Moto G6 Play Review UK

Moto G6 Play Review: Overview & Price

The Moto G6 play release date was back on the 4^th of June 2018, offering an affordable everyday smartphone.

In this Moto G6 Play review, we will be looking over what makes this phone a big value for money device and showcasing some of the best Moto G6 Play contract deals in the UK.

The Moto G6 Play is the more basic model of the G6, still having plenty of features to offer for a small price tag.

Check out the best Moto G6 Play deals in the UK…

Priced at £169.99 in the UK, the G6 Play offers users a strong 4000mAh battery, with a big 5.7-inch display.

The Moto G6 Play processor does lack, and performance isn’t the best on this device, however, general browsing social media is just fine on this phone, more on that soon.

The G6 Play is for those who aren’t looking to spend a fortune on a mobile phone but still want some decent specifications too.

Since the Moto G6 Play release date the phone has sold extremely well, the target market for this device is for those that simply want a phone for its basic features, calls, texts and general browsing the web.

Let’s take a look at what the G6 Play has to offer…

Moto G6 Play Review: Design & Display

When it comes to the design of the Moto G6 Play we were pleasantly surprised that it actually comes with a plastic case already on the device.

This case means that it keeps the back of the phone from collecting fingerprint and also helps to keep it in good condition.

When you remove the case from the Moto G6 Play you will notice that it is coated in shiny glass that curves nicely around the corners of the phone.

Unfortunately, the glass is not Gorilla Glass, which would have been nice to see but still feels nice to hold in your hand.

The back of the phone has a rather unique design too, when the light catches it in certain angles it will reveal an ‘S’ shape that looks really cool.

This is very subtle but when exposed to direct light will make an appearance and is a great conversation starter.

We were lucky enough to review the Deep Indigo colour phone, but if this isn’t to your taste then you have the choice of Silver, Flash Grey or Gold.

So the phone does have both top and bottom bezels, the bottom one has the Motorola branding on, then across to the side you will find the power button and volume rocker which both have a nice feel to them.

Down towards the base of the phone is where you will find the USB 2.0 charging port, then across to the left-hand side is where the SIM tray is placed which doubles as a microSD card.

At the top of the device is where you will find the 3.5mm headphone jack, nice to see as it means you won’t need to invest in wireless headphones and can still connect the phone to an AUX cable hassle-free.

On the back of the Moto G6 Play you will find a well-positioned fingerprint sensor, which allows you to unlock the phone without the need to type in a code, it works really well and we found the unlock to be speedy.

Thanks to the position of the sensor it doesn’t force your hand to cramp up either, just above that we have the nice premium looking camera, which is placed directly above the sensor.

Weighing in at 175g the phone is rather weighty, not so much that it’s a chore to hold but it definitely does feel heavier than other phones we have used.

We liked this though as it really did feel more premium when holding it.

You may be wondering is the Moto G6 Play waterproof?

Unfortunately, the device doesn’t have an IP rating, meaning that the Moto G6 Play is not waterproof.

You will need to be extremely careful when using the phone around water, as this will damage the device.

The Moto G6 Play has a 5.7-inch IPS LCD display with an 18:9 aspect ratio giving users lots of space on the front of the screen.

Now because of the amount of space you get on this phone, its ideal for browsing social media, watching Netflix and YouTube videos too, the overall media experience on the display was great.

This phone is the equivalent of 720p, whereas most Moto G phones are 1080p, we did notice that there was more pixelation but after a couple of hours of using the display, we didn’t notice much difference.

See Related:

*Huawei P20 Lite Review*
*Huawei Mate 20 Lite Review*
*Huawei P Smart 2018 Review*
*Huawei P Smart 2019 Review*

The display is set to vivid mode by standard, making colours look bright and sharp. However, if this mode is a little too bright for you then you can drop it back down to standard in settings.

Colour temperature can be adjusted in the settings too, allowing you to have warmer or cooler colours on your display.

The display has a pixel density of 282ppi, which is rather good and allows the large display to show plenty of pixels without making it blurry or lacking detail.

Brightness levels are good too, meaning that on a sunny day you will still be able to use the phone like you usually would without having to put your shades on or run for cover.

Overall we were pleased with the displays performance, it’s certainly not an OLED and you won’t find the deep blacks or crazy brightness, that being said the Moto G6 Play display is more than capable of giving you some awesome media experiences.

Moto G6 Play Review: Performance

The Moto G6 Play runs Android 8.0 out of the box, and if you’ve ever owned a Motorola phone before, then you’ll know that they do a good job at giving you a software setup that is extremely close to stock Android.

The phone feels very similar to a phone with vanilla Android, a very clean and easy to use setup. We do recommend changing the slime green background though is it’s really ugly.

The G6 Play comes with Outlook, LinkedIn and the Dolby audio app already pre-installed; these can be removed if you figure these are bloating the phone.

You will also find the Moto app too, which adds a couple of bonus features to the already clean android.

The app offers ‘Night Display’ which essentially turns on a blue light filter than appears over the phones display, to help protect your eyes from the super bright LCD display, this can be turned on and off at specific times which is very useful.

The Moto Actions tab is pretty cool too, as this lets you set specific actions as shortcuts for your phone.

We loved the twist for quick capture mode which quickly draws open your camera app after a quick flick of your wrist, allowing you to quickly grab a photograph without faffing on trying to get the app open.

The Moto G6 Play comes with the Snapdragon 430 chipset that is the same used from the previous Moto G5, it’s plenty for the browsing through the UI but we would have like to see a stronger chip to enhance the gaming performance.

3GB of RAM is also present in the Moto G6 Play, allowing you to run games like Asphalt easily and without any lag. That being said the more graphically intense games don’t run as smoothly, we tried playing PUBG on the phone and it was extremely slow and had terrible fps.

The Moto G6 Play processor is an Octa-core 1.4GHz, Cortex A53, this is far from the best out there and it won’t have you sailing through games on max graphics unfortunately.

On a positive note, the Moto G6 Play comes with 32GB of internal storage, which is great as it allows users to store plenty of photos and music on their device, usually, at this price point, we are used to seeing phones with 16GB so 32GB was a huge bonus.

Overall the performance of this phone is decent, it’s not going to win any gold medals but for general browsing, reading and scrolling through social media it will do you just fine.

Moto G6 Play Review: Camera

The Moto G6 Play camera is a single-lens 13MP f/2.0 aperture shooter, there is no scene recognition present here which would have been nice, but for this price, we weren’t complaining.

Images are produced decent with good colour and dynamic range, there are also plenty of modes to play around with; Pro mode, Panorama and Slow-mo are all present here.

In good lighting conditions, you can expect the camera to produce some solid images, when using the Auto HDR mode especially. Image quality is generally good and there is not too much noise especially when in Auto HDR mode.

At night is where the Moto G6 Play camera really does struggle, it is exactly as we expected from a phone at this price point with images having low quality and a fair bit of noise.

There is also a second of shutter lag too, which does get extremely annoying if you’re trying to take a quick snap of a bird or a moving car as often you will miss the subject completely.

Around the front of the phone is where you will find the 8MP selfie camera; the lens is more than capable of producing some decent selfies especially when in good lighting conditions.

Just like the rear camera through it does struggle is not in ideal lighting situations, if your looking for an Instagram worthy selfie then you will struggle with this phone.

The Moto G6 Play shoots 1080p@30fps, unlike the 1080p@60fps on the Moto G6; video footage looks decent and is what you would expect from a phone of this price.

The footage is good enough for the average user and home movies will be fine on this device, that being said its certainly no Huawei P20 Pro and it’s not going to win any awards for its video recording capabilities.

Moto G6 Play Review: Battery Life

The Moto G6 Play has a huge 4000mAh battery which will easily last you for a day and a half of average use, this is of course down to the individual though and if you’re going to be gaming and watching Netflix on the phone then you can expect this to drop significantly.

The phone does a good job at conserving battery life, we found that after a full day of using the phone for watching YouTube and playing games for an hour that by 10 pm we still had 40% juice left.

We were delighted to find that the Moto G6 Plays charging speed is absolutely rapid, you can expect to go from 0-100% in less than two hours!

This was ideal as when we were nipping out we would place it on charge for 20 minutes and it would give us 20% juice extremely quickly.

Don’t expect any fancy features like wireless charging on this phone though, as remember it’s a budget smartphone and Motorola has had to sacrifice features to bring you a phone at this price.

Overall though batter life was very impressive and we had nothing to complain about in this department.

Throughout this Moto G6 Play review we found the camera aspect of this phone to be the most impressive!

Moto G6 Play Review: Summary

So is the Moto G6 Play worth your cash?

Well if your looking for a smartphone that covers off all the basics and you don’t want to spend a fortune, then this could be the one for you.

The G6 Play has a cool looking design and a nice big display that gives users a very good media experience, ideal for those who love to watch movies on their phone.

Performance does lack a little but that is to be expected when looking at the price tag for this phone, gamers may want to check out some of our other phone reviews to find something with a little more horsepower.

The Moto G6 Play processor won’t blow you away, and performance is rather weak. However general browsing on this phone is fine.

You may want to opt for the more expensive Moto G7 Plus if you require a little more performance power.

Now because the Moto G6 Play is not waterproof, we do recommend being super careful when using the device in and around water, as the phone will surely break if is submerged.

The fact that the Moto G6 Play has 32GB of storage is great and means you can store plenty of photos and music on the phone without breaking a sweat, and the huge battery life is awesome too and even will last the average user between 1-2 days of use.

Motorola Moto G6 Play - Single Sim - Deep Indigo - 32GB, 3GB Ram - EU Version 

Since the Moto G6 Play release date back in June, there are new devices that offer a lot better value for money than this device, we recommend you check out our Huawei P Smart 2019 review before purchase.

We hope you have enjoyed our Moto G6 Play review and feel free to check out the best Moto G6 Play contract deals in the UK at the top of the post.

If you have enjoyed this post then you will love our Moto G7 Plus review, feel free to check it out and leave a comment down below.

Moto G6 Play Review: Full Specification

Launch: 2018, April

Body:

• Dimension: 154.4 x 72.2 x 9mm (6.08 x 2.84 x 0.35 inches)
• Weight: 175g (6.17oz)
• Sim: Single SIM (Nano-SIM) or Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)
  – Splash resistant

Display:

• Type: IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colours
• Size: 5.7 inches, 83.8cm² (-75.2% screen-to-body ratio)
• Resolution: 720 x 1440 pixels, 18:9 ratio (-282 ppi density)

Platform:

• OS: Android 8.0 (Oreo), upgradable to Android 9.0 (Pie)
• Chipset:
  – Qualcomm MSM8937 Snapdragon 430 (28nm)
  – Qualcomm MSM8920 Snapdragon 427 (28nm) – USA
• CPU:
  – Octa-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A53
  – Quad-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A53 – USA
• GPU: Adreno 505

Memory:

• Card slot: microSD, up to 256GB
• Internal: 32GB, 3GB RAM or 16GB, 2GB RAM

Camera:

• Primary:
  – 13MP, f/2.0, PDAF
• Features: LED flash, HDR, Panorama
• Video: 1080p@30fps
• Secondary:
  – 8MP
• Features: LED flash
• Video: 1080p@30fps

Sound:

• Loudspeaker: Yes
• 3.5mm Jack: Yes
  – Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic
  – Dolby Audio

Comms:

• WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot
• Bluetooth: 4.2, A2DP, LE, EDR
• GPS: Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS
• NFC: Yes
• Radio: FM radio
• USB: microUSB 2.0

Features:

• Sensors: Fingerprint (rear-mounted), accelerometer, gyro, proximity

Battery:

• Non-removeable Li-Ion 4000 mAh battery
• Charging: Fast battery charging 10W or 15W

Misc:

• Colours: Deep Indigo, Silver, Flash Grey, Gold
• Price: As seen in above post

Tests:

• Performance: Basemark OS ||: 994 / Basemark OS || 2.0: 922 / Basemark X: 7620
• Display: Contrast ratio: 1404 (nominal), 3.419 (sunlight)
• Camera: Photo / Video
• Loudspeaker: Voice 66dB / Noise 70dB / Ring 76dB
• Audio Quality: Noise -89.0dB / Crosstalk -87.3dB
• Battery Life: Endurance rating 92h