The budget smartphone market is an interesting one because it’s not just entry-level smartphone buyers looking for something better on a slightly higher budget. There are also first-time smartphone buyers who want value for their money and aim to get the best features on a tight budget. That being said, it’s equally challenging for manufacturers to come up with something new, given tight spending budgets. Year after year, they manage to squeeze out new features by cutting corners.
However, that doesn’t seem to be the case with Motorola’s latest Moto G96, the successor to last year’s Moto G85. Motorola doesn’t seem to be cutting corners while adding new features and retaining the goodies it introduced with the Moto G85. In this way, it ends up being the ideal budget smartphone for those who want a full-featured phone! Read on to find out why!
Motorola G96 design
Motorola followed the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” logic in the design of the Moto G96. It’s nearly identical to the Moto G85, but just a tad thicker (from 7.6mm to 7.9mm, to be precise) and 178 grams heavier. The phone still feels as slim and light as its predecessor, thanks to curved edges on the front and back panels. The chassis and mostly flat sides are made of polycarbonate.
The Moto 86’s deceptively slim design surprisingly houses a regular-sized 5,500mAh battery
The Greener Pastures colorway’s vegan leather back also makes its taller profile easier to grip. The faux leather (mostly silicone-based) back is soft to the touch but feels tough enough to withstand the elements.
Given its familiar design, the Moto G96 has received Motorola’s IP68 dust and water resistance rating. This makes it one of the few phones in its price range with the same performance. However, we don’t recommend testing a phone’s durability rating, as brands typically don’t cover damage caused by water intrusion.
Moto G96 is now designed to be IP68 dust and water resistant
Also retained is the 20:9 ratio, 6.67-inch curved-edge pOLED panel from last year’s model, which is curved on both the left and right sides. While it does make the display’s bezels appear thinner (giving it a more premium look), the curved display is purely cosmetic and doesn’t offer any extra functionality.
Motorola G96 Performance
Motorola promises a peak brightness of 1,600 nits, and the display works well outdoors, even in direct sunlight. At the default Vibrant Color settings, the colors were a little saturated, so I had to turn them down to the Natural preset for a more realistic reproduction.
The new Moto G96 switches to a newer generation 4nm processor. Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 is more efficient than the 6nm Snapdragon 6s Gen 3 used in the previous model. Motorola uses LPDDR4X RAM but sticks with UFS 2.2 storage on older models.
The 144Hz curved pOLED panel operates in automatic refresh rate mode and actually refreshes at 120Hz. You can force the monitor to refresh manually at a maximum of 144Hz by going into settings and keeping the brightness above 35%.
We didn’t experience any noticeable lag while using Motorola’s Hello UI, but it’s a bit concerning that the company only offers a 1-year software update guarantee and 3 years of security patches in terms of support. Given that Hello UI is still based on Android 15, we believe it will only be upgraded to Android 16 and nothing more. If you’re worried about software support, consider the Samsung Galaxy M36, which promises 6 years of software and SMR, making it a better choice for those who like to hold on to their phone for years.
Oddly enough, there are two PDF reader apps, six pre-installed games, and 11 third-party apps. Thankfully, you can uninstall every one of them and be left with a bunch of very useful Moto-branded apps. Moto AI isn’t included in the package, but you do get access to Google’s Gemini. Perplexity AI also comes pre-installed; for basic day-to-day queries, it’s not as deeply integrated as Gemini.
Motorola’s software experience is your typical Hello UI, but it’s also filled with third-party apps and games.
| Benchmark | Motorcycle G96 | Samsung Galaxy M36 | Realme P3 Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| display resolution | Full HD+ | Full HD+ | 1.5K |
| chipset | Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 (4nm) | Exynos 1380 (5nm) | Snapdragon 7s 3rd generation (4nm) |
| AnTuTu v10 | 7,66,690 | 6,00,808 | 8,42,381 |
| PCMark Works 3.0 | 14,809 | 14,358 | 13,816 |
| Geekbench 6 Single | 1,008 | 1,015 | 1,185 |
| Geekbench 6+ | 2,907 people | 2,976 | 3,209 people |
| GFXB Tyrannosaurus rex | 100 | 95 | 60 |
| GFXB Manhattan 3.1 | 45 | 43 | 39 |
| GFXB racing chase | twenty three | twenty three | twenty one |
| 3DM Slingshot ExtremeOpenGL | 4,829 | 4,683 | 5,405 |
| 3DM slingshot | 6,297 | 5,813 | 6,871 |
| 3DM Wildlife | 3,010 | 2,718 | 4,101 |
| 3DM Wild Animals Unlimited | 3,065 | 2,676 | 4,183 |
As for raw performance, I was impressed by the stability the Moto G96 delivered in PCMark’s Wild Life Stress and Wild Life Extreme Stress tests. While day-to-day application multitasking isn’t an issue, neither is gaming. Considering its budget price, don’t expect it to run demanding games like Genshin Impact flawlessly, but you can play Call of Duty: Mobile on medium graphics settings without any issues. In short, its performance is suitable for mid-level gaming.
The Moto G85’s 50-megapixel main camera has been upgraded on the Moto G96 (to the Sony LYTIA 700C), offering better low-light imaging performance with larger pixels. The 8-megapixel ultra-wide angle is the same as before, as is the 32-megapixel selfie camera.
Photos taken with the main camera show natural colors and good detail in daylight. Dynamic range is handled well, but Motorola seems to prefer a contrasting look. In low-light conditions, the image quality is decent but still usable, which is good for a smartphone in this price range. Noise is under control, but you’ll notice lower-resolution details in some patches that the phone struggles to process. (Click on image to expand)
Portrait photos taken with the main camera are rich in detail but have fairly average edge detection, as you can see from the image above. (Click on the image to expand)
The ultra-wide-angle camera takes decent photos, but looks a bit soft in daylight. There’s some purple fringing in the highlights (along with highlight clipping), and colors are noticeably warmer compared to the main camera. (Click on the image to expand)
Selfies taken in daylight are rich in detail. Dynamic range is controlled so the background is properly exposed. However, similar to the main camera, edge detection is a bit weak, making it difficult to produce accurate cropping effects when used in conjunction with Portrait mode. The selfie camera struggles to take clear photos in dimly lit environments. Unless there is plenty of ambient light around, these images will become very blurry. (Click on the image to expand)
While the main camera is better at capturing close-ups than the macro mode, it struggled with focus when trying to record subjects around 20cm away. 4K video shot at 30 fps provided the best overall quality and good stabilization, but appeared a bit contrasty. The details are also a bit soft. There’s noticeable focus jumping when shooting in daylight at 1080p at 60 fps, which is exacerbated in low-light conditions. Overall, the frame rate is choppy, and noise is very noticeable when recording low-light videos.
Given that the battery capacity of the Moto G96 has been increased to 5,500mAh, and we now have a more power-efficient 4nm processor, I expected better battery life compared to the Moto G85.
The PCMark Work battery life test, which cycles through daily tasks, clocked in at 12 hours and 1 minute. But our video loop test also came in at an equally impressive 24 hours and 31 minutes, which is better than the Moto G85’s 21 hours and 14 minutes. Real-world tests have shown that the smartphone can easily last a day, and longer if you play an hour of gaming, a few hours of video streaming, and the usual social media scrolling (much of which is performed while connected to a 5G network). Charging is still 33W, it can be fully charged in 1 hour and 18 minutes, and the battery reaches 44% in the first 30 minutes.
Motorcycle G96 Verdict
Minor quibbles aside, the Moto G96 really excels in value, performance, and style, which is rare at this price point. Its known compromises include a limited software support window and a large number of third-party applications, all of which can be uninstalled. Since there’s no expandable storage, spending a little extra for 256GB of storage is really a no-brainer.
It’s hard to find a new product at this price point that’s as powerful as the Moto G96 and doesn’t cut corners. But if you can find one in stock, Realme’s slightly older P3 Pro (now replaced by the P4 Pro) is a strong contender, offering a powerful camera, longer battery life, and a host of other attractive features for around Rs 100. 17,999, the same as the G96. It might not have made much sense when we reviewed it at launch, but considering its reduced price tag, it’s certainly a solid choice today.
