Motorola Moto G6 Play review: Plans | Pricing | Specs

Name: Motorola Moto G6 Play
Brand: Motorola

Alex Kidman

Last updated: Apr 3, 2019

The Motorola Moto G6 Play is a solid budget handset, although it's the least powerful of the 2018 Moto G family, excluding battery life.

Great battery life
Includes headphone socket
32GB of onboard storage
Nice design for a plastic phone

Sluggish application performance
Still uses microUSB
Ordinary camera

5.7 inches

Display size

32GB

Internal storage

13 MP

Rear camera

4,000 mAh

Battery size

Finder rated as Average vs similar phones

Display

Display Size

5.7 inches

Pixels per inch (PPI)

282 ppi

Camera

Rear camera megapixels

13MP

Rear camera aperture size

f/2.0

Video recording

1080p

Front camera megapixels

8MP

Physical Dimensions

Dimensions

154.4mm x 72.2mm x 9mm

Weight

175g

Connectivity

NFC

Yes

Wi-Fi

802.11 b/g/n

Network category speed

Category 4

Power, storage and battery

Processor

MSM8937

RAM

3GB

Operating system

Android 8

Internal storage

32GB

External storage support

Up to 128GB

Battery capacity

4,000mAh

Device features

Headphone jack

Yes

Fingerprint sensor

Yes

Water resistance rating

N/A

Wireless charging

Launch price (RRP)	$329
Launch date	2018-06

Go to Motorola's site More info

Alex Kidman

Alex Kidman was the tech and telco editor at Finder and is now a freelance technology writer. 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.

Finder score: 3 How we score our reviews

Where to buy

What's in this review?

Design
Camera
Performance
Battery life
Verdict
Pricing and availability
Specifications

Motorola's crop of Moto G series phones for 2018 still targets the affordable/budget space that the brand has been best known for in recent years, with the Moto G6 Play taking the bottom-of-the-ladder spot in terms of price and features. While that invites some compromises that aren't as evident in the fancier Motorola Moto G6 or Motorola Moto G6 Plus, it's still a fine handset in its own right.

Design

Pleasing design
Plastic finish
MicroUSB charging is old school

Your initial reaction to the Moto G6 Play is likely to be one of appreciation because it has a smooth simple style that looks a little better than you might expect on a cheap handset. I'm something of a sucker for reflective blue handsets, which is what the review sample provided was, but your mileage may vary.
What won't vary is how quickly you will work out that Motorola has still built the Moto G6 Play to a budget. Its bigger brothers feature fancy glass backs, but the Moto G6 Play is plastic all the way, and it shows as it quickly picks up fingerprints and feels cheap under the hand. At 175g, it's reasonably light in the hand. A simple clear plastic case is provided in the box to keep it safe from scratches.
While premium flagships are all about dropping ports and looking to the future, the Motorola Moto G6 Play is positively retro in its approach, with both benefits and drawbacks. On the plus side, you do get a proper headphone jack for headphones.
On the minus side, charging and data is via the older microUSB connection, which means a fiddly experience when plugging it in compared to the newer USB connection. The other members of the Moto G family for 2018 have fully reversible USB C charging, but if you want to save a few bucks, you've got to put up with a few compromises along the way.
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Camera

Definitely a budget camera, rather than a great one

Compromise is also where the Motorola Moto G6 Play's camera sits. Anyone expecting flagship performance out of a budget handset is fooling themselves, but we've seen performance out of Motorola in previous G-series phones that pushed harder than you might expect in this price bracket previously.
However, that's not the Motorola Moto G6 Play's way. It comes with a single rear 13MP f/2.0 lens and a front 8MP selfie shooter to play with. Motorola's camera app is simple enough to use, and like most phone cameras these days, if you're shooting in decent sunlight, you can get decent enough images for web use. However, push it hard in any way at all and the cracks show, especially in low-light situations where you'll get lots of noise and lost detail:
For its price range, the Moto G6 Play offers adequate photo performance, but that's all you're getting.
Motorola Moto G6 Play Sample Photos
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Performance

Ordinary app performance
Only a 720p screen rather than Full HD

The Motorola Moto G6 Play has the lowest specification processor of this year's Moto G family, featuring the older Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 SoC with just 3GB of RAM. While that's an obviously price-limited processor, you do get something back in storage with 32GB of onboard storage where many competitor devices make do with 16GB. If that's not enough for you, the Motorola Moto G6 Play does allow for microSD storage expansion.
Still, that Snapdragon 430 isn't a powerhouse, and this is reflected both in real-world performance and benchmark results. Here's how it compares against a range of more affordable handsets using Geekbench 4's CPU test:
And here's how it performs under 3DMark's Slingshot Extreme test:
It's the same story in actual usage, although it's not all bad. It's simply average for its class, which means that you will be left waiting with some apps. If you like heavier duty applications and especially games, despite its name, you may have to wait some time to play.
All of Motorola's 2018 phones feature 18:9 aspect ratio displays, and while that does afford the Motorola Moto G6 Play more screen real estate to play with, it's notable that it only features a 720p display. Compare it against a full HD phone – and there are some within its price bracket that offer that – and you'll see the difference, although in day-to-day usage, there's not too much that you'll be particularly worried about.
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Battery life

4,000mAh battery is exceptional in this price range
Good battery life

The one area where Motorola hasn't compromised on the Moto G6 Play is in the battery capacity. The Moto G6 Play has a hefty 4,000mAh battery to draw from, and when you combine that with a relatively weak but low-power processor, you typically see very good battery life. Anecdotally, that's absolutely true, with the Motorola Moto G6 Play's battery easily lasting a full day and two days seeming quite feasible if you were a lighter user.
It's also reflected in Geekbench 4's rather more linear battery test. That puts a steady workload on the Motorola Moto G6 Play, which isn't something you're likely to do in real life, but it does provide a good metric for comparison of overall battery endurance.
The Motorola Moto G6 Play has very good battery endurance, although that lower battery score does rather show off how it's not a processing powerhouse because it wasn't working all that hard while benchmarking.
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Verdict

Good phone, but the Moto G6 or Moto G6 Plus are much better

There's little doubt that the Motorola Moto G6 Play is built to a very specific budget and with its own set of compromises along the way. Its battery life is a distinct highlight, and as long as you're happy with a somewhat slow phone, it's a good buy within its class. If you're specifically keen on Motorola's phones, the jump to the regular Moto G6 or Moto G6 Plus will give you a lot more processing power for your money.
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Pricing and availability

Price: RRP $329
Where to buy: Amazon | eBay

Specifications

Display

Display Size

5.7 inches

Pixels per inch (PPI)

282 ppi

Camera

Rear camera megapixels

13MP

Rear camera aperture size

f/2.0

Video recording

1080p

Front camera megapixels

8MP

Physical Dimensions

Dimensions

154.4mm x 72.2mm x 9mm

Weight

175g

Connectivity

NFC

Yes

Wi-Fi

802.11 b/g/n

Network category speed

Category 4

Power, storage and battery

Processor

MSM8937

RAM

3GB

Operating system

Android 8

Internal storage

32GB

External storage support

Up to 128GB

Battery capacity

4,000mAh

Device features

Headphone jack

Yes

Fingerprint sensor

Yes

Water resistance rating

N/A

Wireless charging

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Motorola Moto G6 Play review: Plans | Pricing | Specs