 Plus	13753
Samsung Galaxy A7	13629
Motorola G5s Plus	13163
Huawei Nova 2i	10308
Oppo A57	9516
Nokia 5	9483
Nokia 6	9435
LG Q6	7779

It is worth noting that we tested with the 4GB variant of the Motorola Moto G5s Plus, as sold directly by Motorola in Australia on its website. Pick up a G5s Plus in a store and you'll pay a little less, but you'll also only get 3GB of onboard storage to play with as well. As a result, expect those performance figures to dip a little.

As always, benchmarks are only part of the story, especially because of the way that Motorola treats Android on the vast majority of devices. Simply put, it doesn't do much at all to pure Android beyond a few simple key gestures and tiny software tweaks that you might not even notice if they weren't actively pointed out to you.

If you miss the days of affordable clean Android Nexus devices, I reckon Motorola's Moto approach might just be your next best thing. The Moto G5s Plus certainly isn't a powerhouse phone, but it's definitely one that will meet the power needs of its mid-range buying audience.

Battery life

3000 mAh battery provides acceptable battery performance

Another design aspect of the Motorola Moto G5s Plus that it owes to its predecessor is its charging mechanism via the older micro USB standard. That feels a little dated, although it's really only an annoyance if you forget and try to plug the Moto G5s Plus in the "wrong" way.

Motorola puts a 3,000mAh battery in the Motorola Moto G5s Plus, which is a solid quantity of power to match up with what is, after all, a low power processor. Pitted against that is the larger display of the Motorola Moto G5s Plus, so I was keen to see how it would perform. Using Geekbench 3's older battery test, here's how the Motorola Moto G5S Plus compared:

Handset	Geekbench 3 battery test duration	Geekbench 3 battery score
Motorola X4	12:42:00	7515
Samsung Galaxy A7	12:40:30	7603
Motorola Moto G5 Plus	11:15:40	6756
Motorola G5s Plus	11:08:40	6686
Huawei Nova 2i	9:37:10	5771
OnePlus 5	9:33:30	5735
LG Q6	8:44:40	3498
Nokia 5	8:42:30	5044
Nokia 6	8:19:10	4833
Oppo R11	7:52:30	4725

The Motorola Moto G5s Plus isn't the king of the mid-range hill when it comes to battery life, and there's clearly a small price to pay for that larger screen relative to the G5 Plus. That being said, single day battery life is definitely feasible, and my own testing backs this up.

Verdict

A good solid phone, but one that's now showing its age.

The Motorola Moto G5s Plus stands out for its robust physical design and good battery life performance. At the time, it was the lowest cost dual lens camera we'd seen on a mid-range phone. That makes it a very good option for those who want to buy a phone outright.

However, you do have choices. For the performance-centric, it's impossible to overlook the OnePlus 5, but equally tough to actually source one in Australia right now. Motorola's own Moto X4 is a little more pricey but even more nicely built, and Oppo's R11 has more photographic flexibility, as does LG's Q6.

Motorola Moto G5s Plus: What the other reviewers say

Site	Comment	Score
The Verge	"The G5s Plus probably isn’t the budget king for most people if your main priority is saving a bit of money."	7.5/10
TechRadar	"The Moto G5s Plus is one of the best big screen budget phones around."	4.5/5

Pricing and availability

Motorola Moto G5s Plus

Motorola's solid G5s Plus

The Motorola Moto G5s Plus matches premium style with a more achievable price point.

The Motorola Moto G5s Plus originally sold in Australia outright for $459 with 4GB of RAM onboard, or $429 with only 3GB of RAM on an outright basis only.