Moto G5 released in India for Rs. 11,999: Five features that make Lenovo's mid-tier phone a smart buy

Lenovo-owned Motorola launched the much-awaited Moto G5, the budget variant of the Moto G5 Plus in New Delhi on Tuesday.

The new Moto G5 costs Rs. 11,999 and it will be available exclusively on Amazon India website tonight from 11:59 pm. As part of launch offers, Amazon Prime users will get up to Rs. 1,000 cash back (bought via Amazon Pay balance) and Rs.1,000 additional discount for HDFC credit/debit card users.

Further, early bird consumers will also get free 16GB microSD card and extra Rs. 500 off if the buyers plan to exchange their old phone for the new Moto G5. This offer is valid on April 5 and 6 only.

Is Lenovo's Moto G5 worth the buy?

To provide better perspective, we have listed five key features of the new Moto G5, which makes the Lenovo a smart buy, even it is priced tad high compared to rivals.

Build quality and design language:

Both Moto G5 and its brethren Moto G5 Plus feature same design language. They come with a visually appealing and refreshing exterior looks and have no sign of similarity, when placed against the predecessor Moto G4 series.

Having said that, Moto G5 series, does borrow one design aspect from its big brother--Moto Z series. It flaunts the trademark circular camera module on its back and that's it. Everything else is new. It features a smooth cover and blends seamlessly with the metallic frame around the edges. It also houses the iconic dimple with batwing logo in the middle below the camera module.

On the front, it sports a camera on top right corner, single-grille speaker at center with 'moto' branding and below, we see a curved rectangular physical home button, which also doubles up as the fingerprint sensor.

As far as the build quality is concerned, Motorola has used copious amount of metal for Moto G5 construction. In fact, it is the company's first Moto G series model to boast all-metal body. It not only exudes premium feel, but also provide stability to the structure.

Like Moto G5 Plus, the low-end Moto G5 too comes with special water-resistant nano-coating. With this type of cover, the device will be able survive sudden water spillage or rain splash. No other rival-branded phones in this price range boast this feature.

Pure Android Experience:

One of key features of all Motorola phones since it made its second comeback in 2013 is that all of them come with close-to-stock Android with a handful value-added apps (Moto Actions, Connect, etc...).

Moto G5 series too has vanilla Android OS and promises to work seamlessly without lag when switching between apps.

Guess what, Moto G5 series is also expected to get the new Android O series software, which is slated to get released in the third quarter (August-October) this year. With no custom UI, Motorola will take very less time to deploy it to the devices very short time.

Among all the Android OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturers), Motorola has best track record of releasing the software in timely manner. Rest assured, Moto G5 owners will be first to get Android O update, soon after it will be made available to Google Pixel and Nexus series phones.

Battery:

Moto G5 comes with 2,800mAh battery, 200mAh less than the Moto G5 Plus cell. But, the former is smaller in stature (screen-size wise) and so, it requires less power to run.

Also, the device runs pure Android Nougat OS which comes with its own set of optimization features to extend the battery-life.

Read more: Android 7.0 Nougat released: 16 key upgrades of Google's new mobile OS update over Marshmallow

Further, Moto G5 also boast rapid charging technology, wherein user can get several hours of talk time in just 15 minutes of charging. Again, this feature is not found any other rival brand.

Camera:

Moto G5 being a mid-tier phones, it houses pretty decent camera hardware. It houses a 13MP snapper with LED flash, PDAF (Phase Detection Auto Focus), 8x zoom feature and more on the back.

On the front too, it features 5MP shooter, which is enough to capture a good quality selfie.

Security:

For the first time, Motorola has incorporated fingerprint sensor in a generic Moto G series phone. Previously only G Plus variant used to have biometric security technology.

With the addition of fingerprint scanner, Moto G5 series owners will have two layered security to protect their messages, photos and other personal sensitive files in the phone.

Other security feature includes 4-digit PIN or pattern matching. [Note: Users can only choose only of the two features along with finger-print sensor]

Key specifications of Lenovo Moto G5: