Motorola G31 4/64GB - Mineral Grey

Product Information

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. Overall, I wasn’t too surprised with my findings from the cameras. Detail and quality is generally decent from the main camera if you’re in good lighting conditions but it struggles when put in lower light situations – even if the 50Mp is 4-in-1 pixel binning to result in 12.5Mp shots. Moreover, for a phone priced at Rs. 16,000, a display of 90hz refresh is a must and the Moto G31 misses on that primarily because the chipset supports a maximum of 60Hz. Looking at the competition, Moto should feel this to be a missed opportunity. Performance and Battery Fellow Motorola phone, the Moto G9 Power, comes in about the same at 311 and 1,371, but it's also older. 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.

Display quality is too good and colour combination is too much better than other mobile in this price segment @-****🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩 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. 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. 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. There's also minimal water resistance, with a mere IPX2 rating meaning you don't want it anywhere near water if you can help it. Display

Charging is a weak point here as although an adapter is included in the box, it’s a paltry 10W meaning you’ll only get 23% charge in 30 minutes based on my testing. It is at least USB-C but that’s expected for any smartphone now. Software & Apps There are two ways of painting the results above. On one hand, while it’s marginally slower on the multicore benchmark, there’s not enough in it that you’d actively notice the difference between the two. 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 app on the main homescreen is where you’ll find a bunch of things to explore including gestures, display options and entertainment controls. It’s a sort of settings menu if you like but presented in a much nicer way to help you discover features. 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.

The Moto G31 has been launched in India just as we are winding up for the year and preparing for new launches in 2022. The phone has been launched in a couple of memory and storage variants -including 4GB+64GB and 6GB +128GB.These variants are priced at Rs. 12,999 and Rs. 14,999 respectively. It’s hard to keep up with Motorola phone releases, even when you follow the tech landscape daily. Gone are the days of neat G models in different variants. Still, the Moto G31 is another interestingly specced handset for not much money. 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.

Inexpensively simple and competent

Long gone are the days when a triple rear camera array was impressive. With various cheap 2Mp sensors, it’s easy for even a budget phone to have a large number on offer. This isn’t a flashy phone, but one that largely gets the job done if you set your expectations appropriately. Design and core components are basic, but you get a really nice screen here, even if it is limited to 60Hz as well as clean software. Performance is about what I expected. That is to say it’s fine a lot of the time, but there are plenty of instances of the phone lagging – whether it’s loading an app, or something just simply navigating around the homescreens. 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. 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.